The dishwasher broke again. Cleaning and repairing it led me down a rabbit whole of more things that needed cleaning. It felt as if everything was dirty. So, I cleaned. That afternoon, I even got to enjoy the sunshine on a forest walk with Pepper and my husband.

There’s some actual sunshine outside. I’m excited! It’s still way too cold to go outside. I just walked Pepper, and it’s literally freezing outside. Okay, it’s one degree above freezing but the ground is still frozen. So, it’s very, very cold outside.

But I hope that it stays until this afternoon, because if the sun stays until this afternoon, it would warm up a bit by then, and then we could go out into the forest and look for mushrooms,
and just enjoy the weather a little bit.

But first, I had to deal with the fact that just about everything was dirty.

Time to get my hair out of the way. Let me see if I can’t solve this. First, a deep clean. I do that whenever the machine asks for it with baking soda and vinegar.

In case you are wondering: the towel roll makes Bob run more quietly. There is less vibration.

Our water is very hard, so I scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed–and used vast amounts of vinegar.

When I was ready to run a cleaning cycle, a new problem appeared. The door sensor thought it was being touched. Great. Dishwasher surgery it was.

Luckily, I’m allowed to try fixing things myself without losing my warranty. From a previous repair, I knew where the sensor was, so I didn’t even have to open up the entire door.

While I installed a software update on Bob, I cleaned and put away the canner. Yay, all done with potatoes. I still think it’s weird that my dishwasher has access to one of our wifi networks.

I didn’t want dirty dishes all day, so I cleaned most by hand–again.

I also used the time to feed my kefir grains some fresh milk. They were in the fridge while we were sick. The first few rounds after a stay in the fridge hotel aren’t very good, but soon I’ll have kefir again.

My surgery had worked, and the software update was successfully installed. I decided to fixate the sensor with some electrical tape to avoid a re-occurrence.

And then I screwed things back together. I am right-handed but as I never know when my hands will be too painful, I very often try things with the left hand, too. It’s still very hard. But it has often helped.

While Bob ran a very noisy cleaning cycle, I decided it was time to clean the window frame. Okay, honestly, I was just planning to air out the room and got disgusted by how dirty everything was. Somehow, that opened the flood gates, and suddenly, I was cleaning the entire kitchen.

I even took the fridge magnets off the freezer to clean the door. It had been weeks since I’d spilled some kombucha.

The tiny kitchen heats up quickly. With Bob running the hottest cycle, it was getting warm.

When I was done with the freezer, I noticed spots all over the doors and around the light switch. So, more cleaning. These magnets are from places my husband and I visited together–or lived at. A lot of them are ugly but together, we love them.

After all that cleaning, my muscles were requesting a break–and some attention. So, I turned on an audiobook, and gave them a massage.

And then, we finally got to enjoy the sunshine. With permission from the vet, Pepper was even allowed to go without the plastic bag and bandages.

When we returned, I made a quick salad with fries for a late lunch.

I improvised a dressing with some oil, vinegar, cream, and honey. I’ll have to learn some options here over the summer. This one was delicious, though, so it’s fine that I don’t know what I’m doing, apparently.

Salad gets so much better when you pair it with fries. The freshness of the salad just pairs so well with the taste and crunch of the fries. Weirdly, I got the idea from a YT video I never watched where someone explained why they do this.

Unfortunately, one of our most reliable mushroom trees in summer is dead now. The tree was sick, but it is still sad. I’m sure we’ll find other mushroom spots. But I hate seeing old trees taken down. Especially, as I know we humans are likely to blame for this tree getting sick.

Pepper still had to wear the bandage most of the time. In real time, I am happy to report a full recovery. With the ground frozen in the mornings, I admit I wasn’t sad about short walks.

The ground is still frozen when we wake up but in the afternoon, well, over lunch, it gets really, really pretty out and a little warmer. So, we went for a long walk yesterday. It was really beautiful. I am so happy that the temperatures are slowly getting to a point where we can work in it (?) again. I mean, there’s sunshine. Look at it! Ah, nice!

So long, and thanks for being here.