After my allergy attack yesterday, I decided to tackle the root of the issue – the dust in the house.

It actually started as an accident.  DJ and I had to come home from the Farmer’s Market early.  She wasn’t feeling well.  Being the loving and caring mom, I am; I told her it was likely the swine flu.  A bit of back story – DJ has been worried all week that she may have contracted it while in Mexico.  I spent 30 minutes yesterday telling her all of the reasons she has nothing to really worry about  So, when she announced her “stomach was feeling odd”, I thought it was an appropriate response.  She gave me sort of a “screw you” look, and I took her home.  I told her she actually had the duck flu since she feels like quack.  She was entertained by that.  We made it home just in time for her to get sick, then go to bed.

I ended up talking to a friend for a while, and when I talk on the phone, I actually have to be doing something.  I am one of those annoying people you see that paces while they talk on the phone.  You know the kind I’m talking about.  It’s genetic….my dad and brothers do the same thing.  Meanwhile our spouses and mom want to tie us to a chair just to see what happens.

To make it less annoying to those around me and to be productive, I decided to start dusting.  There is no shortage of wood to dust in our house.  Our craftsman style house has all of its original architecture inside – meaning I have built-in book shelves in both my living room and dining room.  I also have a plate rail all around my dining room and box-beamed ceilings in our dining room.  To dust everything thoroughly is only something you want to tackle every so often.  It takes a long time.  Today was that day for me.

This is one of the shelves I pulled down in the dining room.  It has not been that long since I last dusted.  Looks like its been years though.

I did discover to my horror that the dining room is going to need to get painted this summer.  Why is this horror?  It has to be done entirely by brush – no roller for this job.  I’ll take a picture sometime to show you exactly what I mean.  Maybe to make my life easier I will do both the living room and dining room at the same time.  I’ll need to break up my time in the living room if I want to stay sane.

This afternoon as we ran several boxes of stuff to Goodwill, we got caught in something rare in Oregon – a severe thunderstorm.  Heavy rain, 70 mile an hour wind gusts, hail, thunder and lightening were all there.  I miss thunderstorms, so I loved it.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!