My President's Day Surprise

How nice it was yesterday to spend time together as a family. Lisette prepared a special FHE lesson about the Netherlands. We also had dutch food for dinner. Since we have dutch ancestry, my mom was a great resource for show and tell items from the Netherlands. Lisette did a great job. Mom even had made a native dutch costume, which Lisette wore as she made her presentation.

Earlier in the day, however, things were not so rosy. Michelle, who had surprised us by coming home for the weekend, was doing laundry in the basement (typical college student, eh?). On one of her trips down there, she said, "Oh no! Mom! You'd better come see this!" Well, I knew I'd better come take a look.

My laundry room is small. There is room for a washer and dryer, a folding table, and not much else. We had laundry baskets, both clean and dirty, in the small walking space in front of the washer and dryer and under the folding table. Since my kids help with laundry at our house, there were also clothes on the floor of unknown levels of cleanliness. It was into this flotsam and jetsam of laundry that the gallon-sized bottle of liquid laundry detergent fell, broke open, and spilled almost all of its contents.

For some reason, there is no drain in my laundry room floor. There is one nearby in the water heater closet, but that obviously was not the low spot in the floor! The good news about that is I was able to reclaim much of the spilled soap. It took me a few minutes of pondering to decide how to deal with honey-textured soap all over the floor. I knew if I added a lot of water, I'd end up with lots of bubbles. Didn't want that. What I ended up doing was grabbing a funnel and rubber scraper from the kitchen. Bit by bit, I scraped the soap off the floor and into the funnel. It took a long time. I knelt on a towel and leaned forward for most of the job, which I have learned today is a great way to work out your glutes!

Meanwhile, Paul worked on the taxes. All day. That's all he did. I'm really glad he's willing to do it.