Maintaining

I just finished up cleaning out my refrigerator. I remember cooking half of that asparagus awhile back, and I really meant to finish that piece of watermelon several weeks ago. I have a new appreciation for left over pizza, because when it gets old, it just gets dry and hard and rattles in the box. Those other things tend to ooze all over everything, dripping from shelf to shelf to crisper and then to the bottom of the box. But it is done. And I have already repeated the pledge that I made to myself the last time I cleaned out the refrigerator. I won't let that happen again.

But I will. Because that is just life. In my world there are a million things that demand my attention other than keeping a clean refrigerator, or a clean house for that matter. But there comes a time for scheduled maintenance, a time set aside to clean up those messes that accumulate while life is being lived, and that eventually, insidiously, make life less fun than it should be. Other than drinking coffee and doing nothing, that is what Saturdays are for. Raking leaves, changing oil, cleaning the refrigerator, doing laundry, changing filters for the heat pump. You know the list.

Something else happens during the Saturday scheduled maintenance. It is therapeutic. There are so many big messes that come my way in life that I am helpless to clean up, at least on a Saturday morning, as much as I may want to. But, if I can get this house in order, or at least the kitchen, or at least the refrigerator, then maybe there is hope for everything else.

I'm feeling inspired. On to the den. Tomorrow the world.