Organization Day

I'm not sure what's up with me today, but I was an organizing fool for the afternoon.  I feel moderately in control of the things I had absolutely no control over yesterday and the day before that, and on and on.  It feels good.  I'm tired and don't want to clean anything else tonight, which I think will make my husband happy since I've dragged him along with me today.

Our garage has been a mess since my husband moved in almost five years ago.  I admit that lately it has been much more organized than, say, this time last year.  But it's still a mess.  It's very difficult to get to things, assuming you can find them at all.

The biggest mess was all of the empty or almost empty plastic bins that we used to de-clutter the house when we almost moved this time last year.  Today, we retrieved 14 now unneeded large plastic empty bins from the garage and cleaned them.  My plan was to take them to Goodwill along with some other things in an effort to make some space.  It turns out we have family that can use the bins, so I'm going to hang onto them for another week.  At least now they are all clean and are stacked in one big pile now instead of being scattered everywhere.
 
I filled three oversized trash bags with random garbage on the ground - not garbage that would draw animals or anything - I'm happy to say it's not that bad.  I'm talking too small shoes that are not in any condition to give away, a broken garden hose, school projects from last year that no one had the heart to put in a garbage can last year, broken plastic bins, empty bubble containers, random broken toys, and a damaged bike helmet.

We also found some great stuff for Goodwill - my daughter's very pink too small bike that I really seriously didn't realize was there - it was hiding in plain sight - a stroller, and some baby toys.

The garage now looks reasonably good.  You can see floor. You could fit a car and maybe make room for a small garage band (my neighbors will be thrilled).

We came inside and organized the laundry pile in the laundry room.  Somehow the once-separated dirty clothes mingled instead of staying segregated. 

Once we decided to relax, I found a pack of AA batteries I found on the counter (out of reach of the small one) and asked my husband to put it in the overhead cabinet where they belong.  The battery stash was chaos.  D's were with the C's.  Large packages of batteries were sticking out of small plastic containers threatening to topple them over (and onto my head). 

My husband stared at it, not sure where to stick the opened oversized box of AA's.  I said, "Let's clean it!" and convinced my sweet husband, who could honestly give a crap about the organization of the batteries, to help me put them into containers with lids.  I am happy to say we now have separate stacking containers with lids for  AAA's, AA's, C's, Ds, 9V, A23, and both big and small button batteries.  I labelled them with a sharpie and added a warning to the button battery box, "Deadly if Swallowed," on each of it's four sides. 

I laughed, thinking what nutballs people will think we are if we die tomorrow and they find my warning on the box of button batteries - on top of the thing where there's this one spot of absolute organization amid mostly chaos.

My next thought was to write a story where the villain kills by putting button batteries in PB&J sandwiches.  Beware of button batteries....