The 5 Stages of Cleaning Out Your Garage

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After a hailstorm pockmarked my car, I vowed to clean out our garage so I could actually park in the garage. However, it took me about a month to work up the courage to enter the maze of boxes, discarded furniture and baby clothes. Here are the five stages of cleaning out the garage.

1. Denial - Open the garage door. Look at all the junk in the garage. Sigh loudly. Close the door. "I'll do it it later!"

2. Anger - Who put all this stuff in here? Not me, it must have been my husband. Or maybe my toddler carted all his old toys in there by himself when I wasn't looking.

3. Bargaining - If I sell all the old baby stuff in here, I can buy a double stroller. Hmm. If I take everything to the consignment store and only get $20, then I still come out ahead.

4. Depression - We have too much stuff in the garage. We are a materialistic society which has lost sight of its collective soul. There's no point in going on.

5. Acceptance - I accept that it will take me 20 trips to Goodwill to get rid of all this junk.

Nina Snyder is the author of ABCS OF BALLS and the designer of the HOT PINK ORCHARD JOURNAL. Follow her on Twitter @nsnyder_writer.