Spring and cleaning

I wasn't really doing a "Spring Cleaning" yesterday, per-sey; I was really just giving my apartment its much needed once-over. I usually do all of my cleaning on the weekends, as I'm tired when I get home from work and can't be bothered with silly things like laundry, dishes, and sweeping. So I let it pile up all week until the weekend, at which point it bothers me so much that I have to clean it all up. But for the last three weeks or so I've either been out of my apartment the entire weekend, or unable for whatever reason to actually clean it. Aside from the fact that my dishes had been sitting in the sink for way too long, I had never actually cleaned my apartment when I moved in.

Unlike back home in the States, where when you move in to a new place, it's assumed or required that it's either been cleaned thoroughly by the previous occupant or cleaned professionally by a service; in Korea you often have to clean up the mess left by the previous tenant yourself. Thankfully the person who used to live here is a friend of mine, but that didn't mean that he did all the cleaning that could have been done.

Don't get me wrong, it was clean, but there were a few dust bunnies hiding in the corners when I moved in. I've slowly watched them grow over the past few months. I try to clean them up when they become noticeable, but they seem to sprout suddenly and from nowhere. I got it into my head this weekend that I would clean behind the couch, under the bed, behind the table, and anywhere else I had noticed that they seemed to creep from. So with broom and dying dust-buster in hand, I attacked the floors underneath my furniture on Saturday, after a much needed morning spent sleeping in. What I found under my furniture can hardly be described. There is a huge difference between the dust that slowly settles on immobile furniture, such as the screen of your tv, and the rather hideous collection of dust that was hiding in my apartment.

These were not dust bunnies so much as a coven of dust rabbits that had been procreating like rabbits tend to do for the last three months. The amount of dust I collected completely filled a small trash can (you know, the size you can fit behind the toilet in the bathroom). And it wasn't until after I had completed my mission and was enjoying a cup of coffee and feeling rather accomplished that I realized not only had I inhaled a rather large amount of dust and was now beginning to cough, but that I had a face mask specifically designed to protect you from just that sort of thing and I hadn't worn it. So now I have a clean apartment, and an annoying cough.

But something that makes me even happier than a clean apartment is the onset of spring. I had gone four days this week without bringing my coat to work, which made me think that winter was just about over. It wasn't until I saw a tree on my way to work with tiny pink buds that I thought it might actually be spring. The next day they were no longer buds, but tiny pink flowers, and then on Friday they were in full bloom, so I left a little early for work to take pictures.

There were white flowers

and pink ones

on the same tree.

I'm fascinated by the changing of the seasons, as it's something that's barely noticeable in Florida. Watching trees blossom, or their leaves slowly change color from day to day, is a fascinating process as beautiful to me as the snow. I suppose if I had grown up with it I may feel different, as the beach holds little to no interest for me now. But I'm thankful that I can still find beauty, fascination, and pleasure in the simple natural things around me.