THE GARAGE

Have you ever been driving down the road and drive by someones house and they have their garage door standing wide open and the garage is just filled to the max with stuff?

Well let me tell you this is my garage. Eight years ago when we bought our house it was not in move in condition. AKA... we gutted the inside and left the kitchen and dinning room in tack for us to live in. Having only two rooms and lots of stuff 90% of our belongings went into the garage. As our house expanded and became more livable we moved some stuff into the house. However over the years we have also moved a lot of stuff out. This has caused that stuffed to the max effect to our garage.

I am so embarrassed every time my husband leaves the garage door standing wide open. If I had it my way it would never be opened, ever. Reality is this isn't going to happen so I decided this was the weekend we were cleaning it out. We both had a four day weekend so this was a doable task, right? WRONG....

In my mind cleaning out junk, getting rid of stuff and buying shelves to put totes on would make this a simple task. My husbands mind thinks so different than mine. First he decides he wants to build shelves. Instantly I am frustrated because if you have ever heard me say before my husband is an engineer and nothing is ever simple with him. He say's to me, I will make them simple. Again, not buying into it.

We start clearing out lots of stuff. Let me say he is the pack-rat in this family for sure. I can't tell you how much stuff he thought he needed to keep and then when he turned his back I tossed it into the trash. He says I am not sentimental. Maybe not but to be sentimental you need to enjoy it and you are never going to enjoy stuff sitting in totes in the garage.

Friday afternoon he heads off to buy wood to build the shelves. He returns a couple hours later with wood and drywall. Why does he have drywall? He wants to put drywall up before building shelves. Oh wait but all power was removed from the garage years ago for safety reasons and he decides before he can drywall he wants to run wire so he can put electricity back into our garage.

Can you see where I am going here? My simple project turned into a four day project that is only about 40% done. We got one shelving section up and it looks so nice but so much more still needs done.

I have several large items I need to get rid of and not sure what I want to do with them. I think sit them at the curb for anyone to pick up, or maybe Freecycle, or maybe Goodwill. I have to haul them to Goodwill and honestly I think the guy at Goodwill is sick of seeing me. The worst part is a lot of this stuff we now have sitting out in the drive way. So my embarrassment has extended from the open door to anyone who just drives down my road and looks at my driveway.

Does anyone want to take a guess as to when my garage project will be complete?
I am going with never! My husband worked very hard this weekend so I have to give him credit for that but why he can't ever stick with the simple plan I will never understand.

Funny Story from a Year Ago...

Today I was thinking back to last year at this time. I was 9 months pregnant and we had a lot going on before the baby was due. I remembered one of our major events of the fall and just felt the need to share.

Last fall we put a new roof on our house. My husband is a wonderful handyman with the exception of his need for perfection and that when he does anything it takes an eternity…. Literally anyone else could have done the job in say two days, it will take him six months. And as a side note, the roof over the garage still isn’t done and it has been a year now. Handy yes, timely he is not.

One of the things I worry about when he is working with power tools, heck who am I kidding any tool, I worry he will cut himself. Why do I worry about this, because the fool passes out cold at the sight of his own blood.

Now I am not talking a little blood, that is no big deal but if he gushes blood, down he goes, like a sack of potatoes. It’s not funny when it happens but I laugh so hard I cry when it is all over. I laugh because there is nothing funnier than a grown man who passes out at the sight of his own blood.

Now as I was saying, last fall we were putting on a new roof. I told him, do not cut yourself up their and go falling off the top of the house. I teased him as I said this but I was also very serious.

He was down to the last part of the roof and everyone had gone home so he was roofing alone. I here him howler and he was rushing down the ladder. I think great, what did he do now. Here he comes with his hand wrapped in his shirt and tells me he has sliced his finger with a knife. He won’t take it out of the shirt to let me see because he knows if he looks at it he will be down for the count. I am thinking to myself thank god you didn’t pass out and fall off the roof.

