Cleaning for a Reason and Immaculate Clean give practical help to cancer patients
Since I first wrote this blog post last year, I’ve had a dear friend get diagnosed with cancer. Thanks to what I learned by writing this blog, I was able to set her up with a cleaning session from Immaculate Clean, which she appreciated so much. I think it is worth reminding people of this amazing service offered by Immaculate Clean, so please share this info!
It’s Pinktober®, aka Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Founded in 1985, this campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer has been tremendously successful, at least from the standpoint of making the color pink synonymous with breast cancer. Think about it— these days, we all immediately recognize the meaning behind a pink ribbon, a pink 5K t-shirt, and even pink football cleats worn by an NFL player. Well-played, Pinktober marketing people, well-played. Hopefully, all the awareness spread over the past 34 years has saved many lives by encouraging women to get mammograms and leading folks to donate money toward finding a cure. All of that is important, truly good stuff.
But, having known some amazing women who have battled breast cancer and other kinds of cancer, I think I can safely say this: Awareness is cool—but action is cooler. A woman in the midst of undergoing cancer treatment is already WELL aware of it, thank-you-very-much. All of the pink balloons and pink socks in the world are not going to solve her immediate concerns that come from being thrust into an unfamiliar world full of doctors and pharmacists and life-or-death decisions, overwhelming fears about the future, and stresses about day-to-day issues that healthy people take for granted. Her thoughts at this time may look something like this:
What is going to happen to me? How is this treatment going to affect me? Is my insurance going to cover all of this? What if treatment doesn’t work?? What if the cancer comes back? I’m sick and the treatment is making me feel even worse; how am I going to continue to work and take care of my kids? How am I going to find the energy to cook meals for my family? How am I going to clean my house?
That is a lot to deal with, but, honestly, some of it should not fall onto the cancer patient’s shoulders at all. These women have to focus so hard on kicking cancer’s a$$ that they shouldn’t be burdened by concerns about things like cooking meals for their families or cleaning their house. My personal view is, if you really want to support a friend or family member who is facing a cancer battle, you should think about ways you can ease the burdens of daily life so they can concentrate completely on the one thing that matters: getting well.
This may mean offering to bring them a meal, buy groceries for them, walk their dog, or drive their kids to soccer. Anything that seems “routine” to you is probably something that they could really use some help with. Another thing you can do—and this won’t cost you a thing—is tell them about a fabulous program called “Cleaning for a Reason.”
The Cleaning for a Reason Foundation provides free house cleaning for women who are going through cancer treatments. Immaculate Clean is a proud and active partner of the Cleaning for a Reason Foundation, committed to helping women in the local community during their time of need by providing free cleaning services. The way it works is rather simple: A patient who is undergoing cancer treatments can register via the website at cleaningforareason.org. Based on a participating cleaning company’s availability, they will receive a total of two free general cleanings.
It may sound like such a simple thing, but in reality, to be able to give a cancer patient the gift of a clean home does much more than just ease a little of her workload. The peace that comes with a clean, uncluttered, fresh-smelling environment can do wonders for a patient’s spirit! It’s better for her health, too!
So, whether or not you’re wearing pink, I’m going to encourage you to spread some awareness about this important free service this Pinktober®, and take some action to help a cancer patient you may know in a meaningful way!
Show The Master Some Love
If you could peek inside my master bedroom right now, you would understand the stark irony surrounding the idea of ME being a writer for a blog about cleaning. In fact, when I told my mom I was going to be doing this, she laughed for about 10 minutes straight.
The truth is, I am not a neat person by nature. When I was a teenager, I had a big poster hanging on my bedroom door that said, “My Room: Love It or Leave It,” depicting a cartoon rendering of a typical, messy teenage girl’s bedroom: books, banana peels, and record albums (the vinyl kind; that’s how old I am) littering the floor, unmade bed, clothes draped on furniture, open dresser drawers, etc. I just have always been a little bit “clutter-blind.”
Fast forward 30-something years, and I’ve certainly matured a bit in that regard. Living in constant fear of “drop-in” company, I have learned to keep the common areas of my house fairly neat and clutter-free, most of the time. Unfortunately, though, based on the belief that pretty much no one besides my husband and me is ever going to step foot into the master bedroom, that tends to be the room where the clutter collects, and it tends to be the room that I neglect the most when it comes to cleaning, organizing, or even decorating. Based on conversations with friends, I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.
When you think about it, it makes sense. As a woman and a mom, I know that we often focus our energy on others’ well-being above our own. It is sometimes hard for us to think of ourselves as deserving or important enough to take the time to care for ourselves, and by extension, to care for the one room in the house where we spend the most time.
But it also makes sense that spending some time focusing on our bedrooms could lead to less stress and more productivity in all areas of our lives. I’m not a big believer in feng shui, but I do believe that even if our eyes are closed for most of the hours we spend in our bedroom, if we are spending that time surrounded by chaos and clutter, we will start each day with brains full of chaos and clutter.
So, I’ve decided it’s time to take some action. But how does someone like me, a serial clutterer, go about making our bedroom a clean, lovely haven where we can start and end each day feeling calm and maybe even a little bit pampered?
