The bad news:

About 10 days ago, we started to notice an awful smell coming from our upstairs bathroom. It got worse in the next 3-4 days. After lots of sniffing, we pinpointed the smell to the linen closet. I gingerly (and I mean gingerly!) took all the towels out, one by one, expecting to find a dead mouse. Nothing. There's a basket on the floor of the linen closet which holds tableclothes, placemats, etc. I took everything out of there, very carefully. Nothing. I took everything off every shelf. Nothing. The only conclusion we can reach is that some furry little rodent climbed or fell into the wall and died. It's so gross. For a few days there, I thought I was going to throw up every time I went in there. We've managed to contain the smell pretty well by closing the doors and keeping the fan on. I think it's abating now, although it may be that our sense of smell has been obliterated by the stench. Hopefully, it will all be over soon, because the only other option is to tear out the linen closet.

Rene's snowblower, which came with the house and is pretty much an antique, needs repairs in the neighborhood of $450. That doesn't include some other problems that Rene didn't even mention to the repair guy. So this weekend, Rene and Ben enjoyed scouting out and purchasing a new snowblower. When you live in Wisconsin and have a big yard and long driveways, a snowblower is a necessity. I didn't much enjoy the sound of $$$ being siphoned out of our account.

The good news:

I made this cake over the weekend. I made it a couple of years ago for Emily's birthday and it is soooo good! It originally came from Betty, but has not been in her cookbooks for a number of years. Good thing I'm old and have old cookbooks. Levi didn't appreciate it, though. He pronounced it "weird."

The aforementioned snowblower has HEATED HANDLES!

I'm working on a number of projects that I need to get done before Thanksgiving. One of them, while cute, is taking way longer than I anticipated and I'm making 8! I also have three sewing projects that need to get done by then. I'll post pictures when they are done and when they have found a home with their intended receivers. On that note, I'd better get busy.