Winter cleaning doesn’t sound right, and actually it was fall when we did it, but we (mostly me) thoroughly cleaned out our garage a couple of weekends ago in preparation for the arrival of the contents of Grandma’s house. [Update:  And I will be doing it again this week in preparation for the things we are getting as a result of my mother-in-law’s move to an apartment.]
Shortly after we moved in last September, we went to the storage space we had rented right after the house burned down and retrieved our belongings (except for our patio furniture and three other pieces we saved from the basement, it all fit in a 5 x 5 unit).  We brought the boxes home and put them in the garage, and there they sat for over a year.  Why?  Because they were boxes of movies and books (many, many books) that escaped burning but were thoroughly blackened with soot.
I’ve hated going into the garage because of the smell of fire.  And it was hard opening the boxes that had been closed, because the smell was even stronger.  But it was also good, because I found some things I did not know had been saved.  And even though it will blacken my hands to read them, I still can, if I want to.
The books that were in the basement were children’s books (left behind because at some point I got overwhelmed and just wanted to leave), homeschooling books, and series we had collected:  Star Trek (tons of these), Agatha Christie (I had them all!), Patricia Cornwell, Anne Tyler, and a few others.  We cleaned and covered the basement shelves, and now they are all out where I can see them.


And now that it’s done, you know what?  The fire smell is going away!