Some Daze
It's spring. Spring is the time of year when people get this urge, and urge that cannot be resisted, and urge that demands them to act. And urge that compels them to get down and get dirty.
I am referring to spring cleaning, of course. The annual drive where many people awaken from the winter with the drive to get rid of everything they have been cuddled up to all winter long. This is something that may not affect those people who life in regions where the winter doesn't involve a shovel. Or getting hit by the wind so hard you get chilled to the bone. Where the weatherman never suggests that you stay in because it is too cold to go out. Spring might just be another day on the calendar for them.
For those of us in the colder regions, spring is like a grand awakening. Fact is when the sun peeks its head out from behind the clouds, it is a topic of conversation. Perfect strangers will say, "Doesn't the sun feel good? How I have missed it!" It is perfectly natural to wear shorts in 50 degree weather and bring a coat along for when the sun goes down. It makes sense after an entire season dressed in layers upon layers to want to strip them off.
And that is what we do to our houses. We strip them of all of the "excesses" we see. The windows are opened and the old stuff goes out and the cleaning begins. The house is cleaned from top to bottom. Which is what lead me to the garage this past weekend.
Cleaning the garage is on of my least favorite things to do. Our garage is never used for cars. It is the storage spot for everything we don't want in the house plus all the regular garage stuff, and the empty boxes and garbage that my son likes to store in there because he doesn't want to go throw them out in back of the garage during the winter. I like to call this the, "Who the hell put this here?" game. Which oddly enough is one of my family's least favorite game.
Usually I find things in there that really not only do not belong but also freak me out. A couple of years ago it was a bag of grass seed that had a nest of mice in there. This....did not thrill me. Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate mice. Snakes are right up there, too. Give me any other critter or bug and I am fine. Show me a snake or mouse and I am one of those cartoon characters standing and shrieking on a table. It's not a pretty sight.
This year was no different. It happened while I was collapsing boxes. After breaking down my 10th box I find my first toy surprise in the garage cleaning....it was a very dead, dried out robin. Most people might have been to be sad or upset at this discovery. My intial reaction was, "ya gotta be kidding me!" Okay, maybe not the most compassionate reaction, but an honest one. Really, I'm getting tired of something living in my garage without me being able to claim it on my taxes! And why do I have to be the one to find these things? My reward for cleaning out the garage is grabbing a dead animal? For pity's sake, there must be a better karmic reward system out there for me than this.
Alas, my next toy surprise was a little less dramatic...but both opened and closed a mystery in my life. I found a bag of canned goods. My initial reaction was, "so THAT is where my sauerkraut went!" I thought I had gone crazy this past winter. I KNEW I bought a can of sauerkraut, but it disappeared from my pantry. Or so I thought. Some how it ended up in the garage. It is these things that happen that make me wonder if my family is trying to make me lose my mind. Who would leave a bag of canned goods in the garage all winter?
I still have more cleaning in the garage to do....but I'm a little scared at this point. Who knows what else lurks in the recesses in the rest of my garage.
I am referring to spring cleaning, of course. The annual drive where many people awaken from the winter with the drive to get rid of everything they have been cuddled up to all winter long. This is something that may not affect those people who life in regions where the winter doesn't involve a shovel. Or getting hit by the wind so hard you get chilled to the bone. Where the weatherman never suggests that you stay in because it is too cold to go out. Spring might just be another day on the calendar for them.
For those of us in the colder regions, spring is like a grand awakening. Fact is when the sun peeks its head out from behind the clouds, it is a topic of conversation. Perfect strangers will say, "Doesn't the sun feel good? How I have missed it!" It is perfectly natural to wear shorts in 50 degree weather and bring a coat along for when the sun goes down. It makes sense after an entire season dressed in layers upon layers to want to strip them off.
And that is what we do to our houses. We strip them of all of the "excesses" we see. The windows are opened and the old stuff goes out and the cleaning begins. The house is cleaned from top to bottom. Which is what lead me to the garage this past weekend.
Cleaning the garage is on of my least favorite things to do. Our garage is never used for cars. It is the storage spot for everything we don't want in the house plus all the regular garage stuff, and the empty boxes and garbage that my son likes to store in there because he doesn't want to go throw them out in back of the garage during the winter. I like to call this the, "Who the hell put this here?" game. Which oddly enough is one of my family's least favorite game.
Usually I find things in there that really not only do not belong but also freak me out. A couple of years ago it was a bag of grass seed that had a nest of mice in there. This....did not thrill me. Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate mice. Snakes are right up there, too. Give me any other critter or bug and I am fine. Show me a snake or mouse and I am one of those cartoon characters standing and shrieking on a table. It's not a pretty sight.
This year was no different. It happened while I was collapsing boxes. After breaking down my 10th box I find my first toy surprise in the garage cleaning....it was a very dead, dried out robin. Most people might have been to be sad or upset at this discovery. My intial reaction was, "ya gotta be kidding me!" Okay, maybe not the most compassionate reaction, but an honest one. Really, I'm getting tired of something living in my garage without me being able to claim it on my taxes! And why do I have to be the one to find these things? My reward for cleaning out the garage is grabbing a dead animal? For pity's sake, there must be a better karmic reward system out there for me than this.
Alas, my next toy surprise was a little less dramatic...but both opened and closed a mystery in my life. I found a bag of canned goods. My initial reaction was, "so THAT is where my sauerkraut went!" I thought I had gone crazy this past winter. I KNEW I bought a can of sauerkraut, but it disappeared from my pantry. Or so I thought. Some how it ended up in the garage. It is these things that happen that make me wonder if my family is trying to make me lose my mind. Who would leave a bag of canned goods in the garage all winter?
I still have more cleaning in the garage to do....but I'm a little scared at this point. Who knows what else lurks in the recesses in the rest of my garage.
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