Hire a Cleaning Service
The first step for me is having an Eldersburg, MD cleaning service like Immaculate Clean come in on a regular basis. In my case, this means that every other Thursday I am forced to put away clothes and clear surfaces of clutter—you know, the “clean before the cleaning crew” ritual. It also means that every other Thursday, I know my bed is going to be made up crisp and neat, the floor is going to be freshly swept, and the room is going to smell clean and dust-free.Purge the Wardrobe
The next step, which I am in the process of working on right now, involves cleaning out drawers and closets and sending old clothes to Goodwill. It dawned on me recently that one of the things I was spending a lot of time doing in my every-other-Thursday pre-cleaning ritual was putting away the clean clothes that had been sitting in laundry baskets in my room for days at a time. I finally figured out that the reason I kept procrastinating on putting the clothes away was because it was always a struggle to find room to put them! My drawers were overflowing with outfits I never wore, and it was hard to find room—not to mention empty hangers—to hang clothes in my closet. So I’ve started to purge, with the goal of clearing out one drawer each day. That approach keeps it manageable, yet still rewards me with a feeling of accomplishment.Accessorize
The final step: It’s time to make our room look and feel like a luxurious resort. I’ve been gathering ideas on Pinterest, ordering resort-quality sheets, and am planning a date with Pier One and HomeGoods this weekend to shop for new wall-hangings and accessories. For the price of one weekend in a nice hotel, I should be able to do enough redecorating to make it feel like we’re on vacation every single night. And don’t we all deserve that feeling? If we just take some time to show the master bedroom a little love, it can love us right back.Time to Let Go of the Stuff of the Past
For the past year, I’ve been paying $187 per month on a storage unit. Based on the number of storage places around town, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one wasting money to keep old junk we just can’t seem to part with. But, enough is enough. It’s time to let go of the past.
The past means something different to each of us. For some, it’s memories of our own childhood. We’re not ready to give away our high school varsity jacket or the single bed we slept in. Others of us are holding on to baby items from our children who are now in their 20s. While some of us are holding on to a life that no longer exists.
I recently dragged my son and a few of his former football-player friends to my storage unit. There wasn’t much left. Mostly just the big stuff that I couldn’t throw in the back of the car during one of my frequent visits to the unit. This time I had a truck and brute strength with me to get the job done.
The boys—or should I say, young men—filled the truck with the items. I let them organize everything, not wanting to micro-manage the situation. Nothing was so valuable that I’d cringe at it getting damaged. So, I let them have at it.
I knew the toughest item would be the large, wooden desk/hutch that sat in the middle of the unit. It had taken five other young men to get it in there. I wasn’t sure three were going to be able to manage it. Then again, it’s not as hard to move things when you don’t have to worry about their well-being. And, for the first time in 20 years, I wasn’t worried about what happened to this particular piece.
I remember when we bought it. It was one of the first “fine” pieces of furniture my ex-husband and I had shopped for. We found it at a store outside of Denver. It was the perfect thing for our new house.
Back then, computers took up a lot of space. You needed a shelf for the monitor and one for the keyboard, as well as a place for the awkward hard drive tower that had to be attached. I didn’t have an office space so I wanted something that could hold everything but also hide it when company came. This piece did exactly that. It had shelves and drawers for everything, but doors to close and cover it all up. It was perfect.
That furniture followed us everywhere we went; one house after the next. It eventually morphed from a desk to a television cabinet that was kept in our bedroom. And, when I moved out during our divorce, it was one of the first items loaded on the truck.
Since then, however, I’ve moved again. My current house is too small to hold such a large item.
And, so, it sat in the storage unit along with all of the other items that would never find a place in this new home. Until recently.
When I lifted the door of the storage unit, it all of a sudden hit me. It was time to let go of that desk/hutch/television stand/oversized item. Fantasies of posting it on Craigslist to find a new owner vanished. It finally appeared as it actually was—a large pile of wood that needed to be disposed of.
When the boys started inspecting the item for how they would carefully get it on the truck, I suggested we get a sledge hammer and break it to bits.
They looked at me a bit bewildered and then one of them said, “Well, if you don’t care what happens to it, we can just scrape it along and push it into the truck.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “We just need to get it out of the unit.”
They got it onto the truck rather quickly after that. We drove home and I backed the truck to the edge of the curb.
“Just drag it out and put it there,” I said, pointing to the curb. “Someone will take it.”
And, they did.
I was out for the evening and came home after dark. I didn’t notice it until I got out of the car. That piece of furniture that I had held on to for all of those years was gone. Taken away by some faceless, nameless person. I had no idea where it went or what would happen to it. It was just gone.
Strangely, I didn’t shed a tear. In fact, I was relieved. Somebody else could deal with that huge, heavy item from now on. It was gone from my life. It was in my past, and my future seemed that much brighter.
As for the rest of the items, they will hopefully be sold in a yard sale. It’s the perfect way to get rid of a lot of junk at once. And, with no more storage unit, I now have an extra $187 per month to spend on a cleaning service. Life really is good.