IS IT GLADIOLA TIME?

Are gladiolas already blooming?

I love gladiolas -- for me, they are the essence of spring.

Is today really the first day of spring? Is it time for spring cleaning -- planning it, doing it, or is tomorrow the day?

Yes! Throw out photos, old letters-- correspondence that's over and done -- discard receipts!

No -- better keep the photos, and look over the receipts -- you might need what you threw out to tell you where you purchased what for how much that you might want to return.

Yes! Discard that pile of papers on which ideas are sprawled -- dumb ideas, dead ideas, boring ideas that were going nowhere.

No -- review the papers -- there might be something important in the pile. But throw out those old dried up pens that don't write and pencil stubs -- even if the erasers on the stubs are intact, you've got stubs and erasers galore!

Yes! It's time to throw out clothes -- worn out tops, blouses, shirts, slacks, dresses, sweaters. And coats? My gray beaver that I should have thrown out ten years ago? The black that's too square in the shoulders that a tailor could fix? Well... Yes, hats, but scarves?

Scarves don't take up much room, but sneakers -- old comfortable sneaks and bedroom slippers I've never worn? YES! Throw them out -- you'll have more room in your closets, your drawers, your shelves -- you'll be glad.

Rule: If you haven't worn it, used it in a year, out it goes. It's clutter and now is the time for all good men and women to attack their spring cleaning.

Mark Twain said: “It's spring fever ... You don't quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

'Robert Frost wrote:
"Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year."

Gee ... I love my old sneakers. I use the pencil stubs. Dammit, I haven't worn my slacks and my purple blouse for a year and I love them! Dammit, these things are ME -- associated with a bunch of deep thoughts, feelings -- yep -- events in my life that make me what I am today.

Gee ...

The late Nadine Stair, an 89-year-old philosophical Kentucky woman, who's often quoted, has said, “If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.”

Hey, I say, skip the spring cleaning. Cherish the spring and buy a gladiola plant!