Cabin Fever-- Suburban Style

The four seasons in my neck of the woods are:

Pre-Winter
Almost Winter
Winter
Home Improvement Season

To one degree or another, most everyone I know has cabin fever. When so much time is spent indoors, the walls seem to literally close in on you. Mild household irritations evolve into tortuous demons. Every closet, drawer, and cabinet seems unbearably messy. Paint dings, molding cracks, and wall smudges glare at me like menacing creatures from The Spiderwick Chronicles. Mocking my winter blahs, taunting me to engage in home repair battle. I'm compelled to redecorate every room--change the paint, rugs, furniture, artwork, window treatments. Rip this out, add something else. Call the carpenter, the painter, the plumber, the electrician, the interior designer... and anyone else who can possibly contribute to an extreme makeover.

Of my four-year old home.

Maybe the only service professional I truly need is a S-H-R-I-N-K.

At least I'm in good company. Several of my neighbors have conscripted their husbands to home repair duty every weekend until June. Another friend confessed she is going to remove and hand wash all window blinds in every room of her home. Wiping them down while still hanging is not at all sufficient. Upon completion of this momentous achievement, she will then proceed to hand scour every piece of base board on all three levels of her spacious abode.

I stood in awe. I'm not worthy. And then it dawned on me. Just yesterday, I singlehandedly eliminated all of the crud build-up from the tops of each and every tube of toothpaste in the house! And how could I forget that I used a Sonicare to clean the mystery goo in the crevices of every household faucet? We're talking kitchen, wet bar, bathrooms, and laundry room. Not bad. There is hope. But I have to face facts. I'm still not in her league.

Not yet anyway.

She kicked my compulsion into high gear. Much like an alcoholic triggered by a frosty, cold pint in a beer ad.....Break out the design books, blueprints, floor plans! Revisit all Martha Stuart publication archives. Brave the tundra to obtain a bevy of cleaning supplies, tools, sprays, candles, organizing bins, pillows, linens, picture frames. Fabric swatches, tassles, beads, and frindge. Potpourri, tart burners, scented oils, fragrance rings. Swiffer, Dirt Devil, Roomba, and Scoomba. A complete arsenal for the home spruce-up offensive. Not unlike Jack Nicholson's possessed rage as he chopped down the doorway in "The Shining". I'll be equally unhinged as I bash-in the door to my bedroom closet, armed not with an ax, but with a vacuum nozzle and a bottle of Fabreeze.

Heeere's mommy!

all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away all work and no play gets mom locked away

Check on me when the ice thaws.

The house will be pristine. My electro shock therapy will have kicked in.

Hopefully.