There are two major times of the year when Japanese people do a major clean of EVERYTHING. The first is before the new year - so you can welcome in the New Year with a completely new start. The second is when the ancestors of Japanese people return to visit the living - during the Obon festival in August. Unfortunately they coincide with the coldest time of the year and the hottest time of the year and I never feel inclined to do cleaning at either time. Of course now that the pressure is off I have finally got into the cleaning spirit and have spent the last few days getting the kitchen cleaned (anyone who visits is forced to look in the fridge!) and today I started on the children's rooms. In general they are left to clean them by themselves, but my daughter's room was starting to set off pollution alarms so I decided I would spend ONE hour this morning getting it into a slightly more livable state. Unfortunately the first hour passed, the second hour passed and despite continual cleaning it still didn't look like I'd made much of a dent. Fortunately Katy and Megan came to prevent me doing more in the afternoon so it is still looking very much like a rubbish dump. Unfortunately I can't really say too much to her.... I have memories of literally piling all the things dumped around my room into a huge pile in the middle of my floor and then slowly putting them all away when I was a child. And, despite spending a few days cleaning my room it is still has piles everywhere right now. I'm thinking that I may need to make some incentives for us all to keep it clean.... either that or start looking for a house cleaner!Monday, January 18, 2010
Spring Cleaning
There are two major times of the year when Japanese people do a major clean of EVERYTHING. The first is before the new year - so you can welcome in the New Year with a completely new start. The second is when the ancestors of Japanese people return to visit the living - during the Obon festival in August. Unfortunately they coincide with the coldest time of the year and the hottest time of the year and I never feel inclined to do cleaning at either time. Of course now that the pressure is off I have finally got into the cleaning spirit and have spent the last few days getting the kitchen cleaned (anyone who visits is forced to look in the fridge!) and today I started on the children's rooms. In general they are left to clean them by themselves, but my daughter's room was starting to set off pollution alarms so I decided I would spend ONE hour this morning getting it into a slightly more livable state. Unfortunately the first hour passed, the second hour passed and despite continual cleaning it still didn't look like I'd made much of a dent. Fortunately Katy and Megan came to prevent me doing more in the afternoon so it is still looking very much like a rubbish dump. Unfortunately I can't really say too much to her.... I have memories of literally piling all the things dumped around my room into a huge pile in the middle of my floor and then slowly putting them all away when I was a child. And, despite spending a few days cleaning my room it is still has piles everywhere right now. I'm thinking that I may need to make some incentives for us all to keep it clean.... either that or start looking for a house cleaner!
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I have the same problem. It is not so much the cleaning that gets me down as the putting away.
ReplyDeleteI just looked round my house this evening and there is NOT ONE ROOM in order right now. Depressing.
This is why I am reading blogs....
I'm with you there. There is no new year cleaning in our house and I didn't even know that people clean for obon!! Last week I started my big clean, it's not spring yet but after I put the Chrissy decs away the dust was calling my name so I was inspired to clean!! It feels so good afterwards.
ReplyDeletejob here any time Jo!!
ReplyDeleteHi Jo
ReplyDeletejust checking your blogsite and I could not imagine springcleaning my house at Macandrew Bay - it would mean taking truckloads of books and years of paper work out. Though I know another hose in Dunedin that is rather full of stuff too!
Many thanks for the fantastic card you sent for Xmas - really novel the way it was made. You are probably wondering where our card is - it will be a new year late Jan one as at Xmas we were exhausted from writing and researching a book on the History of Macandrew Bay - 7 days a week for months last year.
Starting to plan the trip to Europe and will have to see if we can work in a Japan stop over I'll let you know. I'm currently writing a correspondence course on Digital Photography and thought I might use your Blog as an excellent example of a Blog that really works ( as against most Blogs that don;t work) - best wishes for 2010 - Brian
I do the big clean, before New Years but I don't do the one for Obon. @_@ I didn't know about that either until I read that just now. (hangs head in shame, ha ha ha ; )
ReplyDeleteI clean both my sons rooms. And I try to make them do the brunt of it too. But, I gotta tell you, you would not even believe the horror of what is inside Branden's school desk. I think he throws every paper whether it's important or junk he just crams into the desk. And the bead projects he did at school, he just threw beads in there and so one draw looks like a bead shop exploded in that drawer. @-@ So when I clean the boys rooms, I clean everywhere but inside the drawers of his desk. Gulp. Maybe I should try to tackle that desk next week. : )
PS congrats on the cleaning up. That definitely deserves a high five. : )
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ReplyDeleteSame here..do my New Years cleaning usually on New Years eve day-I suppose I'll have to do it before then once we move to Japan . I expect I'll be busy with family that day.When the kids still lived at home it was more of a challenge tokeep things neat. One kid in particular was a REAL challenge. If there were no more clean glasses in the kitchen-you could bet they were all stacked up in her room...! Masaaki helps me keep things neat now though, so helps. What I hate is having energy to tear everything apart...and then petering out and not having energy to put it all back!!
ReplyDelete