Goin' to the Garage

 I spent a couple days last week cleaning and organizing our garage and here are three discoveries I made: 

1. One wet, mildewed pillow wadded up inside a tent, crammed into a cooler. Not salvageable.
2. A suction machine left over from when Eli came home from the hospital.  Might be salvageable but I really don’t want to try and find things to suction. 
3. The mess I was cleaning and organizing was entirely my husband’s fault and I’m not sure he’s salvageable…and he’s obviously not trainable.

As soon as I graduated, I began making lists of all the projects I had put off while I finished school, and when Christmas was over, I started on the list; repainting my daughter’s bedroom, catching up on laundry, sorting through my son’s outgrown clothing and making daily trips to Goodwill as I jettisoned months (if not years) of accumulation.

And then I started on the garage… (please imagine the ominous thundering drums that should accompany that statement.)

Once upon a time we had a 2-car garage that was stuffed to capacity and rarely able to accommodate an actual car.  After Eli’s accident, we converted one side of the garage into a bedroom and bathroom for him.  This left us with a 1-car garage that was NEVER going to accommodate an actual car.

The second fridge and an upright freezer are in the far corner of the garage and procuring an extra gallon of milk or a carton of eggs has lately turned into an Olympic event, involving balletic leaps over the table saw and contortionist-style limbo-ing under the pressure washer.  Something had to be done and I would have to be the one to do it.  Why is that, you ask?  Sit down, relax and I’ll rant tell you about it.

Whether by osmosis, genetics or example, my mother taught me to be organized.  I love nothing more than sorting, organizing and labeling STUFF.  My label maker and I have a close, personal relationship.

Here is my pantry.  It’s not alphabetized, but its close.

Here are some of my scrapbooking stamps…I assigned them a numerical/alphabetic code, then cross- referenced them in a binder by category.  Yeah… I know it’s over the top, but it’s what passes for fun for me.

My husband is missing this sickness gene.  He thinks he tries, but he’s not even close to playing in the big league.  Here is the credenza in his office.

I will now share with you his method of being organized in his office.  Are you ready?   

It’s LEGAL PADS.  He buys them by the dozen and jots down unintelligible gibberish on them while he’s on the phone.  An important part of his process is to only use the first few pages of the legal pad, and then get a fresh one.  This ensures that when he really needs that important purchase order number, or change of address, he will have to fan through stack after stack of legal pads scattered over his desk.  But here’s the best part; when he needs to “get organized”?  He PUTS THEM IN A STACK.  That’s it.  That’s his system.  You can see how divorce is the only option, right?

So the garage.   Pete and I spent one day and a substantial sum of money to make a therapy table for Eli so he could do strengthening exercises.   The table had to be large enough for him to lay down on and practice rolling over, etc. so it’s approximately 8 x 4 feet.   

We built it this past summer, Eli used it for about two weeks,  and then my husband proceeded to pile up a mountain of junk on it while working on some project and that was the end of that.  Eli’s aide, Mykeshia, bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t get him in there anymore and everyday one of us vowed to get it cleaned up, but I was busy with school and Pete is clearly organizationally handicapped, so fast forward to my “clean all the things” rampage.

I began by putting away all his tools that were scattered around the house and garage.  It took me a full day.  I labeled his tool chest drawers and put the corresponding tool in the labeled drawer.   

That seems like a simple concept, doesn’t it?  I kid you not, he came out for a moment to help me with something and when he needed a screwdriver, he said, “Where are the screwdrivers?”     

It was at this moment that I sensed the enormity of his organizational deficit. 

Speaking of screwdrivers, guess how many are in this drawer?  87.   

Guess what he asked for at Christmas?  Screwdrivers.   

Guess what he got?  Screwdrivers.   

Can YOU guess where they are located?  Well, even if YOU can, HE apparently CANNOT.

I found six containers of zip-tie thingies, because every time he’s in Home Depot, he says, “Hey, we can use some of these” and he buys another package.  I don't think there is anything in our home that has a zip-tie around it.  What exactly does one zip-tie, other than bail-jumping criminals?…and I suspect they probably take the large size, which doesn't come in our assorted pack.

I discovered at least six tents.  I have never been camping in a tent.  To my knowledge, the last time my husband accompanied one of the boys on a scout campout, he slept in the van.  Yet out of six tents, we were only able to compile two complete tents that had tension rods and stakes and the little handkerchief screen thing that goes on top.  To be fair, I don’t think he lost the tent parts, but it does make me wonder who in our household is camping irresponsibly.

