My cycles are off. True statement. I read a blog about the writer's Spring To-Do list. My urge to clean up for Spring usually starts the hard push in early January. You know, out with the old and in with the new. I start writing the lists of what exactly needs to be done room by room, and of course at least one list for what needs to be done outside.

And since, typically, the room in the basement that we use for storage (that's the nice way of saying: the room we use to put all of the extra crap in) is full up with unpacked Christmas storage boxes, piles of craft items and wrapping paper, stacks and boxes of the infamous yard sale items; and also, because this time of year, there is usually about three feet of snow outside, it's extremely difficult to start the listed tasks. There is simply no place to put anything we clean out. I refuse to simply throw stuff away - unless of course it's broken, ripped, colored on or otherwise. I do junk the junk. But the good stuff... stuff that's grown out of, not played with anymore, put aside because it simply isn't liked anymore... that's the stuff that I try to sell.

My yard sales, though well-organized and priced and clean - also with an offering of baked goods, tend to make less than I would have made if I had just donated the items in the first place. So the cache of awesome items - just not so awesome to us anymore - is stacked in our junk room. The Christmas decorations eventually get put away; as does the wrapping paper, tape, stickers, stockings...

Don't get me started on the garage.

So you see? The lists I have made for the good intentions of cleaning and organizing the interior go to the wayside because I don't have anywhere to put the old stuff and cannot afford the new stuff until the old stuff is sold, which, in reality, might amount to a grand total equal to megapack of toilet tissue at the local warehouse club.

The gardening magazines come out during the winter evenings. The same pages are dog-eared that were dog-eared last year. And I continue to dream and list and dream and list, knowing full well that I cannot afford most of the pretty pots and gazebos and Adirondack chairs and patio tables and umbrellas. But I'm certain to make lemonade from lemons - because certainly, that's something I can purchase without going bankrupt... right?

And here we are, mid-February, lists aside (er, lost in the stack of incoming junk mail and bills), gumption gone. Cold, dark nights have me in their grasp and I cannot fathom Spring, let alone muster the smallest grain of imagination to even begin seeing what my front porch and back yard will look like this year. My Spring list has fallen to the wayside - nothing checked off, no sub-lists/shopping lists made. It's over before it's begun.

What I have right now....

What I would so much rather be doing... aaaahhhh...

I think I just need a few shots of sunshine on my body and some green grass underfoot and I'll be back to normal. Sorry to be such a downer.



p.s.
Is it too sad that I looked forward to the day after St. Valentine's Day simply to load up on clearance candy?