Windows

I am looking out my windows on this bright, cold, winter day where the sun peaks out from thin, high clouds, and realizing something less than profound ... that I desperately need to clean my windows.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) for me, the screens are currently down and stored in the garage, and the Christmas wreaths are down, waiting to be placed in bags and then in storage, so I have no excuse.

I tend to think of my mother whenever the brief consideration arises to clean windows.  My mother, for some reason, is all about clean windows.  I think it's a factor of her generation, where clean windows must have been a matter of great importance in one's status as a successful wife and mother.  Or, I think clean windows just make her feel better, much like a straightened house, neatly made beds, and a freshly mowed lawn makes me feel better.  It appeals somehow to our need for a sense of order.