I love spring. It offers the possibilities of something new: it’s my birthday season, so I get another chance to begin a “new year,”  and it’s the opportunity to do the traditional spring cleaning and renew my home!

Part of that renewal is to say goodbye to the items sitting around my house, collecting dust, that I just don’t know what do to with. You’d think that with all of the blogging I do about purging, organizing, and decluttering, my home would be the ultimate utopia of orderliness and un-cluttered-ess, and spring cleaning would be unnecessary.

You’d be wrong. I do go through my phases of mad organizing and getting the piles into files, and I breathe a deep sigh of relief. My head is clear and I can think and function better.

Then, somehow, a mutiny. All the “stuff” seems to migrate back to their disheveled, unkept places and piles. And I swear it reproduces. And I’m back to square one.

Bottom line:  I just have TOO MUCH STUFF.  And I’m constantly searching for any and all opportunities to JUST GET RID OF THE STUFF!

And this brings us to my favorite opportunity of all:  the Highland Park Spring Clean-Up Program. I can open my front door and yell, “Out, damn’d stuff!”.  I can pile it up by the curb and know that the  trucks from Veolia will come and magically take it away.

Now, I’m not talking about the things that we’ve outgrown and have another life in them — those things are donated to worthy places who will find them loving new homes. I’m talking about things like the old stereo equipment that (and I’m telling the truth) my husband swears my pre-teen daughter might want someday (I answered with, “Seriously? Have you heard of a little thing call the iPod?”).

There are also throngs of “treasure hunters” who hit the neighborhoods of Highland Park this time of year, searching for someone else’s trash, because, well, you know how the old saying goes.  One year I gave my kids’ old strollers and high chairs to an adorable, pregnant couple who clearly didn’t have the means to purchase new. And it made me feel really, really good. Those opportunities are there, too.

The Highland Park Spring Clean-Up Program, offered by Veolia Environmental Services, will take place on four consecutive Saturdays beginning April 28th. Your pick up date is determined by your primary garbage collection date, and are as follows:

Monday pick up - Sat. April 28th

Tuesday pick  up – Sat. May 5th

Thursday pick up – Sat. May 12th

Friday pick up – Sat. May 19th

So start thinking about what stuff you can say goodbye to, and start your spring cleaning now!

For more information on buying, selling or renting homes on the North Shore of Chicago, contact me at Stephanie.Hofman@cbexchange.com or 847-652-1902. Or, check out my website at www.StephanieHofmanHomes.com.

This blog is part of a series of blogs called Looking Good, offering tips and advice on keeping your home looking its best!