We really need to organize the garage. Things are starting to accumulate around the edges and the clutter is creeping slowly inward until soon we will be trying to figure out just why it is that we can no longer fit even one car in what is supposed to be slightly larger than a two-car garage. Okay, maybe that won't happen quite so soon, but if we don't do something about it, parking two cars in there is going to start becoming a challenge.

It is a daunting task, requiring first taking stock of everything *in* the garage, then figuring out the best method of storing it all, via some clever combination of shelves, hooks on the walls, cutely labeled Tupperware containers, pegboard for the tools, etc., as well as figuring out what doesn’t really need to remain in the garage but instead go live in the attic. Assuming of course that we can get it into the attic because maneuvering a ladder into the litter box closet and trying to squeeze between the door jamb and the ceiling in order to make it through the tiny little opening is even more daunting than organizing the garage. Of course, once we actually figure out exactly what size and how many of the aforementioned shelves and containers and pegboards, then we would have to go *buy* them all, and then install them, and then put all the things in their respective places, and suddenly this chore seems as if it will encompass days of hot and sweaty work in a place where various and sundry critters – including the occasional mummified frog and black widow spider – have made their homes. Not, mind you, that the mummified frogs hold the same squeal factor as black widow spiders, since frogs – mummified or otherwise, usually are not in any danger of biting anyone. But it is not exactly fun to move things in the garage and find yet another shriveled frog carcass lurking in a dark corner somewhere, just waiting for the day I will accidentally step on it in my bare feet.

I think that what we really need to do is organize some sort of major chore swapping party. Surely there are people out there – strange but lovely people – who delight in creating those nifty organizing systems of cupboards and shelves and hooks and thing, who would be perfectly happy to take on our garage as a little weekend project. And in return I would be perfectly happy to paint a room for them, and maybe Richard could install a new operating system or set up a home network in exchange too. I am sure this could work. Really it could. Just as long as you don’t decide that payment should be the building of any large stone walls, or the lugging of any large quantities of dirt because I’ve done more than enough of that in the past few weeks to last the rest of my life thank you very much.