{"id":13107,"date":"2016-01-13T07:20:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T14:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=13107"},"modified":"2016-01-22T19:42:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T02:42:21","slug":"this-is-why-we-clean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=13107","title":{"rendered":"This Is Why We Clean."},"content":{"rendered":"

I spend a lot of mornings around the kitchen sink.\u00a0 It’s where I wash the breakfast dishes, where I cut and rinse fruit and veggies for lunchboxes, where I stand and watch the birds on the feeder while waiting for coffee to brew.\u00a0 Above the sink I have a row of plants on the windowsill to keep me company.\u00a0 It includes a peace lily, some aloe, a Christmas cactus, and my lucky bamboo.<\/p>\n

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Tuesdays are the day set aside for bleaching the kitchen counters, table, and sink, plus wiping down all the cabinet surfaces, and cleaning out the fridge and farm fridge. \u00a0I always do the bleaching because my family sets everything on the kitchen counters and they wash their filthy hands in the kitchen sink. \u00a0Even though those are actually food prep areas—not places to put your disgusting backpack or wash your disgusting hands. \u00a0I always clean the fridges because the chickens feast on the old, crusty leftovers that I find and so I save on chicken feed. \u00a0I usually wipe down the cabinet surfaces because otherwise the attached range hood gets so dirty I have to avert my eyes when stirring pots on the stove. \u00a0But I don’t always get to bleaching and wiping the windowsill and dusting the plant leaves by spritzing them with the water sprayer. \u00a0It’s just not that dirty or that important. \u00a0A lot of times I just make sure the plants have sufficient water and then move on.<\/p>\n

However, a new year requires a new start and this week I pulled everything off the windowsill to give the sill and the plants a good cleaning. \u00a0And that’s when I saw what the Christmas cactus was up to. \u00a0I’ve had the cactus for a few years. \u00a0It was blooming when a friend gave it to me, but since then it has never bloomed again. \u00a0This year I googled it to see what I was doing wrong and apparently I was supposed to keep it cool, dark, and dry for a few months before Christmas in order for it to bloom. \u00a0As soon as I realized it needed special attention I realized it would never bloom again. \u00a0I don’t do “special attention” for houseplants. \u00a0Which was OK with me because it was still an attractive plant and a gift from a friend. \u00a0It didn’t need to bloom in order for me to enjoy its presence as I tooled around the kitchen sink every morning.<\/p>\n

But when I pulled the cactus down and spritzed it I saw that it had been quietly blooming without any special attention at all. \u00a0The side facing the window had blooms!<\/p>\n

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Big beautiful blooms!<\/p>\n

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And more blooms to come!<\/p>\n

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After I rinsed the dust off the branches I put the cactus back the way I found it. \u00a0I didn’t want to mess up whatever conditions the plant found so appealing on that windowsill. \u00a0But I turned the plant just a teeny tiny bit so I could see one of the flowers while I was doing the rest of the chores.<\/p>\n

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Just as a friendly reminder to myself. \u00a0This is why we clean, people. \u00a0Because there are hidden treasures everywhere. \u00a0Just waiting to be found under all that dust and grime. \u00a0Also, because it’s dangerous to stir hot liquids while averting your eyes. \u00a0Clean the range hood. \u00a0Just clean it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spend a lot of mornings around the kitchen sink.\u00a0 It’s where I wash the breakfast dishes, where I cut and rinse fruit and veggies for lunchboxes, where I stand and watch the birds on the feeder while waiting for coffee to brew.\u00a0 Above the sink I have a row of plants on the windowsill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13107"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13142,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13107\/revisions\/13142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}