Loaves And Dishes

I rallied yesterday from my cold and managed to take Susie skating, drive a client to the SLOWEST EYE DOCTOR OF ALL TIME (I mean, seriously? 1 1/2 hours?), and also go to a challah-baking fest at a local Jewish center (I mean, where else? The Mormon Temple?).

The challah thing was my friend's idea; we even managed to crash the gate, because she thought she had signed us up but we weren't on the list and then they said, "Oh, just grab a seat, it doesn't matter!" The whole thing was particularly awesome because I'm rarely at a public event where easily half the women are the same height as me. Jewish genes, you know...SHORT Jewish genes.

So we made challah. My friend was appalled that I just plowed ahead without following directions, but hey - I'm a bread baker from way back. The results weren't bad, either:

Baked at 10:30 PM, when I got home

And then my cold came back with a vengeance and I woke up miserable this morning and swore I wouldn't do ANYTHING for ANYONE and wouldn't go ANYWHERE all day. But I saw Brian wearing his Best Buy shirt and drove him to work. And the tree guy called and asked me to trek over to a different part of the neighborhood to see if the utility guys had marked where he was planning to grind stumps. And now I'm looking around the house and thinking, "Hmmm, there are a few things to be done here."

As I said, I'm not good at relaxing...

But enough about me, let's talk about my walkout basement - remember? The one Larry (and our amazing handyman) gutted, insulated, refloored, and painted earlier this year? After the Great Insulation Extravaganza down there, we sort of ran out of steam (and money) and never really set up the family room. There were still boxes full of stuff and extra bookcases floating around and then tubs of belongings from our 2 oldest kids who were here over the summer. If you wanted to watch TV, you had to climb over the stuff and perch on the couch, which situation felt like you were streaming Netflix inside a storage unit. Cozy!

It was a mess, really. A godawful MESS. It looked nothing like the picture I took right after the renovation, before we managed to junk it up again. And what made it worse was that, underneath it all? There were shiny new hardwood floors. And freshly insulated, freshly painted walls all around. But we couldn't enjoy it.

Whelp, Larry fixed all that - while I was gone this past weekend, he emptied gazillion boxes (and hello? Why was he saving papers from 2010? Our shredder is DEAD) and got rid of some books and moved some furniture and WOW. Life is good again. I mean, we still have an entire Harry Potter closet devoted to holding grown children's belongings, and camping items do continue to leap out at me when I open the guestroom closet, but I can live with that.

We still can't agree on rugs, though.

Anyway, our house apparently sensed that we were starting to feel happy and organized and it mobilized in its usual way: mutiny. This is what is showing up under my dishwasher lately:

Photo carefully cropped so you don't have to see too much
of my dirty kitchen floor - you're welcome

Anyone have any idea what's going on here? And, yes, RobinH, I'm looking at you.