We have so much stuff!  I’m bad about clutter but compared to Vince, I’m so neat!  He just doesn’t notice clutter.  He keeps buying more stuff because he can’t find his other stuff!

There are a couple of things where I really stand my ground.  One is that I don’t want junk left on the table.  If I’m going to cook, I’m not going to clean the table off before we eat.  I finally got a big Rubbermaid bucket and anything left on the table goes in there.  When it’s full (and yes, it gets full often), I’ll get another one and put the junk in there.  Then Vince will come in and say “Have you seen this . . or that?”  And I say “If you left it on the table, it’s in one of those Rubbermaid buckets in the garage.”  You’d think he’d learn but so far, he hasn’t.

The other area where I won’t budge, and I know a lot of you know how I feel . . is that the garage is for cars!  The metal barn out back or one of the storage units we have rented for the past few years . . that’s for worthless junk but my car is going in the garage.  I don’t mind if it’s tight in there and we have lots of stuff in there but the cars are going in the garage.

Except, when Vince started building the chicken coop over two months ago, he started it in the garage on the side where Chad parks his car.  Chad was away at school still so I figured that wouldn’t be a problem.  The chicken coop construction project got moved to the barn out back but stuff stayed in the garage so that Chad’s car couldn’t get in the garage.  Seems like every day for the past month, since Chad got home, I say “Vince, do you think you can get the garage cleaned out soon?”  The answer is always the same . . “Yes, maybe this weekend!”  It never happend.

This weekend, I put my foot down.  The big hangup seemed to be two pieces of plywood that Vince hadn’t needed and wanted to return to the lumberyard.  Sunday morning, I said “Vince!  This has been going on for a month.  Take the wood back today!  PLEASE!”

He did!  That was so simple.  Why didn’t I say that a month ago?  He cleaned (according to his definition of clean) Chad’s side of the garage.  Vince and Chad have been watching all these “man cave” shows on TV and they can tell you what kind of man cave all the famous people have.  Vince turned Chad’s side of the garage into his “man cave” . . just for Chad to see when he drove up from work.

Problem was, Vince thought it was 4:00 when it was really 3:00 and Chad didn’t get off work til 4:00 so he had to sit there and drink a few beers while waiting for Chad.  And, other people passed and saw this sight!   Vince still had so much stuff sitting around that I wasn’t sure Chad could get his car in so I was re-arranging and whole time Vince was complaining . . women can’t be in a man cave . . that’s why it’s called a MAN CAVE!  Only problem dear .. this is a garage and there’s still too much junk for Chad to get his car in.  This side of the garage is deep.  You can actually pull one car all the way up and put another car behind it and we couldn’t manage to get one car in there!   It’s clean now and Chad can park his car inside again.  All is well at our house!