Garage Confidential
Woman in the Middle | March 23, 2014Up until about 15 years ago we actually managed to park a car in our garage. The other half was devoted to my husband’s shop, but at least one half of the garage was used for what it was intended - a car. Then my grandmother gave up housekeeping and we had to drag an apartment’s worth of stuff home for a garage sale. Out went my car, in went Nanny’s stuff. We had the garage sale but a bunch of stuff was left over, of course…then Hubby’s stuff started creeping into that space…and my car never made it back into the garage. Meanwhile, we also adopted two cats who hung out quite a bit in the garage and that just complicated the situation even further.
When we found the house we are in now, it had a three car garage and a shop. Hubby no longer needed the garage for his many manly tools and I negotiated a parking space for my car. I thought one spot out of three wasn’t too much to ask, now was it? There are still complications. What if the now indoor cat is in the garage when I arrive? We wouldn’t want him to dart out the open door and get eaten by a coyote. What about the fact that the car would be parked near the washer and dryer, possibly getting in the way? Well, in four years those things have never been an issue because the garage has never recovered from the move. There are still boxes and boxes of unpacked things in the garage. Sigh.
But, lately, things have just gotten out of control. A non-profit organization I belong to is planning a Goodwill ”fill the bin” fundraiser. So for the last 6 months anything I wanted to get rid of has gone into a box in the garage. I think I am up to 10 boxes (where does all this stuff come from????) Then we had to bring important stuff like photos and mementos from Mom-in-laws house, as we didn’t feel comfortable leaving those things in an unoccupied house. Then we had to clean out Brother Dear’s apartment. We stuffed as much as we could into the garage and then took a couple of loads to Mom-in-laws house. We are now just overwhelmed with stuff and our garage is so stuffed it looks like something out of an episode of “Hording.”
A small amount of sunshine is on the horizon. The Goodwill fundraiser is finally getting underway this week and I can get that batch of stuff out of the garage. On the bright side, my rummaging around out there unearthed the under the counter radio and CD player I got for the Christmas right before we stumbled on the new house to buy. There was no point in installing it at the old house so we moved it here where it languished in the garage. Hubby installed it yesterday and I am really enjoying it. Just think, I get to listen to NPR whenever I want! The kids are wondering what their father has done to them but I am delighted. But I am really delighted that one more box is out of my garage!
I would love a garage but have to make do with a carport which is just not the same, I hope you make room in your garage for your car, cars need a place to call their own………oh no that is cat;s and yours already have that
LOL! The problem with a garage, as you can see with mine, is it collects things!
After my mother died many years ago it took me a long time to get rid of her things. They were stored in my closets, basement and attic. I did get rid of the furniture and the clothing but it would get so hard looking at the stuff that I could only do a few boxes at a time. I am finally (after almost 30 years) cleared of all old, stuff that had little to no sentimental value. It is so freeing. I can actually move into a small house which is good because it’s almost time for the nursing home. (I used that as a mantra for years amusing my husband. “If we don’t need it in the nursing home, it’s going out!”)
You could give those unpacked boxes to the Goodwill fundraiser too. After all, you haven’t needed anything in them since you moved to your new home.
Oh, I wish I could do that, but that is just too scary for me! What if there is something in there that I want???