Not for the Weak of Heart

During Hubba-hubba's vacation, we attempted to do something I wouldn't recommend to all couples. If you have any strain in your marriage, this task will bring it out completely. It will pit you against each other, and goodness help you if you don't feel like doing it and the other one does. I am talking about - CLEANING OUT THE GARAGE.

When we first moved into this little townhouse, I will admit that we didn't do a spectacular job of organizing things in the house, including the garage. I moved in after we were married, and then I was pregnant less than two months later and on bedrest for 7 months of the pregnancy. Hubba-hubba was attending his first semester of law school, so both of us had just thought we would get to the organizing part "later."

Well, the house was ok to deal with, but I swear the mess in the garage was starting to move on its own and occasionally I would hear strange sounds emanating from it. Along with all the crap that you normally accumulate for no good reason, we had all Mr. Personality's baby stuff, plus both the cars. It was truly a frightening sight, and I was getting embarrassed to even open the garage for all the neighbors to see our ever expanding mountains of junk.

So, we decided to tackle the garage over the vacation. As soon as we started, the recriminations began. "You never clean out the cars," my husband claimed, "and so I have to just pile everything when we need to get them fixed or need room to haul something." "Well, even if that was true" I replied, "that doesn't mean you have to literally dump everything in a heap without even looking to see what you are dumping." And so on and so on. This is not stuff for couples who are having any issues, a fairly strong foundation is needed to get past the accusations of who hoards more things and who is the one who can't let go of their old college textbooks, for god's sake. Tell me please, who sits there one day and says, hey, I think it would be fun to go hunt for my old dusty Psych 101 book and spend the rest of the afternoon brushing up on Maslow's heirarchy of needs? WHO?

I would have to say that it took probably close to 10 hours to organize that garage. But, now when I push that garage door opener, I can display all of my junk that is now neatly arranged and looks better than all my neighbors' junk.

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