I had to drive him to the urgent care. He was all worried about putting his tools away and I was more worried about how I was going to pick his butt up off the ground if he passes out. I was 9 months pregnant at the time so this would not have been an easy task. We get their and they take him back to a room. I waited in the waiting room with Luke. Then I hear this load scream from a nurse and this huge crash. Well if you haven’t guessed by now, yes that crash was my husband passing out and trashing the room on his way to the floor. I guess when the nurse took his hand out of the shirt to see what he did, he looked at it. He didn’t warn them, he took one look at it and down he went. Now they had to give him stitches on his finger and they had to treat the big bump on his goofy head. Finally they make him lie down and keep his finger out of sight as he continues to feel faint as they clean him and stitch him up.

My poor husband finds this horribly embarrassing and he doesn’t like people to know he can’t control this. I am not very kind because I find it very funny. I am laughing right now just sharing this story with all of you.

He has only done this three times since I have known him. One time at work cutting something at lunch, slicing his finger and passing out in front of everyone. He has a scar on his chin from hitting the table that time. A second time in our basement from cutting his hand on a broken light bulb and then finally this latest time. He did almost cut his finger off with the table saw a couple years ago and he somehow managed to not pass out from this one. I don’t know how because this one was gross and just about made me faint.

See why I worry every time he uses power tools. He obviously isn’t very careful. Heck looking back I don’t know how he has all his fingers. .

Well it is fall again and he is all ready to take down this huge tree in our back yard that split in our last storm. The thought of him using a chain saw and log splitter just scares me to death.

So do any of you know someone who passes out at the sight of blood, needles or something unusual that makes them squeamish or faint?

Laundry here, laundry there, laundry everywhere...

Laundry is the one chore I hate the most. Of course it has to be the chore that takes the most time, and it never ends. I have tried many different ways to simplify the laundry load but I just can’t do it.

The worst part, I do all this laundry and I have the smallest amount of dirty cloths of all of us. It is the others in my house that produce the massive amounts of laundry.

First there is the baby…. He goes through at minimum two outfits a day if not three. You put him into a high chair he trashes everything he is wearing. He is such an independent baby. He does not want anyone feeding him. He wants to do it himself and when he does it himself he also wears it. He ends up head to toe in food. Ah yes and of course what goes in must come out. He is notorious for pooping right out of his diapers. I have tried every diaper size, type etc… it doesn’t matter he is a super pooper. LOL.

Second is the five year old. I call him the king of stains. His shirt gets everything rubbed onto it. It is his towel, so to speak. His sleeves and shoulders are always used to wipe his face clean. I don’t care how much I preach about not doing this, still happens. Then I love “I didn’t do that mommy” and the evidence is on the sleeve. He now has a new habit of chewing on the collar of the shirt and stretching it out. If anything is on his hands the sides of the shirt are also destroyed. I buy oxy clean by the boat load and I still can’t get his cloths clean half the time. I soak, scrub and launder and we still have stains. Their wont be many hand-me downs for his little brother.

Finally there is my husband, the biggest contributor of them all. He dresses for the office during the day and works out at the gym every day at lunchtime. He comes home each day with a backpack full of smelly sweaty gym cloths. Then when he gets home he has to change into something more comfortable. Now he has gone threw three outfits in one day. I try to get him to reuse stuff that hasn’t been on long and really isn’t dirty. This is pointless because he lays it at the end of the bed where the dog gets hair all over it. I ask him to hang it all back up but that is an even bigger joke.

The boys go through cloths also but at least their stuff is still small. Lord help me when they get bigger.

I recently tried to set a new rule for myself and do just one load of laundry every day so that when the weekend comes I don’t spend an entire day doing laundry. This is a great thought but I have yet to successfully put it into practice.

My mom uses a laundry service and it cost her $10 a week for her and my dads cloths. They don’t have much laundry so this is great for them. This service would probably cost me $100 and unless they are coming to my house and putting it all away that isn’t much help to me either.
Is there a trick to making this never ending task just a little less daunting? I want to know what are your secrets to making laundry easier?