Weekend Recap

Every weekend, I hope to magically become a Type A person and get lots of projects done around the house. This obviously never happens. Maybe I get one or two things done - tops. This weekend was full of fail on a couple of levels - starting with anxiety over choosing a pair of glasses and ending with some massive lower back pain. The 24 hours between these two events were not prime "get things done" hours but I did manage to cross two things off my lists (yes, LISTS).

One was simple enough - I removed the broken aluminum storm door from my back door. This door no longer had any glass or screen so it was for show only. And since it was ugly on top of letting all the bugs in, out to the curb it went. I'm hoping to put a new screen door there but I haven't yet so that's the end of this story.

My big plan on Sunday was to clean / organize my garage & then bust out some yard work. Every fall I would do a big garage cleaning but by spring it would be pretty chaotic again... and just get worse as the summer outdoor projects went on. So smarty pants me decided to take the time to organize it again before all the outdoor stuff adds to the disorganization. Pictures! Here's the before:

 My car goes in the middle, but the sides were starting to close in a bit. Empty boxes that I'd thrown out the door were piled on my wheelbarrow & my new potting bench was just sitting there begging for me to bash a side mirror on. On the left there was a mid-century rocking chair... oh, you don't see a chair? That's because it was buried under 6 months worth of junk mail & a couple of random projects. And my stairs that I use to enter & exit my house were barely clear. On the landing were bags of recyclables left there waiting for me to fix my blue bin & remnants of inside projects (register covers / shoe molding / etc). And you can even see the old screen door that removed on Saturday & shoved into the garage on the off chance I'd ever get to a metal recycling place. Yeah... kind of a mess. My process is to remove everything, sweep up the debris, & put everything back in an organized manner. Here is the after:

Ahhh, better. All the junk mail went into the paper recycling bag. The rocking chair & the set of metal drawers went into the house. The recycling bin was fixed & filled up with broken down cardboard & the bags that blocked safe passage into my home. The potting bench now resides under the windows & all the scrap wood is together in the corner. All the metal went out to the curb for the metal scavengers because, if I leave it in there, it would be years before I actually got around to recycling it. Still to do is to hang my bikes & get the excess trash out (right next to the trash bins). And always, ALWAYS, there is more that can get thrown out or given away so there will be more culling of shelf items / unusable scrap wood as the summer goes on. But for now, It's nice to have everything where it's suppose to be.

Unfortunately, one of the things I moved a couple of times were about 15 bags of soil... I did this not very carefully because I am impatient & had some intense adrenaline happening. As a result, by the end of this project, I could barely move. No yard work for me. Today is not much better... but hey, my garage is clean.