It’s that time of year again. The snow has melted away and the tulips and crocuses are peeking out of the ground. And have you seen any of those adorable miniature daffodils? They are the cutest! 😉

This is the time of year when some days it still feels like winter and on others we’re catapulted smack dab into a hot summer’s day – It can be a wild ride, but I love spring!! 

With spring in the air, we’re all reemerging from the cold winter’s hibernation, stepping back outside, opening our windows and thinking about washing away the winter … and with that brings… yes, spring cleaning!

Spring is exciting but can also feel a little overwhelming as we look around and realize we want it all to happen all at once (or maybe that’s just me!). I want the patio furniture set up, the bikes tuned and ready to go, the car sparkling and not smelling of hockey gear anymore (haha!), the windows cleaned, the winter clothes cleaned and stored away, even the dog needs a spring grooming! …. the list is never-ending and seems to go on and on…(Ah!)

Here’s my approach, and this is pretty much how I tackle my to-do lists every single day; keep it simple and literally take things one step at a time.

Break it down and don’t strive for perfection because you’ll make yourself crazy LOL. If you chip away bit by bit, over a week or two it can really add up.

We had our first big taste of warm weather recently…or was it a tease?! So I decided to tackle a few “spring cleaning” type things. I vacuumed the car out and wiped down the interior. Surprisingly it only took about 45 minutes and driving around all this week felt like such a treat in my newly cleaned car! 

I washed all the kids snow pants and put them away, along with the winter boots. But not the coats, toques and mitts just yet …  I’ve been caught in the past getting excited and putting all the winter gear away too soon, only to wake up to a blanket of snow and running late for the school bus because I couldn’t find the mitts! 

I swept the front porch and driveway, raked the rotting brown leaves off the garden and also found most of my neighbours were outside doing the same things – so I got a chance to catch up with everyone! If you live in Ottawa you can probably appreciate that we don’t see most of our neighbours all winter and then everyone starts to reappear as the weather warms up 😉

So all in all, on the surface it may not look like I’ve really accomplished all that much lol… but spring has only just arrived and that was just the first weekend of nice hot weather and I sure did enjoy those sunny days when they were here! In fact, it’s another bright sunny afternoon as I write this so I think I’ll dust off the patio furniture and take a nap in the sun … although I will need a blanket or two … brrr it’s cold!

Happy Ottawa spring!