It was a glorious day here yesterday – sunny, warm, light breeze, and a free afternoon.  So how did I spend it?  Cleaning out the garage, naturally.

Okay, you can send over the Beautiful-Day-Wasted Cops now.

Seriously, why would anybody waste a perfect Sunday afternoon working in a dirty, overstuffed garage when they could be doing any number of fun outdoorsy things?   Especially since it has finally stopped raining in NW Indiana?  (I was about to look up the dimensions of an ark).

The only reason I know is the one I had: our garage had been completely filled with things we took from my dad’s apartment at the end of October, and it needed to be cleaned out.  It was not a pleasant task (and I don’t mean the dirt), but I had a friend who offered to help me do it so… we did.

Onto our driveway, porch, and front walk came the boxes of pictures, files, dishes, kitchenware, records, books, CDs, and all manner of household miscellany.  Boxes, boxes, boxes.  We divided everything up into a pile of things my siblings want, a pile of things saved for Scott’s future apartment, a pile to be sold, a pile to be donated, a pile of books for the library, a pile for us, and a pile of things I had no clue what to do with.  Everything came out of the garage, and I had to see all over again the things we feverishly boxed up those last few days in Dad’s apartment.  I had been telling myself it was too cold to be working out in the garage, going through all of Dad’s things, but a large part of it was I didn’t really want to face all of it again.

Slowly but surely, the garage emptied and the piles grew until there was clear space to sweep out the months of blown-in leaves and dirt.  I began feeling lighter as I swept out the piles of debris.   Spring really is a great time to clean out the old and prepare for the new.

I would love to be able to tell you we now have both vehicles in a thoroughly cleaned garage, but that would not be the truth.  What I can say is that we filled my van with the things to be donated to Goodwill and the library, stored Scott’s boxes in his room, carted trash/recyclables to the curb, and neatly stacked everything else in distinct piles on one side of the garage.  We arranged the “I don’t have a clue” items so that I can easily grab a box and bring it inside to go through it when I have a chunk of time.  And, ta-da, we have one car currently sitting inside the garage!  This is a major accomplishment, given how the garage had looked at the beginning of the day.

Thank God for good friends who are willing to help do something as un-fun as sorting through another person’s things on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  And thank God for projects that get done, or nearly done.  It’s a good feeling.

Now to tackle the basement…