The Lost & The Forgotten

missing.gif, originally uploaded by macslost.

There's something to be said about cleaning out a garage. Mostly curse words, but there's definitely something therapeutic about it as well.

See, if you read earlier posts, you'd know that I really, really, really want a pool table. Really, really bad. But in order to GET said pool table, one needs to have a place to put it. Like the garage. Now, this is what the garage looked like:

and I am NOT putting a nice, brand new table in THERE. I mean, EW. So I had to scrub it and paint it. Which was NOT an easy task. The walls were so dark and dusty and slimy, it took some time to paint every nook & cranny. The CEILING was a bitch because it was all slats and hundreds of huge nails sticking out from the roofing job. Sooooo, yeah. A few nail & splinter stabbings later (& 3 weeks), it's done.

And then came the cabinets and storage containers. Stashing the tools, the paint cans, the party supplies, holiday decorations. Once that was done, I decided to empty every. single. cardboard. box. we. have.

All of them. Things that have been in boxes for 10-12 years. Personal souvenirs, old clothes, electronics, stuff we never unpacked after moving in the last 2, 3, 4 times. ALL OF IT. And it's amazing the type of crap you find.

It's also amazing to see the stuff you keep. I have all sorts of trash I have no idea where it came from, yet at some point in my life, I thought it was important enough to not only keep, but purposely stash in my "do not trash" box. Needless to say, I threw a lot of it away yesterday. If I can't remember why I had it now, I'm not going to remember LATER, for damn sure.

But the good news! I found a family heirloom that we've been looking for for a year & a half. I also found my PSP, which disappeared around the same time. Both being GREAT finds and relievers of stress.

Today I hang things, I think. I got a little tired of packing and unpacking yesterday, so I don't wanna do that no more.

In summation, my garage is gonna be a kick-ass party place by the time I'm done with it. And I am DAMNED close to being done. Maybe a week, 2 tops. but this is all the fun stuff. The decorating part. Not the paint & dirt part. Ugh.

Oh, one last thing. And a word of warning to all those out there that do not own their own house with a garage yet:

The day will come when you DO have a garage. And on that day, your parents will rise up and say: "Oh, great! Now come get all of your belongings that you left in our garage when you moved out." So, they are bringing it up this weekend. Yay.