March 13, 2011

I am truly a product of my environment.  I cannot study, work, or relax if I know something is out of place or if my apartment is in disarray.  What's worse, and strangely, the more I accumulate, the more stressed and anxious I feel.  To placate these idiosyncrasies of my mind, my apartment is subject to an intensive spring cleaning once a year.  Besides the usual cleaning routine, I go through each part of every room and create three piles: throw away, recycle, donate.  I then re-organize anything I am keeping so I am more likely to use it, thus justifying it not being chosen for one of the three piles soon to leave the apartment.  As the years have progressed, I have become more judicious in what I do and do not keep on a daily basis, so the annual spring cleanings are less and less of a production.  One large bag of junk, two stuffed bags of recyclables, and a few things to donate to Good Will rounded out this year's go-round.