Spring Cleaning

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

I should be cleaning the house right now, but I decided to take a break and write for a while.  Okay, I'm procrastinating.  With graduation looming, the house needs to be cleaned.  I decided I start in the basement - in the family room.  It's a disaster area.  Literally.  We had some flooding over the winter downstairs.  While we've dealt with some of the damage, much of our stuff was just tossed to the side while we attempted to stop the onslaught of flood waters.

The source of the flooding is evident- our house was built in the 1970's.  I called a plumber out after the flood, he took a look at the house and said

Two Things need to be fixed before you start renovating the basement:
1) The house has settled.  You need to call in a professional to re-grade the slope around the house and then you need to add new landscaping.  Those bushes planted next to the foundation are the original bushes, aren't they?  Most likely, the roots are tampering with your waterproofing on the foundation.

2) Replace the gutters.

Okay, so we still haven't tackled the landscaping.  I want to be able to pay cash for the landscaping, I don't want to do it on credit.  My goal is to have $1,000 in cash before we contact someone.  We are very close to achieving that goal.  I don't even want to talk about the gutters.  I know they need to be done, but the roof will need to be done at the same time, and I'd really like to add a porch onto the front of the house at the same time.  That is not going to be a cheap endeavor!

But the fact remains that I still need to clean out the family room before graduation.

I began early this morning.  I've found notebook paper.  Lots of notebook paper, scattered all over the basement.  Nothing is written on it, it's just evenly spread across the floor.  Lots and lots of old e-mails.  Those are gone now.  I found the smashed remains of an old Easter basket, and socks.  Oh my heavens, the socks.  I know where the other end of the black hole for socks on the East Coast is now- it is in my family room.  I am currently running a washer load full of socks.  I seriously doubt if any of them have a mate, but I'm willing to sort through them and see what matches up.

Pencils.  So far, I've liberated 100 pencils.  They are all sharpened, and the erasers are all hardened, but I don't think we're going to have to buy any new pencils in this house again, ever.

I am curious what other treasures I will find down there while I'm cleaning.  I'm beginning to think of this as a treasure hunt.  Wouldn't it be nice if I find a couple thousand dollars while I'm at it?