Sunday, April 26, 2009

Garage Cleaning Day!


My Garage
Originally uploaded by Ski Goddess
First off, this is not a photo of me. It is a stranger. A random, barely dressed woman who just happens to be doing the same thing I happened to be doing today. In a garage spookily similar to ours.

But amazingly enough, our garage has been even more packed with "stuff" for the past 6 years. Junk we've accumulated over the happy 26 years of our marriage and children-growing years:

~ photos of every event Mark and I attended, as well as every note and card written to one another for the first year of our marriage.

~ boxes of craft supplies . . . paints, rubber stamps, pens, pencils, markers, paper, every kind of tape invented by man (or woman), stickers, card-making accoutrements, boxes of "sheet protectors", scrapbooks, flocking powder. Yes, flocking powder!

~ virtually every paper, project, sculpture, stuffed animal, book and photo taken of our children during their years of schooling.

~ at least 10 boxes of holiday decorations. A large rotating Christmas tree stand, ornaments that span generations; a Halloween skeleton, a string of light-up bones, witches' cauldrons; Easter candy bowls, bunnies, plastic eggs, plastic egg wreath, as well as other seasonal detritus.

~ 1000 medical books.

~ inexpensive but sentimental paintings and drawings and souvenirs that we have collected from all over the world.

~ blankets and quilts.

~ suitcases, train cases, a wooden oil paint case with a handle and hinges!

~ a large box of hand made cards from our "My Pad or Yours?" rubber stamp club - circa 1998 - 2002.

~ wrapping paper and bows

~ tools and screws and nails and "what's this thing for"s.

~ assorted junk that just ended up in boxes because I didn't know what else to do with it.

~ my late parents' ranch.

It's been years since some of these precious things have even seen the light of day, so in some ways it was like opening Christmas presents .... and throwing them away.

Which was really amazingly wonderful and liberating and made me feel as though I was moving on in some undefinable way.

It was a good day.

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