It's almost time for the Great Garage Clean-Up of 2013. We'll need to swap out winter
sleds for summer bikes, rock salt for weed-and-feed, and sweep out the road cinders
and dead bugs that accumulated over the long winter.
This year's job is less complex because last year I helped my husband get the rest of the garage organized. The toughest task was tackling his toolboxes – five of them
– and organizing the tools. When we were done, he was amazed to find he had
three full sets of the same kind of sockets. I was not so amazed, but I ended
the day happy because if I need a screwdriver or hammer I know where to look.
I was thinking about that clean-up on my drive to work this
morning. Several (okay, many) years ago I enrolled in a tiny liberal arts
college in Nebraska.
It was my first semester and I had freshman speech. A classmate told us
that she wanted to be a housewife and hadn't planned to go to college. But
when her husband returned from the first Gulf War he decided to get a degree.
As a married student he had the option of getting a nicer dorm – an apartment,
really – if his wife went to college with him. So they both enrolled.
One day, this young woman stood in front of the class, as nervous
as the rest of us, and delivered a five-minute instructional speech on how to
clean a house. She said she didn't feel like she had much to contribute, but
that housecleaning was something she knew how to do well. Her instructions went
something like this:
- Start
small. Start with the smallest room in your house and clean it. The sense
of accomplishment will help you move on to the next smallest room.
- Start
high. Start by dusting off the highest points of the room – the light
fixtures, ceiling fan blades, etc. Then move down to the next highest
thing, like window sills and counters. Do the floors last so you pick up
all the dirt that fell from the higher spots.
- Pick a
corner and work your way out of it. Instead of being overwhelmed by
clutter (say in a basement storage area) start in one corner of the room
and work on only those items in that corner. Once it’s clean, move to the
next section of the wall. Work your way around the room and at the end
everything will have its place.
It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I sat in that
classroom. I transferred to another school after my first semester and lost
touch with the people I’d met. But I think about the young woman from my
freshman speech class every so often. I wonder if she graduated, if she stayed
married, if she had children, if she started a career or made a career at home.
I wonder if she remembers the speech she gave – the simple speech that’s helped
me clean my rooms, organize my husband’s tools, and keep things neat around the
house for more than twenty years.
