Spring Cleaning

I accomplished a lot this past weekend. The 2nd Saturday of each month, my neighborhood MUD makes these huge industrial rubbish bins available to toss out bulky items. Meredith and I took Troy to the neighborhood Dog Fair in the morning where he saw a few of his dog park buddies. I ditched out early to get started on my cleanup and be able to get clean up for Meredith's mom's birthday dinner later in the evening.
This 2nd Saturday clean up day is one of those things I always forget about. I either think about it too late and miss it, or think about it too early and then forget about it when it comes around. This time I made a conscience effort to remember. I think the recent break-in kind of made me a little more aware of the disastrous shape my yard and garage were in.
I think one of the factors that made my house a target was that I hadn't yet mowed the lawn. The unkempt grass might have been a signal to the crooks that perhaps the occupants of the house were on vacation, making it a good candidate for thievery. Also, I had accumulated a bunch of wooden pallets, a brush pile and some other junk in the back yard that the thieves built a little step ladder to get back over the fence with my loot. My garage is also in shambles. I don't think the thieves even bothered to look in there, but the Brink's guys were in there to work on the installation of the system, so I felt a little embarrassed that it was such a mess. Most of it is just junk, magazines meant for recycling, lots of empty cardboard boxes (also meant for recycling), pieces of scrap wood and lots and lots of sawdust from past projects.
First order of business was to get the big bulky stuff collected and hauled off to the rubbish bins. It took about 4 trips back and forth but finally got rid of:

• busted back door
• bunch of pallets
• busted chairs
• decayed old patio chairs
• 40 year old grill that was a heap of rust
• old vintage '92 vcr
• decrepit end table
  

Feels very gratifying and cleansing to toss out a bunch of old junk.
I spent the rest of the afternoon up until 4pm mowing the lawn, edging, clearing an old brush pile and sweeping the rust off the patio.
Sunday, I tackled the garage. First order of business was a trip to Home Depot to get a box cutter, some twine and contractor garbage bags. Troy got to come along, he's always a big hit at home depot. Since we've been leaving the porch light on for most of the time I picked up a couple of CFL low energy bulbs as well. Meredith did the make up and some prosthetic appliances for a few magazine ads for a campaign promoting replacing traditional incandescent bulbs with low energy/low carbon CFL bulbs. So I felt a little obligated to do my part to save the planet.
Once I got back to the house, I started to tackle the garage. I started weeding through piles of junk sorting stuff out I wanted to keep by moving it to the other side of the garage, where I normally park the car. The rest was either stuffed in a garbage bag or stacked and bundled for recycling. Lots of cardboard boxes from all kinds of things were broken down and stacked flat. I had quite a collection of Amazon.com boxes, computer component boxes and other packaging. The whole thing was a bit like an archaeological dig. I found a lot of things I forgot I even had. Somethings I thought we lost forever that I 'd already bought a replacement for.
After several hours and a few beers, things started to look pretty good. I could actually see the cement on the garage floor. I swept that area out and started to move back the items I was keeping so that I could sweep out the other side.
I ended up with a full giant garbage bin, three stacks of cardboard, half a dozen stacks of magazines and 4 giant garbage bags. My garage looks so much bigger and brighter than it did a few hours before.
Wednesday is trash pick up day. The recycling and garbage guys are somewhat sporadic and unpredictable. Sometimes the recycling guys with come at the crack of dawn while the garbage guys might not wander through before 6pm. To combat this you pretty much have to get stuff to the curb the night before and hope it doesn't rain or blow away. Last night I dragged everything to the curb, basically lining the whole curb with recyclables and garbage bags. Then said a quick silent prayer that they would take everything.
Now that my garage has had a bit of a colon cleansing I hope to keep it that way for a little while I've already caught myself putting a box in there from a new LCD TV I bought. I planned to put it up in the attic, but didn't drag the ladder out to do it.
We'll see how long it lasts. I have a few other rooms that need a good enema as well.