Garage for Sale

I absolutely hate cleaning the garage. Hate it. Each year, there's more junk and more to clean, and I hate cleaning it that much more. I've been putting it off for months this year, and I always had a good excuse for procrastinating. I've been working too hard and deserve relaxing weekends. It's raining. It's cold. NetFlix arrived in the mail. And my personal favorite: how can I clean the garage if so much crap is blocking the door that I can't even get INTO said garage?!

By this weekend I'd run out of excuses. And Tom had even offered to help me (OK, I begged/conned him), so I had no choice but to tackle the dreaded, dirty, thankless job. This is what greeted me:

We took just about everything out of the garage and tossed what we could -- or rather I tossed what I was allowed. Tom's and I are very different in just about every way, but way #724 is our very different thresholds for "stuff-keeping." I want it outta here if it either hasn't been used in 6 months and holds no sentimental value. Tom, on the other hand, is sure that someday -- possibly tomorrow, even -- we'll have a use for it. In fact, chances are that we'll NEED it in the near future, so it'd be best to hold onto it. It's amazing that we could clean the garage together today. I'm sure that what saved us was that he cleaned half of it and I cleaned the other half, no (OK, few) questions asked.

Just as we had piled the driveway high with stuff, the sky got dark and rain clouds gathered... and we quickly pulled it all back inside. A huge amount of what went back was the garage sale pile... literally 30 huge black bags filled with clothes (remember this?!), as well as litchen crap, some electronics, small appliances, gardening gizmos, and various and insundry other useless and unwanted thingamajiggers. As soon as I can count on a sunny day (like, August), I'll price it all to go and garage-sale it all... with a trip to the Goodwill later that afternoon to give away the rest. By that time, more junk will have accrued, all to be gathered NEXT year at the dreaded annual garage clean-out.

If you look really carefully, you might notice a slight difference between those photos and these (no snooty comments of you don't, OK?!):

And now I'm off to bed. Every muscle hurts! Time for another massage!