"You never run out of things that can go wrong." ~ Murphy's Law #12

It's been a morning and a half and it's only 8:16 am.

Tom woke up dizzy this morning from sinus issues. It's a common occurrence when his allergies act up, but it's unsettling for him and takes a while for the sinus meds to take effect.

When Tom leaves in the morning, I listen to make sure he has used his clicker to close the garage door. Usually he remembers, this morning he didn't. I went through the laundry room to the garage and pressed the button and the big, rolling garage door started closing and I turned around and walked away and closed the door behind me. Then I heard the garage door stop...then go back up. WT?? Thinking our neighbor's cat had been in the garage and ran out and tripped the garage door sensor when she heard the door start to close, I went back to the garage and hit the button to close the garage door again. As I left, I heard the garage door stop, but this time it didn't go up again. Huh?? Retracing my steps to the garage, I opened the door and look around the garage to see what is going on. Nothing registers. I press the button again. The door goes up, but the rolling door looks crooked. Maybe it's my imagination. I hit the button again to close the garage door and it stopped less than half way down. Finally, it registers. Before leaving for work, Tom was apparently loading some stuff in his van and moved a step ladder out of the way and leaned it against the frame of the garage door. When the garage door tried to close, it stopped, wedging the step ladder between the door and the garage floor. It wedged it in so well, I couldn't pull the step ladder out.

At this point, while raising the garage door one more time, I noticed that the huge door was really cockeyed. Great! I removed the step ladder and walked over and pressed the button to close the door, but it still only closed 2/3rds of the way and stopped. I tried two or three more times, but it wouldn't close completely.

Today is my Strong Women class day. I can't leave with the garage door open. So, I called Tom. "I'll be right there," he said.

A few minutes later, he's working frantically with the door. Something came off or came loose or both. He decided he needed help, so he called The Kid, who was already waiting for him at the shop. But he can't get through to The Kid because the kid is apparently sitting in his car waiting for Tom and texting.

Finally, after several attempts, he got through and asked The Kid to come over to our house to help. After The Kid arrived, they worked on the door several minutes and finally got the door fixed.

"There," Tom says to himself, as the door opens and closes several times without issue.

Feeling relieved, Tom got in the van, put the key in the ignition and turned it...click. Nothing else, just click. Again. And again. And again. The fifth or sixth time, the ignition catches and the van starts, but a short discussion between us ensues and to avoid being stuck somewhere in Little Rock at a jobsite unable to start the van once again, we decide he should take the van back to the shop, have The Kid drive him back home to pick up the Extra-Bitchin' (Expedition, for the uninitiated) and use it to run his jobsite errands for the day. Tom came back home to pick up the Extra-Bitchin' and he also took a check with him to purchase a new starter for the van. Good thinkin'.

So moving right along, backwards to this past weekend, we went up to Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Several weeks ago, we bought a new, smaller dining room set from Pier One. I love it.



But, my bar stools didn't match because they matched the old dining room set. I saw that Pier One carried a line of counter chairs to match my dining chairs, so earlier in the week I purchased two of them, at clearance half price, at the Pier One store in Jonesboro. We drove to Jonesboro over the weekend to pick them up with the Extra-Bitchin' (obviously they don't fit in my small convertible).

This is one of the chairs from the dining set...



And these are my new counter chairs...



I am such a happy camper...except for the fiasco this morning. Oh, and the mess Tom and The Kid made last week in my house.

Yes, Tom had some time between jobs last week, so he and The Kid worked at our house. They scraped and painted the ceiling in the den and put up crown molding, sanded and primed nearly all the new trim in the house, replaced lights in the entry, hall and office and generally made a dusty mess.

I have decided today I will focus on cleaning up all of the dust that settled everywhere. I will forgo my Strong Woman class for today. I have all of the exercises copied down, the weights are in my car and I will do the exercise routine later this afternoon. Today, I will just dig right in to everything that needs to be done here at home so we can start the week anew. Starting fresh always feels good.