Quarantine inspires spring cleaning
IT WAS FREEZER FIRST for Jane Stuecken.
Looking for something productive to do during quarantine? Why not tackle all of those items on your at-home to-do list? Spring cleaning is an annual tradition that people simultaneously dread and relish. It’s easy to dread the thought of attacking a huge mess, but it’s exhilarating once that mess is cleaned up, organized, and vanquished from sight!
Jane Stuecken, a mid-city resident, decided to get the ball rolling with her freezer first.
“The freezer was just a huge cluttered mess of half-eaten tubs of ice cream and expired Trader Joe’s frozen foods,” realized Stuecken. “I decided to organize it in a way that made sense.”
After throwing out the old and expired food, Stuecken organized the shelves from top to bottom.
“The top shelf is now reserved for frozen and pre-made meals,” she explains. “The second shelf is vegetables and meats, the third shelf is frozen breads and bagels, the fourth shelf is fruits for smoothies, and the door holds the ice creams and sorbets.”
To Stuecken, the restructuring doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but she does admit one thing:
“To look inside and see it so organized is exhilarating!” she laughs.
Inspired by the success of the freezer purge, Stuecken moved on to the refrigerator and the pantry.
“I cleaned out the vegetable drawers and ‘suds’ them all down, so now there’s no more melting vegetables and herbs hiding in there anymore!”
The pantry sorting was so successful that it motivated her two marooned teenage daughters to take a whack at an unfamiliar recipe with “new-found” ingredients.
“I tossed some ancient stuff from the pantry so now we can finally see everything,” declares Stuecken. “We found some almond flour, and the girls were suddenly inspired to make macaroons!”
Wildflowers in Wilshire Park
BUSY AS EVER. Goldie D’Annunzio is sprouting wildflowers.
Over in Wilshire Park, Goldie D’Annunzio is quarantined at home with her family of six. She also works from home and has found that quarantine hasn’t slowed her down as much as she predicted. Always looking for a new project, D’Annunzio decided to tackle the great outdoors.
“I’m about to plant parsley and ‘save the bee’ flowers,” says D’Annunzio. “I bought five different wildflowers and I’m just waiting for them to start sprouting so that I can replant them.”
D’Annunzio has other areas she’d like to take on as well.
“I want to organize the bathroom drawers, because there’s loads of junk in there that we just don’t need, and clean underneath the kitchen sink.”
Longwood Highlands resident Daphne Brogdon is facing down the quarantine by cleaning her house and broadening her mind.
MOTHER and Longwood Highlands officer, Daphne Brogdon, has cleaned out her pantry.
“This week I am signing up for extension classes and webinars involving social media marketing, sales, professional development and I’m even hoping to come out of this thing semi-fluent in Spanish,” she laughs.
Though her two children, who are now homeschooling, are keeping her fully engaged, Brogdon has still found time to de-clutter her home office, clean out the pantry, power wash the patio, and compost the soil in her garden.
“I’m planting a variety of lettuces, carrots, tomatoes, parsley and broccoli,” she reveals. “And lots of arugula for pesto.”
Longwood’s Got Talent
Brogdon is also the vice president of the Longwood Highlands Area Neighborhood Association. During the quarantine, she has helped create the “Longwood’s Got Talent Virtual Talent Show.”
“We’ve asked neighbors to do 90-second performances. People can sing, dance, read poetry, do magic tricks, dog tricks — anything they want,” Brogdon explains. “We do it live on Zoom, and the judges have avatars so no one knows who they are.”
RESIDENTS of Longwood Highlands compete in first-ever online “virtual” neighborhood talent show.
For the first contest, which took place April 11, two grand prizes were awarded, a youth prize and an adult prize. Eleven-year-old Nicholas Day won for his soccer skills (bouncing the ball on one leg) to AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” while Angelique Anderson won for her karaoke Motown song.
“We’re hoping to see the talent show grow. We’d love to challenge Sycamore Square, Brookside and others nearby!” enthuses Brogdon.
The quarantine has definitely brought out the creative and “neat freak” sides of many local Angelenos. So whether you’re planning to attack that chaotic closet, re-stain an old chair, plant a garden or coordinate a virtual neighborhood talent show, de-cluttering your home and your mind can help you achieve these isolation goals.
“Life is still so busy but in a different way,” concludes D’Annunzio. “It’s the simple things that make us happy now, right?”
Category: Real Estate
Great job Sondi. Fun to see what others are doing