It's always been said, "April showers bring May flowers."

But for me, it's always been flowers year-round, especially if they don't have to be watered, like the silk floral arrangements I have in almost every room of my house.

I have always been sort of a neat freak when it comes to keeping the inside of my house clean. My husband is the person who keeps everything outside presentable.

Since it's time for spring cleaning, I did some interior rearranging, moving some furniture around and moving some things out altogether. For example, I got rid of my formal dining room. I don't like clutter, and prefer open space. I put a new island in the kitchen and moved the kitchen set into the dining room area. It looked good.

But, now I'm missing that formal dining room set. I remember a few years ago, my sister-in-law, Robbi, and I were talking about a new table set that I was about to have delivered. She started laughing, saying how my set sounded so much like the one her husband chose for their dining room, even down to the bar tools and a baker's rack I described. I looked it up online, and, sure enough, my brother and I picked the same set.

The difference was theirs was for their dining room and mine was for my kitchen.

Change is in the air. My husband is getting into the act, too, deciding that he wants all the carpet removed and wants wood floors. And in the kitchen, family room, laundry and lower bathroom, he wants ceramic tile.

Even before all

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these changes start, the rest of my house seems to be getting more and more cluttered. My office has become a junk room full of everything I didn't want in all the other rooms. I began to think that maybe I should have chosen to take care of the outside of the house because you only have to mow the lawn in the summer and use the snow blower in the winter - that is, if it snows.

I finally realized what spring-cleaning really means - and it's not a big house makeover. Even little changes can throw a household into chaos.

Maybe I should just put everything back where it was, then sit back and relax. Who needs spring cleaning when you always keep things in order year round?

Marva Hamilton is the librarian at the Connecticut Post. She can be reached at mhamilton@ctpost.com.