On Memorial Day my husband and I spent all day cleaning out the pit of despair garage.
The garage is a unique area in our house because it's the only one I can't actually organize by myself. It doubles as a workroom for my husband's mad scientist projects (he's making a CNC router from scratch from his own design, for instance) and the tool situation is staggering. I don't know what the majority of tools are, where they should go, or whether to purge them. So because we were both home together on Monday, with no other obligations, I suggested we tackle the garage.
The work went quickly--but we still worked from around 10-11 am until 6pm! I had to take two Advil that night because I was so sore. But the garage is in great shape. As I was finishing up, I kept thinking "I have more to move back in here" and finally realized....no. I didn't have more to move back in....the garage was really cleared-out, cleaned-up, and tidy!
I'm glad because messy spaces cause me anxiety--especially spaces I can't clean up by myself. So whenever I went into the garage--to take the recycling, to feed the dog, to get something out of the freezer, to get my gardening tools--the anxiety-o-meter within would ramp up a few notches. Not anymore.
(And I will say this: now that my children are a little older, this type of work is easier than ever. I remember eras when I couldn't get more than 30 minutes of work done without needing to pick up a baby or toddler, give them fresh entertainment, put them down for a nap, etc. Annie and Finn spent all day yesterday playing outside, riding bikes, blowing bubbles with homemade bubble solution, etc. So if you have tiny children and a disorganized garage, take heart! It will get easier.)
We did not thoroughly organize my husband's tools. We did group them roughly by type and put them in specific spots, and I plan to work with him to organize everything soon....right down to printing labels. As we were sweeping and finishing on Monday, my husband turned to me and said "you know, you're just really, really good at this." He told me several times how much he could not do it by himself and really appreciated my help. I think this is the difference between his visual-spatial-engineering-math-genius brain and my more linear, sequential brain. Anyhow, I do love to organize and was glad to help him.
Now the challenge: keeping it this way. Will let you know how that goes......
Oh Polly I know that sort of soreness when you've worked hard but it sounds like you both did really well.
ReplyDeleteMr Polly's Mad Scientist project makes me think of my Dad, if he were alive in 2016 h'd be doing something like that. Dad left school during the second world war, he studied radio at night school, then built all our radios after that. In the 50 s he worked in the TV industry (technical) and he built out first TV in 1957.
All the neighbourhood kids would come around to watch half an hour in the afternoons.