I am not great at cleaning. Part of the problem is that I tend not to see the problem until it is too late. How do I know when its too late? When I stand in the middle of my mess and I realise that I don't know what to do. I want to clean it up, or more accurately, I want it clean and orderly and DW thinks it will help build my character if I do it myself. As I have mentioned earlier, character may be overrated. Also I think my character is pretty much formed for better or worse. That is not to say that I can't improve myself. I just don't plan to. Well, not until I get seven decent nights sleep in a row. Then I will consider it. Anyway, I expect that this may also be contributing to the initial mess and my subsequent inability to cope with it. When I see a big, impossible mess, I crawl into my shell which I keep near the door so I can find it.
Still, I am currently undertaking the mother of all the messes I have created - the garage. And I am winning. Well, not so much winning as losing with more confidence than before. Its a puzzle to me. I have spent the past couple of days trying to clean up just the workbench. In total I would have spent about 10-12 hours at a guess. I can report that the bench is now clean and I can tell you exactly where every tool that I own is (except my work gloves and heavy mallet - but they were not in the garage when I started anyway). That just leaves the wood pile and the great big mess in the second bay. Probably another five days should do the trick. The thing that really bugs me is that DW cleaned the same mess up (at least one very similar) in about three hours last year. The whole shebang. She even swept. I guess the difference is that she just looked at the tools and rubbish and threw stuff away and put tools that were of similar shape together and threw more stuff away.
I suppose I think about the function of the tools and the potential uses of the rubbish and have difficulty getting past the fact that I don't like to throw anything away that I might possibly find a use for. Still, I can make the cut when I need to, it just takes me longer. I'm probably too close to the problem mostly because I am the problem. DW says just think of all the character I'm getting. Yeah, right.

Until the next time.

Giggling like an idiot may well be a sign of madness. Who cares.