Cleaning out the garage 2013

I have mentioned this many times over the years, at one point (approximately 2005-2006) the garage was a total mess. I took care of 10 items a day out of the garage until it was clean.  10 items a day was very doable.  I looked. I am not sure there was an "as it happened/10 items a day" garage post.  But here is a recap post I wrote in 2008.





2013 -
Monday 6/10/13 my husband and I cleaned the cupboards in the garage.

Sunday 6/16/13, husband and I cleaned out the odds and ends that had accumulated on the floor of the double bay side of the garage (where the cupboards are). Then middle and I scrubbed the floor with soap, a broom and a hose.

Monday 6/17/13, middle and I removed everything from the messy half/side of the pegboard (single bay end of garage). We rearranged the hooks and brackets on the peg board, rehung what we were keeping, and then made a trip to GoodWill with all the rejects. We rehomed other things to a young couple with a new garden.

Wednesday 6/19/13, middle and I sorted out the other half the peg board. We also cleaned up a pile that had accumulated in another corner.

Thursday 6/20/13 I hauled everything out of the single bay floor and middle and I scrubbed it. While I was hauling, youngest sorted out bins of balls, outdoor games, etc. and middle scrubbed the three huge windows.  When my husband got home from work he sorted out four sets of golf clubs.

We have a pile going to GoodWill on Saturday.
My husband is taking the clubs to a local golf shop to see what is worth keeping.
I have a pile I am trying to decide - ?


The cupboard clean out was time consuming. The rest of these projects were small, doable jobs. Breaking them down into segments made each part defined and easy.

This is actually the before picture. I know, does not look like a huge mess. But it wasn't very tidy. And behind the garbage can, there was a whole lot of junk and dirt on the floor. Some of that stuff went to GoodWill and some of it was rehomed to a young couple with a large garden. 

Here is the after picture. We have things now on this peg board that were in other places in the garage and on the floor. So, in tidying and weeding out things, we picked up a lot more storage space.

Here is the before picture for the other half the peg board. 

After pegboard.
How many snow shovels do we actually need? Evidently we need all of these plus . . .

.  .  . the wide one which now hangs with the lawn chairs. 

Before Picture - See four sets of golf clubs in that far corner? We didn't know it, and we have no idea when, because no one actually plays golf so the clubs have not been touched in years, but at some point there was a nice mouse nest in the bottom of one of those bags. . .VERY luckily I only moved them out of corner and did not look in them before husband got home. Middle would have had to call EMS if I had been the one that found it (even though no little mouse nor mouse carcass was home). 

This is the pile (of clubs) my husband is taking in to a local gold shop to see what is worth keeping. One golf bag went in garbage, two to GoodWill, keeping one. (This picture is actually missing 6 wooden end clubs that I had already put in his car and 6 different length putters that we are keeping no matter what). 

Minus the vacuum cleaner and wheelbarrow in the background, this is the latest GoodWill pile for Saturday. The green and the black things are golf bags. 

This is my I can't decide pile. These all came on the truck from my husband's mother's house cleanout.  They were still sitting in a corner of the garage, unbeknownst to me.

After - Garbage can and recycling can and lawn mower were all out on driveway when this pictures was taken. They will all three go in what is the lower left corner of this picture. 

Before - this was actually taken on the day we were cleaning out the cabinets. My sorting table is in the lower right corner of the picture.

Books - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Member of the Wedding and Of Mice and Men

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain. I mentioned this briefly but wanted to get it recorded. I am not sure I had read this book. My husband and two older kids all read it for school. It was the assignment for my newer reading group and also on the long time reading groups already read list. So reading it last week was a double bonus: got to scratch it off my long list and got to discuss it. Most everyone at the reading group had read it in the past. Some did not like it the first time around and still did not like it. Others loved it the first time around (mostly men) and what they liked the first time around (Tom Sawyer at the end) they saw as nonsense the second time around. I saw Tom as budding sociopath myself. I liked this book until Tom entered it. The whole book felt like a series of short stories interwoven. The group facilitator said it was written over many years, with many stops and starts, and I believe it. This was another book that bothered a lot of the group participants in this group the same way that Uncle Tom's Cabin bothered several women (strongly) in the other group. The talked about the use of the N word in particular. I asked how many times the word appeared in the book and the facilitator said he had read it was over 200. I would have guessed over a dozen. I was not offended by the word, I just saw it for the product of the time and place that I think it was. We talked about the fact that word was replaced by the word 'slave' in some areas so the book was allowed to be read in school. I can understand both sides of that controversy. I think it depends a lot on the area. Some places it is disrespectful, other places it is a historical lesson. Glad I read it, enjoyed it much more than Uncle Tom. 


The Member of the Wedding (1946) by Carson McCullers. I may have read this book long ago. I could not remember any parts of it specifically, but it seemed vaguely familiar***. It was a quick book and very easy reading. A simple little story but lots of depth to it (in my opinion). I enjoyed it. It was a breath of fresh air, while the story wasn't particularly 'happy', it felt relaxing. I went onto read another book by Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and mentioned bits about The Member of the Wedding in that review.


Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck. A very short book, considered a novella. I didn't have to read a summary to know it was a tragedy. I knew from the first few pages that no good was going to come out of the circumstances. It was like Tess of the d'Urbervilles, I read looking at each situation and thinking: this isn't going to turn out well for anyone. There were even dogs in it (a subject that is hard for me). Once upon a time this book would have added to my not good week. But this time, it sort of helped me prioritize. The book was fictional. It was it and I was me. And one has to prioritize and not let circumstances fall into even very minor  tragedy nor expound on each other.


***I never kept a book list until now. I wish I had. My girls both keep one.