Tony was a man of many skills. He was a hunter, a carpenter, a BBQ smoker, a gardener, and sometimes a mechanic. With all these skills and hobbies comes a lot of material things. Our garage shelves and walls overflowed with his things. Tony was also not the most organized man; organization is a skill I brought into our marriage. Before Tony passed, I wasn’t any of things above and I was more than happy with that.
The idea of tackling this project was daunting. His piles of things have felt like overwhelming chaos to me each time I stopped to really look around the garage over the last year. Once I started going through things, how would I even know what they were? What might I need around the house? What should I throw away? What should I sell and for how much? All I had were questions, so I put it off and did my best tunnel vision when passing in and out of the space.
But at some point, we must start tackling the unknown. I was tired of letting the chaos of the space stress me out.
Yesterday, the high was 77 which meant I wouldn’t be wasting my day poolside. It was time. I put on some work clothes, 90s jams and got to it. My game plan was to start in one corner and work my way around until I ran out of gas.
It didn’t take but 2 minutes until I was asking myself, what the heck is this? So, I texted my friend up the street and told him if he was bored, he could come hang out with me and tell what stuff was. He didn’t even have to work; I just needed another brain. My parents also knew what I was tackling, and they showed up too.
Have 4 sets of hands and eyes was so helpful to attack the 3 shelves of tools and paint. We sorted, organized, and swept up messes. We also started a sale box, because let’s face it I am never going to put up drywall and mud anything. By early afternoon, we’d made a solid dent and my crew headed out.
I stood there assessing what to tackle next. With one trash bin full, I was in it now and not ready to quit.
Tony’s best friend came by to pick up his hunting equipment that he’d always stored at our house. He messaged last week about coming to get it and the timing was perfect. I hadn’t minded storing it over the last year for him, but I knew as I started this project, I was going to be ready to free up that space.
Then he stuck around, and Tony’s other best friend came down and they both helped me tackle another wall of shelves. These shelves were full of expensive tools that I would have been clueless about, their expertise was invaluable as we sorted out what would need to be sold later.
We also had a few good chuckles at Tony’s expense.
Dude, why did you move a random 4-wheeler engine block to at least 3 different houses when you haven’t owned a 4-wheeler in as many moves?
The best laugh came when we found 2 spare faucet lines. I discovered mine was leaking Saturday morning and I bought the wrong replacement size Sunday morning. My Dad had called one of them earlier to grab the correct size. When he pulled out 2 brand new replacements, we lost it. Because of course the part I needed was there all along, Tony had just hidden them in a box 10’ up on a shelf! He would have known right where they were too. Even though it all looked like chaos to me, he knew where it all was.
With the help of my 2 crews yesterday, we got so much done. There is still more work to do but I can breathe a little easier in that space. We got a good start and sometimes that’s all you need. You just have to pick a corner and start somewhere.
