Spring Cleaning

A caption in Monday's Carroll County edition incorrectly identified the sponsor of a "clean sweep" day in Westminster. The event was sponsored by the city of Westminster, with participation by Neighbors United.The Sun regrets the error.

Spring cleaning season is upon us, and Saturday there'll be a whole lotta cleaning goin' on along water ways around B'more. Project Clean Stream , the annual stream and shoreline cleanup campaign coordinated by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, kicks into high gear tomorrow (4/14).  There are dozens of cleanups scheduled in the Baltimore area and dozens more around Maryland.  Last year, more than 5,000 volunteers hauled roughly 300,000 pounds of trash and debris from streams and woods at more than 220 sites across the bay watershed.

The spot on the calendar each year between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness is reserved. Sometime within those two weeks I accomplish housecleaning. It's a date to truly abolish winter and dispose of any lingering Christmas tree needles. It's a time to strip wool blankets from the bed. It's a time to haul out a bathing suit and consider the possibilities of fitting into it. This year's housecleaning ordeal is now over, but not before I made three trips to the hardware store and another to Costco.

In its own special way, my Xbox 360 let me know it was time for some spring cleaning this week. I could've danced with Bill Gates' minions and mailed in my system for service. Instead, like Sarah Palin, I went rogue.  Before we begin, let's get something straight: Microsoft didn't want me to do what I did to my Xbox. I had to break at least three different sticker seals that clearly stated that I was voiding any and all warranties by doing what I did. If you ever plan on sending your system to Microsoft for service or reselling it as a "pure" system, do not do what I'm about to describe.

From the date on my kitchen calendar, I know that spring officially has sprung. From the chaos in my house, it's obvious to any visitors that I'm about to begin my version of spring cleaning.I say, "my version" because anyone who knows me and my sister has a good idea which one of us is the cleaning fanatic.While I'm satisfied that every room is cleaned thoroughly during the same week and that I've assured myself that my boys have not hidden any "pets" or food under their beds, my sister washes, waxes and polishes everything that doesn't move.

THE SUN'S been rising early these mornings. We've had some warm days, and my garden is full of spring color. There is bushy new leaf growth on the roses. All the signs point to spring housecleaning. So this week I found homes for the last of the little Christmas gifts that have been stashed in the shadows for months. I threw out some holiday wrapping paper I'd been hoarding. And when I walked the aisles of the grocery store, I threw a bottle of ammonia into the cart and bought a box of garbage bags.

This week, five Today writers document signs of spring. Spring Cleaning, a longtime resident of the better households of America, died recently everywhere but a few outposts of civilization. Spring Cleaning never revealed her age, although some reports put it in the three figures.She had suffered from a series of maladies for several decades, including the increasingly chronic slovenliness of Americans. Services are pending, and in lieu of flowers, survivors request a moment of silence as you contemplate the accumulated dust of your life.

So you feel proud of yourself for getting that closet emptied out last week? Here's what Diana Taylor of Harford County is doing in the way of spring cleaning: The mother of four, who also works part time as a bookkeeper and volunteers at her children's schools, cleans her house from top to bottom. Literally. She starts by washing the ceilings of her five- bedroom home with bleach and water and works her way down. She vacuums or dusts every part of the house thoroughly and flips the mattresses.

BOSTON - We are adding another relic to the huge pile that looms outside our door when a neighbor walks by and asks approvingly, "Spring cleaning?" "Sort of," I answer, and turn my eyes to the sidewalk that looks like a giant yard sale of cardboard boxes, plastic bags and broken furniture. At one end of the pile is a decaying red cardboard table that my daughter once used for her preschool Play-Doh. Spring cleaning, 1975. Not far away there is an ancient and honorable and defunct box of tax returns.

Light up rooms with Rare, natural and pure, rock crystal has long been used in the making of fine chandeliers and wall sconces. The transparent quartz crystal, stunning to the eye, features natural fissures with seeming bursts of crystalline explosions. So it's no wonder the brilliant quartz, which is mined and cannot be manufactured, has been prized by collectors and coveted by others. Jones Lighting Specialists in Towson is showing and selling a selection of modern and traditional rock crystal lighting fixtures.

