I had a few distractions today that kept me from getting into the garage until after lunch.

First, there was the Tuesday morning Bible study. Then breakfast with Rick. After that, I headed home, looking forward to what I thought would be a much-needed nap. Unfortunately, my plans were interrupted by an alarm reminding me that I had a doctor’s appointment across town.

After making a cup of coffee, I headed to the doctor and returned home completely exhausted, in even greater need of a nap than before. Instead of giving in to temptation, I ate lunch and headed straight downstairs to continue the garage cleanup.

Today, I tried to focus on just one worktable. That turned out to be a project all by itself. The table was covered with tools of every description, parts from unfinished projects, wood glue, and enough paint and stain to open a small hardware store.

I gathered up all the paint and stain containers, but before I could put them away, I had to reorganize the paint cabinet. Apparently, I can’t clean one thing without first cleaning something else.

I found an empty box and started filling it with parts and pieces needed to finish various projects. Some of those projects had been sitting there long enough that I barely remembered starting them.

As I worked, I began uncovering tape measures. Every time I turned around, there was another one. I finally decided that whenever I found a tape measure, I would put it in a box. By the time I finished cleaning off that one table, I had collected seven tape measures.

Seven.

I have no idea how one person accumulates seven tape measures on a single workbench. I suspect they reproduce when the lights are off.

After a couple of hours of rearranging—and I can’t honestly call it cleaning because I’m mostly moving things from one location to another—I finally achieved a major milestone.

I can now see the bottom of ONE worktable.

I also found more wood screws that needed to be sorted into their proper trays. At this point, I think wood screws are breeding right alongside the tape measures.

Tomorrow’s mission is to empty one of the large plastic storage tubs and determine what can be thrown away. With any luck, I’ll end up with an empty tub that can be used to organize some of my power tools until I can clear enough space on another workbench.

In other words, I’m still robbing Peter to pay Paul.

It feels like I’m not making much progress because I’m constantly moving things from one pile to another. Still, I suppose some progress is better than no progress.

Using my bucket-of-sand analogy from yesterday, I think I’ve managed to remove about half a spoonful today. Between the distractions and the endless rearranging, that’s about all I can claim.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get started a little earlier tomorrow and maybe remove a whole spoonful.