a need for order

disclaimer: before some nice men packed up all of my belongings into boxes and loaded them onto a truck headed for the grand state of california, my house contained:


a two and a half car garage


a walk-up attic


a basement


AND


a secret basement (seriously, it was a secret. we didn't even really know what it was until we got the keys at closing. it was that secret.)


each of the above spaces were neatly arranged, lined with appropriately labeled blue bins. it was my little slice of organizational heaven.

and then the packers arrived and the trucks (yes, moving to california took us TWO moving trucks because the kind men at bekins grossly underestimated the contents of our home). truck one arrived and emptied the contents of truck one into our cali abode and in about a weeks time we had them mostly unpacked.

and then truck two arrived. and well, you can see what happened here:

it was a giant sized mess. because we thought we would be moving again, we tried to keep as many boxes packed as we could, but as the months passed we kept needing things from the disaster that was our garage. regularly, we'd go out into the great abyss that was our garage and hunt for something... ribbon to wrap a gift, a cookbook that contained a favorite recipe, a much loved board game... or whatever. with each hunt, the garage became more and more of a mess. it was sort of like the bermuda triangle, if you will.

once we came to the conclusion that we might not be moving in the near future (let's face it, it's almost been a year!), we decided that we needed to declare "order". and so this weekend, i went out into the garage and hauled the contents out onto the driveway. it was like a life sized jigsaw puzzle.... contents out, reorganize, contents back in.

while in the process of getting it under control, ellie had a little fun. she recovered her bins of play dough accessories and had fun creating stuff. she also found a box of some favorite books that she used to have in her room. she curled up in a chair and read some of these for a while. it was pretty cute.


but the funniest (and maybe a teensy bit annoying) part of the day occurred as people drove by. within moments of hauling out the bikes, cars began to flock. it took me by surprise at first.

"what are these people stopping for?", i questioned. and then it dawned on me. everybody thought we were having the garage sale of the century. seriously. i kept having to stop and tell people that we were not in fact having a sale, simply cleaning the garage. my explanation was continually met with confused faces. some people just ignored me and kept shopping as if what i was saying couldn't possibly be true, while others were simply disappointed. (apparently i had something they were hoping to buy.)

after about thirty minutes of this (and about 30 cars later), i asked scott to make me a sign. i thought that posting a notice would alleviate the need for verbal explanation and allow my time to be better spent (ahem, cleaning the garage).

the sign, while incredibly clear, did not do the trick. i had to enlist the help of e and d. they were assigned the task of stating that this was "not a garage sale" to anyone that looked like they were about to get out of their car.

it was hysterical. e took the task very seriously and was slightly irritated when people didn't listed and walked onto the drive. (i stepped in at this point and got them back into their cars.) the looks on their faces were priceless. almost everyone that stopped would go back to the sign, read it, and then a grin would wash over their faces.

i guess that they were so eager to find "A" garage sale, that they didn't notice the word "NOT". one by one they'd climb back into their cars and laugh as they drove off in search of the real deal.

and at the end of the day, this is what you can find behind our garage door:

neatly labeled blue bins, some excess furniture that i'm not quite ready to part with, a growing pile of bikes and strollers,

AND

a little bit of floor space. it's not perfect, but it is a wonderful step in the right direction.