The Practical Military Spouse Guide to Spring Cleaning Your Life

Spring is almost here, and with so much going on in our lives, it can feel like we need a practical military spouse guide to spring cleaning in order to focus on the tasks at hand. Whether you’re gearing up for a potential PCS in the coming year or simply aiming to enhance the livability of your current space, now is the perfect time to get things in order.

Here are some fun tips to help you with your spring cleaning:

• Remove extra PCS stickers, you know you still have some from your last move. Unless you want to make a PCS sticker ornament.

• Do you really need to keep those curtains? You haven’t used them in the last two houses, and they certainly don’t fit in this one.

• Go and deliver those bags that have been driving around in your trunk after you did some Marie Kondo in your home a few weeks ago. It’s time for them to go.

• Pretend you actually are PCSing, what should you get rid of? Would you really want to move with all of your current household goods? Is now the time to replace your old couches?

• Focus on yourself sometimes. Are you getting enough me time? What can you do to change that? Self-care is important, especially if you are in the midst of solo parenting.

• Find space for all that military crap. The living room is not an ideal place. Clean out a closet, or buy some extra storage. And quit tripping over those boots.

• Go through your kid’s toys, get rid of all the broken ones, the Mcdonald’s toys, and anything they don’t care about anymore. The fewer toys they have, the easier it is for them to keep their room clean. Also, this is an ongoing battle that you will have to deal with for years.

• Delete those emails from your old FRG, you don’t need them anymore. That deployment ended in 2019. If they are still sending them to you? Shoot them an email asking to take you off the list. You have moved on.

• Do something with all those love letters. Put them in a scrapbook, hang them on a wall, or put them in a frame. They are special and should be celebrated. Unless they are super mushy romantic…then, keep them in your underwear drawer instead.

• Donate those old ball dresses. You never go anyway. And if you do sometime in the future, you have an excuse to buy another dress.

• Put up those photos you have been meaning to put up since you moved in six months ago. You know you want to, you have a lot of great ones from your past duty stations. Make time for this and your house will thank you.

• Dust. I know, dusting sucks. Make your kids do it. Pay them in cookies.

• Go through your makeup. That stuff doesn’t last forever. And isn’t it nice to buy something new every once in a while? Don’t forget your brushes.

• Go through your books. Keep the ones you love, and pass on the ones you don’t. Save the deployment ones, you never know when you might need them again. Sigh.

• Go through your DVDs. Can you find these movies on Netflix? If so, get rid of them. Except for the ones you always have to watch when they are deployed. You never know when Netflix will pull them and you always want to have them on hand.

Life is busy. We all have a lot going on. I hope this military spouse guide to spring cleaning your life can get you started in the right direction.

What do YOU like to do to spring clean your home? Any tips???