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Thursday, a sure sign that winter will continue for six more weeks. Amari, the Maryland Zoo's spotted leopard, disagreed. And the law of the jungle says leopard trumps groundhog every time. For the second year in a row, the zoo staff arranged for one of its critters to make a prediction. With a crowd of employees watching, the 19-year-old cat sprang from her rocky lair and bounded toward two cardboard boxes. The pink box was decorated with flowers, filled with meatballs and surrounded by straw carrying the essence of elephant.

The spot on the calendar each year between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness is reserved. Sometime within those two weeks I accomplish housecleaning. It's a date to truly abolish winter and dispose of any lingering Christmas tree needles. It's a time to strip wool blankets from the bed. It's a time to haul out a bathing suit and consider the possibilities of fitting into it. This year's housecleaning ordeal is now over, but not before I made three trips to the hardware store and another to Costco.

If you're spring cleaning and want to purge piles of outdated and unnecessary documents and electronic media full of sensitive information, we've got the shredding event for you. The Maryland Attorney General's office , Incred-A-Shred and Junior Achievement will host a free shredding event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 9 at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, 1400 W. Cold Spring Lane. Both businesses and residents are invited to bring their shred-worthy items to be destroyed, keeping your personal information --- or your clients --- out of the hands of identity thieves.

Hey everybody, National Financial Literacy Month has arrived! It's scheduled to overlap with the tail end of tax season, which is always a good time to take a moment to review your finances and set up a plan for the coming year. Think of it as spring cleaning for both your file cabinets and your wallet. Get started with information from two government resources: MyMoney.gov and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . Celebrate this weekend at these events: --- See the Rev. Billy preach against the evils of consumerism at 7 p.m. tonight (Friday)

I like the idea of spring cleaning. Freshening up your home and putting everything in its place can help put your mind in order, or at least it helps mine. It can be a kind of meditative process. I know when my life becomes especially chaotic I find solace in cleaning, that or baking a giant cake for absolutely no reason. I was turned on to using green cleaning products a few years ago when I was writing an article about eco-friendly cleaning products, specifically laundry detergent.

This housecleaning season, I resolved to hit my possessions hard -- discard, liberate and cleanse. Last week, I made commendable headway by tossing a stack of photographs of unknown people. My mother gave me a box of family pictures in 1971. It's taken me that long to thin it out. Why be overly hasty about tossing that 1897 posed picture of Miss Nobody from North Broadway?

Hey everybody, National Financial Literacy Month has arrived! It's scheduled to overlap with the tail end of tax season, which is always a good time to take a moment to review your finances and set up a plan for the coming year. Think of it as spring cleaning for both your file cabinets and your wallet. Get started with information from two government resources: MyMoney.gov and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . Celebrate this weekend at these events: --- See the Rev. Billy preach against the evils of consumerism at 7 p.m. tonight (Friday)

Spring cleaning season is upon us, and Saturday there'll be a whole lotta cleaning goin' on along water ways around B'more. Project Clean Stream , the annual stream and shoreline cleanup campaign coordinated by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, kicks into high gear tomorrow (4/14).  There are dozens of cleanups scheduled in the Baltimore area and dozens more around Maryland.  Last year, more than 5,000 volunteers hauled roughly 300,000 pounds of trash and debris from streams and woods at more than 220 sites across the bay watershed.

In homes across Harford County, bathrooms gleam with new fixtures, lighting and paint. A wave of renovated bedrooms has swept over the county, too, and brand-new outdoor furniture adorns decks, porches and patios. Kari Hodgson knows this, though she hasn't set foot inside a single home. As a weigh master at the Harford Waste Disposal Center, Hodgson has observed residents arrive en masse this spring and dump tons of bathroom fixtures, bedroom furniture and lawn accoutrements in the annual rite of spring cleaning.

For many years, the Chesapeake Bay has been recognized by Marylanders as a historical and national symbol providing endless resources and economic stability. However, in recent years, the Patuxent River, one of the bay's tributaries and the longest river entirely within Maryland, has become less resourceful as a result of neglect, pollutants and land practices in surrounding regions. Each year, volunteers and various organizations join in the Patuxent River Spring Clean-Up, a statewide response to these environmental issues, in an attempt to give back to the bay and show appreciation for its resources.