Sweet Relief

Yesterday morning at 8 am the most wonderful thing happened. Our friend Dwight and his son Dan came to our house with a pick-up and a mission--to remove the junk from our garage! So, off it went. Goodbye wobbley old bookcase, see ya broken chair, hasta la vista rusty stroller that won't close!! I'm free! So, with the loss of those old friends-I can resume my cleaning! Yay! As soon as I recover-I'm sick. But, here you me--I will clean this garage! Then I will head to the basement.

In other news, Greg won this weeks biggest loser contest-boo.

Seriously--the junk is reproducing....

I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it with my own two eyes-the junk is reproducing. It is creating new, baby junk. That is the only explanation for the fact that the garage is taking a lifetime. I feel like it may never be clean. I will go on forever trying to clean a garage that clearly does not want to be clean!
Well, no matter. I made some progress yesterday-as promised! So here is the picture to prove that I am a woman of my word!

Okay, so I fell off the wagon.

Yup, I have had a small set-back. I have not cleaned the garage for a week now. It is cold and dark in there---and it smells like lawnmower....(it has a specific smell)! But, it is time to recover--to get back on the horse---to power through!! So today I WILL clean the garage!

Into every life a little trash must fall......

So, the garage is looking worse (as you can see) but there is a good reason! A friend of ours is bringing by a truck to take some large items to the dump. That explains the big pile of stuff in front of the garage door. I also have a huge basket of papers that I found in the garage-- bills and other useless paperwork from as far back as 2001. (did I mention that we are pack rats?) So, now I have the illustrious job of shredding the paperwork. This will take a while.....
In other news--I am currently in the lead for our little Biggest Loser competition!! Yay!

The kitchen and other atrocities....

A wise person once said, "a kitchen is like a room full of preschoolers, you don't want to turn your back on it for too long.". Okay, well, maybe no one ever said that, but they should have!
In my journey to clean up my garage, I kinda forgot about the part of the house that we live in.
So, the kitchen and the rest of the house need my attention. So, I have taken a short break from organizing 101 to tackle life. While I'm working on that...I will plot my next move in the battle against clutter...
In other news, Greg and I are having a competition. We are going to diet for one month and weigh in at the end of each week. The person who loses the most weight each week gets a point. The person with the most points at the end of the month wins a movie! The loser must watch said movie with the winner and not complain* or sigh in a disapproving way.

*Greg and I have the most opposite taste in movies that two people could have-so this is quite a challenge!

Progress takes time......................lots of time

So, I did some cleaning today in the garage. I am pretty sure it looks the same as it did. It is like it is regenerating..... The junk is creating baby junk to take my house over.......

So here is a during picture for you. I know, it looks like the other one--but there are subtle changes.....very subtle changes.

second verse....same as the first!

Okay, so today was not a productive day. The before picture in the post below....is how the garage still looks. But I guarantee that tomorrow will be better. I did however have a lovely time baking banana bread....but that doesn't have anything to do with cleaning or organizing.....

Lets start at the very beginning...a very good place to start

So, this week I have decided to tackle the scariest of areas in our house--the garage.

There it is to the left here in all it's glory! A two car disaster just waiting for someone to help it!

So, I first need to get rid of all the stuff that is junk or just not needed by us. I have to also go through about a million boxes.

This could take a while......

In the beginning was a mess....

I have been a slob my whole life.... really, MY WHOLE LIFE!!! I was happy in just tossing things and leaving them where they landed. My motto as a kid was "why clean my room when there is a whole world out there to enjoy?". As I grew older-there was always something else to do. Then I got married. My husband was also a slob so it worked out great! Our house was a disaster, but who were we hurting?? Well, in a way, we were hurting ourselves. Shame from the status of our home kept us from having friends over and at times made us frustrated and caused us to fight. Then our daughter came into the world! More stuff, more mess. Then I got pregnant with our son. Around the 7th or 8th month, something strange happened--I started nesting! I was obsessed with organization. I could not get enough of it! I would lie awake at night thinking about what I could clean next. After he was born I thought the nesting would leave...and it did-sort of. Our house returned to a messy state as I was figuring out how to care for 2 kids instead of 1. But deep inside of me was a voice. The voice of the clean freak I had become during pregnancy. So, here I am. With a goal. I want to organize and clean my entire house and rid it of all useless items. I want to reduce the amount of stuff we have. So, I am going to blog this experience in hopes that it will give courage to the other slobs out there who long to be neat freaks. Wish me luck---I'm gonna need it.