Your Best Just Got Better and my garage

What would a book called “Your Best Just Got Better” (Jason Womack) http://www.amazon.com/Your-Best-Just-Got-Better/dp/1118121988/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403833254&sr=8-1&keywords=Your+best+just+got+better

which I got from a colleague at a Harvard seminar have to do with my garage, my nemesis…well read on and you will see.  Normally, I do not like “how-to” books…there are too many of them, they take a small idea and write a whole book on a small idea and they don’t challenge the intellect. But I decided it is time to read something, as I felt in a rut about many things.  I said something – even a how-to book- should help. So I started to read it, and enjoyed one small idea the book speaks about instantly: convert big overwhelming problems into 15 minute chunks…think of your day in 15 minute chunks and be prepared to use wasted 15 minutes (e.g. when waiting) to complete other tasks.  Simple, right? Powerful, right? So I told my husband over dinner that I would like to apply this idea to our garage – a perennial big problem in our family. And we did, and it worked.  We got a 4 foot wide path cleaned in the garage, which is good to know in case someone needs to escape in an emergency or something.  It only took 2 15 minute chunks!  Wow, I just got sold on how-to books…and then I realized that as my garage is really in trouble now, I should write an ode to my old garage of 34 years.  I actually made a commitment to park my car in the winter of 2014 in it, so it will have to dramatically transform.  So here is my ode to my dear old garage:

Dear Garage,

As I say goodbye to you after 34 years, I want to appreciate the role you have played for our family.  You have never let me park my car in there, but there were many, many good reasons for that. You were the exchange place for various big and small items from apartments all the way from Lower East Side Manhattan, to Upper East Side Manhattan, to Boston and to Ann Arbor Michigan. You allowed them to bring it, take it, bring it back again, give it to each other.  You also host so many sale items that somehow appear even when they are not needed.  You patiently put up with it, whether it is cases of sodas, oil bottles, bulbs, bird seed, paint cans of all kinds, toys of all kinds, sport items of all kinds, and on and on. You even let us build a closet to hold Pakistani clothes for 4 women, me and my three daughters.  Pakistani clothes for winter, for summer, formal, informal, very, very formal, Pakistani chappals, salimshahi shoes for men and women and kurta sets for the men of the family.  You have kept beds, armoires, dressers, carpets of all kinds, carpet padding of all kinds, bikes of all sizes and items for all seasons from beach stuff to roller blades, ice skates and ski stuff in all sizes from small kids to adults.  It is so amazing what you have done for our family, and we appreciate your role in keeping the family taken care of, even though the fights when we clean you out periodically get quite intense – moods change, anger rises and you suffer the consequences.  Well no more suffering…you will be cleaned out, cars will park there, and now your role will be to enjoy peace in your final days…thank you dear Garage.