I long to be one of those families whose garage looks like a tidy little workshop. You know the people I'm talking about. Take my neighbors, and good friends, the Stanleys-- the other day I actually saw Mr. Stanley leisurely sweeping his garage. Like it was fun. Actually, I see him out there "tidying" his garage all of the time. This is the same family whose yard looks like a finalist for Better Homes and Gardens. Better Homes and Gardens never calls me-- even though I do have an annual tradition of putting a mum out on my porch every October until it dies from a ridiculous lack of water is time put it away. He also has a little work table with his tools all neatly arranged and probably has them alphabatized or something. (My spice rack is alphabatized!) I'll bet they even have pictures of their baby eating off of the floor... We're not exactly "tidy little workshop" status, but folks, I am happy to announce that Operation Clean Sweep is offically over and I have to admit that it looks pretty darn good. Not perfect, but much better. (Of course, ANYTHING would have been an improvement...) I actually only worked on it for a total of 6.5 hours. 5 of those took place LAST Monday (9 days ago.) I spent 15 minutes out there on another day. (Can somebody say "baby steps"??) And then completed another hour this past Monday. I really meant to clean out Spencer's tool-box and organize more, but even though Anna and I took a break from the school books last week, SOMEBODY FORGOT TO TELL THE REST OF THE WORLD THAT I WAS ON SPRING BREAK!!!!! Oh well, at least we can now... PARK OUR VAN into the garage. We can also... Find things because everything's labeled! (Labeling is my favorite part of cleaning stuff like a garage.) We can also... Choose from our fantastic selection of 249 balls. (At least they are currently all located in one place!!) We can also... Find all of our swim toys!!! (Which will come in sooo handy when we put up the pool this summer.) Or we COULD... Ride one of our ELEVEN bicycles which are now neatly lined up in 2 rows. (I know we need to get rid of a few, but there's always a kid who can "grow into" the next size... and we just always happen to have one handy!) Best of all I can... Enjoy a clean garage. (Can you hear my sigh of satisfaction??) ... at least for a week.