Garage Cleanup 4

Today was a hard one. It was finally warm here in central Illinois (it's been extremely cold for the past week!!) and of course I wore jeans. I was unwilling to change, however because I was getting into "the corner," and I was pretty sure there was a spider metropolis back there. I have no fear of spiders and I don't mind sharing my garage with them, but I was going to do some massive reorganization and I was pretty sure I'd be less than thrilled to have fifty spiders crawling up my bare legs....so the jeans stayed on ;).

I reorganized the fourth of the garage I have cleaned out to this point and I am VERY happy with how it looks so far. :)

While going through the books my daughter observed that I have three copies of Shakespeare's "Romeo  & Juliette." She was then horrified as I dumped two copies in the donation bins. I had to explain to her that one copy of a story is all anyone needs unless it is a VERY SPECIAL book. And I never really liked Romeo & Juliette so one copy is more than enough for me.

My sister once gave me a large book containing all three volumes of "The Lord of the Rings" (Tolkien, if you live under a rock) in the same book, so I thought I could get rid of my individual copies of the books. My son saw them, however, and wants them for his personal library, and I went ahead and gave them to him. That's when he noticed something funny on "The Return of the King."

Let's see if you notice it:

 He says the guy on the cover looks just like Nicholas Cage!!!

Here's a closer look.

 Naw.....maybe a LITTLE....but naw, LOL.


Here's what I got done today:

Looks good right?? And of course, within ten minutes of having the weight bench completely clear, THREE children came in to use it. At first I was confused, since I certainly am not the person who put "the pile" there in the first place, and I have been able to use that weight bench two to three times a week!! But it's all good ~ at least now that it's cleaned up I don't have to worry (as much) about kids getting hurt while they're out there on the bench.

Boy, they'd better help me KEEP it this clean!! I'm not doing all this work just so they can trash it in a few weeks....I'm going to keep my eyes WIDE open and if there is so much as a candy wrapper in there I plan on throwing one heck of a hissy fit!!! This is MY garage, now, and people had better help me keep it the way I want it or they can just stay out of it!! LOL

I have been working on the garage for four days, and I'm about one fourth of the way through it (NOT counting the loft). I am very happy with the progress so far, and I'm very happy I've been doing so well about throwing away stuff we don't need, and donating things nice enough that someone else might be able to use it. I am also separating the clothes. I have my own bin, my Diva has her own bin, and my Bear has one. The other kid's are all in one bin until I get some more empty.

I have a pile of shoes to go through and see if I can find pairs. If I find pairs I will see which ones fit my family, and any that don't - too big OR too small - will get donated. I'm going to put the elliptical over there by the weight bench and put a radio over there, too (probably on that little table on the right of the picture). I will get rid of the treadmill because it hasn't worked a single day since we got it and it's not doing me any good since it's broken. Buh-bye.

I feel kind of under the weather after today's work, either because of the massive amount of dust I had to wade through or the mouse nest I found and had to deal with (I'm extremely allergic to field mice, dust, and mold). I've taken some tylenol and I'll see how I feel tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up this pace ~ I can have an amazing garage in a week and an amazing loft in two. :) 

Wish me luck.