During these final days with Dearly Demented Mom, I am basically housebound. Rather that go clinically insane, I’ve decided to do what any smart thinking woman would do – clean up the mess around me.

To that end, I’ve been working on my garage lately. Seems it exploded while I wasn’t looking. I’ve been hauling things off to the dump and slowly but surely there has become enough room in there to actually organize something.

You see, when I moved here, there was no garage. I built a large, nice garage which included a utility area, plenty of storage, a pool table and a combo A/C heating unit. Never once did I intend for a car to be parked in there. I consider it my woman cave.

Unfortunately, things quickly got out of control due to Dearly Demented Mom’s “stuff”, mine, others junk and former boyfriend’s messes. (Watch out for men – they love garages.) Frankly, there was only one thing left to do with this mess – call in an expert.

Luckily, my expert is Very Best Friend as her favorite past time is organizing. No matter a closet or a drawer, she’s your woman. We’ve been VBF’s for more than 25 years and she’s always got my back, keeps me as sane as I can be, and is my support system through life. Only problem I have with her is that she’s drop dead gorgeous. Oh well, at least I’ve got a “great personality.”

A former Miss Fiesta, thank you

That said, we planned a party out of the whole thing. Being housebound with a 91-year-old baby can do that to a woman.

First I wanted to make VBF all my favorite dishes for dinner that night. It was to be a garden vegetable dinner extraordinaire using produce grown in The Funny Farm. Together, we did all the prepping (she also loves to chop), slapped everything in the fridge and headed out to the garage to assess the “situation.”

Unlike others that might judge me for my mess, Very Best Friend gets very excited when she sees a large pile of junk. In fact, she almost foams at the mouth. If she hadn’t been so successful with her job at Texas Public Radio (which you should support), she probably would have started The Container Store.

Within a few minutes she explained we must quickly re-organize the side of the garage that I thought was already organized. Sometimes you just have to agree with the expert. In an hour it looked much better than it had before.

Extra organized

Then we dug into the mess; me with a sense of duty and VBF with a sparkle in her eyes. She always rips things off the shelf until it’s empty, assesses the situation and then begins again to either keep it, pitch it, or give it away. Problem is you don’t throw away anything on either my gardening or canning shelves. Still, I filled up several garbage bags and had a large offering for the Dump Gods.

Take a deep breath and dig in

It took around 3 hours and then I left to cook our pre-prepped vegetable dinner.  First I turned the oven on, then I grabbed a shower and came out smelling like a rose to cook. Then I went back out to VBF and told her to cut it off for the night, it looked as good as it ever had or could. Then I told her to hit the shower.

We had a wonderful dinner of Spaghetti Squash and Chard Gratin (see recipe in my category Recipes to Diet for), Roasted Butternut Squash and Vincent’s Seafood Garlic Coleslaw. I’ll blog on those for you next week as well as show you how to make three different types of pesto.  Being housebound in a hot Texas summer will make you do that, you know.

While we were busy enjoying dinner, the garage was looking like this.

Voila! Even have an ENTIRE blank shelf – amazing!

Sometimes, a different perspective can help you clean up your own life. I love my Very Best Friend and am so lucky to have her. She is not only amazing, she’s got a “great personality” too!

Next week, we cook!

Spreading laughter throughout the world…one chuckle at a time. Pray for DDM.

Mikie Baker
www.mikiebaker.com