This last weekend we finally had Judah's birthday party. Since his birthday has been falling on Memorial Weekend, his special day has turned into a huge family event with family and friends (since most of our friends in town do not have family). This year, we had to postpone it a few weeks, but we still had a dozen kids and their families here for some grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.
Fortunately, with this many people over, we are able to have the party out in the garage with the nice, summer weather. And it is a good thing too. Last year, the garage seemed dirtier after the party with spilled cake, sticky lemonade, and side walk chalk than before the party even got started. We had to spray the garage floor to keep ants from permanently inhabiting.
Likewise, this year we had to clean out the garage before our guests came over to the celebration. The night before we spent tucking away buckets and items in our little nook corner of the garage, stacking everything neatly on the shelves. We then covered our stuff up with tarp that hung from hooks from the ceiling. Next, we proceeded to sweep out the garage followed by rinsing it down with the hose.
Lastly, we scrubbed down the grease off the garage floor, making it safer for our company. To do this Judah and I took some sponges soaped up with laundry detergent and got on our hands and knees, adding a little elbow grease. Once we scrubbed the floor, we rinsed it again with the hose and let it air dry over night.
My first experience with a leaky car was some years now on my first campaign. My old, silver 1997 Dodge Stratus (RIP, it died this year), leaked oil from a minor car accident during that summer. I had neither the time nor the money to fix it at the time and surprisingly, my car kept going as long as I refilled and replaced the leaky oil. Finally, after the campaign, I got it fixed but not too soon before I kept leaking oil onto the candidate's driveway. Remnants of the leak followed us to our current garage where unfortunately we have our own grease spots on the floor.
My word to the wise is catch the leak before it makes a huge mess on the floor. Now I know why the candidate's husband was so upset. To this day, even with the car gone, we still have grease spots. And we have them on both sides of the garage because I switched parking spots at times.
Grease spots are dangerous for one. Kids tend to flock to this spot thinking it is water or dirt, getting it all over their hands and feet. If the spot is the littlest bit wet, one can fall down. Grease gets on your shoes and ends up in the house. Grease spots also look terrible. No matter how hard I scrub the spots, somehow their is no going back to a white washed, clean garage look.
At least the laundry detergent conquered some of the mess, drying it off and revealing a nicer and safer floor. And Judah did a good job helping while being heavily supervised. As soon as he started horsing around, Judah was taken upstairs for a bath himself while daddy finished cleaning.
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