The thing about New Years’ resolutions is that they don’t often survive the new year. Everyone makes them, and most people don’t follow-through with them, so it’s easy to forget your January courage, abandon your plan, and just blend in with the crowd.

I made a New Years’ resolution last month here at Longbox Graveyard. I am far from done with the job, but I haven’t given up, so I suppose is it still a resolution, though no longer a part of the New Year. Call it a “resolution resolution.”

my oath renewed!

You may recall my previous Man Cave Monday entry, where I pledged to organize and remodel my garage to better accommodate my hobbies.

A little over a month later, there has been some progress, though it takes a trained eye to spot it.

I noted before that “The first step will be clearing out the existing space, installing closing cabinets, applying some fresh paint, and doing something about the floor.” That was putting the cart way before the horse. The first step had to be getting a handle on all the stuff that was crammed into every corner of the garage.

I thought on this for awhile and decided the job was just too big to take on all at once. Instead, I decided to chip away at it, one weekend at a time. I determined my first step should be to pack as if I were moving. After everything is packed away in boxes, we can move the contents of the garage into a temporary storage space and begin on the remodel in earnest.

This stack of boxes proves that I have made some small progress toward that goal.

So far I’ve cleaned out my hobby desk and boxed up most of the contents of my dysfunctional wire shelves.

(obligatory “before” shot so I can feel better about myself)

(and my nicer “after” photo, to prove I’ve made some progress)

Most of my boxed games have gotten packed away. Here is the “before.”

And here the “after.”

I’ve also managed to pack up the old bookcase that contained volume after volume of old role playing games. I don’t have a “before” shot for this one, but trust me, it was a mess.

That wooden bookshelf and everything on it is eventually bound for eBay or the charity pile. I’ve secured a commitment from my oldest son to rip all those CDs to iTunes before we bid them goodbye.

Also in that shot above you can see most of the eponymous Longbox Graveyard, which will continue to be the center of this project, but it has (almost) gotten to the point where I can live with it. The garage organization, more and more, is pushing into the frontiers of other hobbies, most notably my gaming and miniatures hobby. I keep a hand in those hobbies but not nearly like I used to, and I hope to cull and sell off a bunch of that stuff as I get deeper into this garage remodel.

One thing that struck me in going through my gaming stuff is that it reflected endless hours of preparation, but significantly fewer hours of actual execution. I have box after box of carefully-painted miniatures but only a fraction of them have ever hit the tabletop. There are lots of role playing games and adventures I’ve created that received only limited outings (if at all). There’s even a massive collection of hand-crafted dungeon stone that I couldn’t be bothered to deploy during my last Dungeons & Dragons campaign, mostly because I lacked the organization and will to transport and set it up.

While I did get some joy out of crafting all these preparations, it gives me pause when I wonder why I spend so much more time planning than doing.

But that’s a pathology to unpack another day. In the meantime, the packing continues!

Related articles

• Mancave Monday: New Year’s Resolution (longboxgraveyard.com)
• Longbox Graveyard Podcast: “The Dark Knight Rises” (longboxgraveyard.com)
• Longbox Graveyard Podcast: “The Few 52″ (longboxgraveyard.com)
• The Mancave Makeover (grooveheat.wordpress.com)
• BFB3000 meets “mancave solutions” (artica.cc)