You Can Do a Lot in Two Hours

Although today was the Wizard's birthday, I asked him to please help me in the garage. It turned out we didn't need the whole day -- we got everything I wanted done completed in about two hours.

We started at 8:30, after we'd had a chance to digest a bit of breakfast. The view from the house door into the garage at that time:

As you can see, there's just STUFF all over the place -- cans of paint, that backstop I uncovered last week, an old rocking chair, some boxes, extension cords. The real problem is toward the back, though -- there are several pieces of furniture from my grandmother's house that are just too big and heavy for me to move by myself. And they are blocking access to the shelves along the back (right-hand) wall.

By 9:00 we had made significant progress.

Trash bags are being filled with trash. A vacuum cleaner was brought out to pick up some of the dust. Cans of paint have been moved to the shelves on the left-hand side of the garage. The right-hand shelves, however, are still blocked by furniture.

So we kept at it. We kept pulling things out of the garage to list on Freecycle or give to people we know can use them. And amid all the STUFF, we found a bag that held all the pieces of that backstop once it was taken apart. And directions for putting it back together again. Wonders never cease.

By 9:30, we wanted a quick bathroom and water break, and more progress was evident.

That right-hand wall is, of course, still totally inaccessible.

Oh, look at that -- two long boxes just chock full of comic books belonging to Future Vet. And now conveniently located in Future Vet's bedroom.

By 10:00 a.m., we were ready for Sports Nuts to lend a hand in moving the furniture into the space we had cleared.

Because, you know, I still couldn't reach those shelves.

With the help of Sports Nut, we finished up within the next 30 minutes. Here's the more-or-less final product, circa 10:30 a.m.

I can now reach everything on the shelves along the left-hand wall.

And the shelves on the right-hand wall are crammed full of stuff that is almost accessible.

The shelves nearest the garage door have Passover items on them, so during this coming week they will be emptied and our regular dishes will be moved out here.

Also, some time much later in the day, I moved all the empty collapsed boxes off of Future Vet's bed and onto the top of one of the chests out in the garage. I counted 108 boxes and rather more box lids. Some boxes went out of the house with things in them; others were too damaged to re-use and were recycled. Considering all of those boxes had STUFF in them not too long ago, I guess we truly are making some progress here.