Garage Cleanup Project 2

I worked hard all day yesterday. I've done (so far) exactly NOTHING today. Either because it's dark and rainy (and FREEZING!!!) or because I did so much yesterday that I don't feel like doing anything today. (This massive headache really isn't motivating me anyway.)

I made piles outside the garage so I could sweep everything out IN the garage, as far as what I got cleaned. I NOW have a six foot by TWELVE foot cleaned area (not organized yet, though).

I have a "storage" pile that is so far only two and a half crates, and is mostly clothes I'm not willing to give up yet. I have one decorations box started but it has Halloween AND Christmas in it so obviously I need two more boxes ;). I have a camping/fishing pile, a gardening pile and a automotive items pile. I have a recycling pile that's getting pretty big already, two and a half enormous trash-bags full of trash, a rather large burn pile, and a pool pile. There's also a pile of sorts which is just things to fix up the house with, such as sheets of plywood and siding.

I have three regular-sized trash bags full of clothes that will go to the Goodwill and they are already in my van to be dropped off the next time I go to town.

I did find a box full of stuff to bring into the house. A couple purses, some clothes, pens, etc.

As it is I have nearly enough room to park a car in my garage right now!!! But I still need the space to keep cleaning out there and to get everything organized. I would say I'm about 2/5ths of the way done with that garage. It feels great to be getting rid of all that stuff we don't need.

So far the hardest things will be going through my books, and deciding whether or not I will keep my wedding dress. I mean, on one hand it only cost $90 and it has some stains from being in storage that I really don't know if I can ever get out, PLUS there's no WAY I'll ever fit in it again!!! (Why would I need to wear a wedding gown again anyway??) But on the other hand my stepdaughter wants me to keep it so she can get married in it one day (yeah, I have no idea why, either) and it is pretty sentimental and social convention to keep the gown you got married in.  I will have to pull it out, photograph it, and see what others think I should do with it. I'm strange, I guess, to not care as much about my wedding dress as I do about those New York jeans (my original "skinny" jeans from when I thought 120 pounds was fat), but I might just have to get rid of them both anyway.

Here's a couple pics!



Good bye old VHS video tapes!!! I have no idea why I kept y'all for so long!!! (I did keep family home videos in hopes that someday I will somehow be able to transfer them to my computer and begin making family home video DVDs for my whole family)

Yes, I'm a semi-recovering paper hoarder:

I say "semi-recovering" because I had to sit down and go through all these papers, I couldn't just put them in the burn pile. MOST of these were my kid's school papers from the 2007-8 school year. I kept a few choice papers and I did get rid of most of the rest.

Going through clothes was easy. Too small, too small, holes in it, too small......except when my daughter came out ~ "This is SO CUTE!!! WE HAVE TO SAVE THIS FOR ME SOMEDAY!!!" I finally had to tell her as much as I loved her help I really didn't need help with the clothes and then go through all the clothes in the keep pile AGAIN to make sure she didn't sneak some donated clothes in it (and she did, that stinker).

I was doing so well I didn't want to stop!!! But I DO have kids and a husband, and they DO occasionally need to eat, so I HAD to stop and make dinner.

It was a great day.