I banished him from the Great Garage Cleanup in the beginning because I knew if he were involved I would never be able to purge anything.  (At one point I posted on Facebook for anyone interested in various items to come grab them before he found out, and true friends that they are, my driveway was a beehive of activity as people carted off shelving and golf clubs and life vests while he obliviously worked in his office…no doubt scribbling on his legal pads.)   

But periodically, his nosiness would get the best of him and he would mosey out to see what was happening and I swear it was like Christmas for him.  (In fact, maybe next year I’ll just lead him to the garage for a guided tour.)  

He randomly opened drawers or noticed items on the newly cleaned shelves and said things like, “Hey, I forgot I had a router - that’s awesome!” or “Would you look at that?  I knew I bought some of those once…”

This experience has taught me three things:

1. Should I need to hide anything, the screwdriver drawer is now my go-to spot.
2. I can label the drawers, but I can’t make him read. 
3. In the event I divorce him, I’m making him KEEP ALL THE STUFF.  That should be punishment enough.

Gather Round My Table

As holidays go, I like New Year’s Day.  New Year’s Eve is low key for us – being non-drinkers eliminates about 95% of most New Year ’s Eve festivities, so it’s usually just games and snacks and one determined child trying to last until midnight.  I’ve never liked the idea of making “resolutions” but I’m a big “planner” so I make plans.  (I know – semantics.  But I like plans!)

 

Still, I like the idea of celebrating a New Year.  There’s something hopeful about it, and I consider the fact that I’m still hopeful one of my best traits. (See May 1, 2009 entry for journal post on "hope" at the link).  Whatever the last year may have dropped, slopped and splashed on your doorstep, there’s something cleansing about anticipating the New Year and naively hoping it will be better than the last.  

Mary Chapin Carpenter’s  “Thanksgiving Song” has a stanza that says,

 “Grateful for each hand we hold ,

  Gathered round this table,

  From far and near we travel home,

Pretty Dining Room for company...

  Blessed that we are able.”

While I have a lovely formal dining room with a table that seats 10, we inevitably gather around our not-as-big, not-as-formal breakfast room table.  It’s made of iron with a glass top and we bought it primarily because we figured our kids would have a hard time destroying it.  It’s held up great, but more importantly, it’s held our friends and family.

Kitchen table - where the "Gathering" takes place

Last month when I graduated from college, I sat at that table with friends and family, including my baby brother who had never been to my home in Atlanta.  He doesn’t like the “traveling far” part of “from far and near” but he made an exception for me and I was so thrilled to have him gathered round my table.  

We gathered round that table at Thanksgiving with my older brother and his wife and children – two young boys who brought life and happiness to the “kid’s table” when it seems like my kids aren’t really “kids” anymore.  

Eli sits at that table every day with the help of his aide Mykeshia, a woman who loves him like her own.  She literally holds his hand (and sometimes arms and legs) while he struggles to sit up straight and not fall over.  She holds him in place and encourages him to last just a little bit longer – and he does, because he is so thrilled to be sitting in a regular chair at the regular table… because he too knows that’s where everything happens.  

We’ve gathered round this table for Sunday dinner nearly every week – countless pans of Chicken Pot Pie, meat loaf and mashed potatoes, and blueberry-peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  We gathered for the food, but often stayed to talk and laugh with friends.

We’ve gathered there to play Canasta, board games, Mexican Train Dominoes, and endless, infinite, countless games of Uno with Eli.

I’ve read a thousand books there, propped against the napkin basket so I could read and eat at the same time.   

Even though there are at least five desks in our home, Hudson invariably spreads out his homework there, so he can have company and not be lonely.

Friends have pulled up a chair and talked and cried with me.   Children have sassed me there, between asking me if their friends could stay for dinner and complaining “you never fix anything I like!”  

My children’s friends have sat there through the years; once loud, sweaty, clumsy children prone to spilling soda and making messes; now mature young adults stopping by to drop off wedding invitations.  

I have three tablecloths for the glass top – plum, gold and green, and every week the dirty, crumb-laden, stained one gets whisked off and thrown in the wash while a fresh, crisp, clean one slides on, ready for more friends and family to gather round.

If you stop by my house for a few minutes, I’ll often sit down with you in the formal dining room to chat briefly.  But if you’re my friend and you’re going to stay awhile, I’ll bring you on back to the kitchen to “gather round my table.”  

I hope the New Year finds you happy and “blessed that you are able” to do all you want to do.