I'm pretty sure I've made this mistake before...

I used up the last of my whole wheat flour earlier this week, and I thought to myself that I should just grind some more right away.  You know how it usually goes - you figure you'll wait till you need it, but then when you do it turns out to be the worst time to actually get it done?  Then you just grab the white flour instead, since it's so conveniently already flour - much easier than hauling the wheat mill up from the basement, finding a can of wheat in all the boxes, etc., etc., etc.

  So I decided it was time to be on top of things!  While my cake was baking (by the way, my new favorite cake - oatmeal!  I'm sure the oatmeal and whole wheat flour totally counterbalance the full stick of butter and 2 cups of sugar...), I found everything in the basement, reviewed instructions, set everything up, plugged it in, turned the switch, and...

NOTHING!

 And then I remember that it did this last time.  I need to push the circuit breaker switch.  The problem?  It's on the bottom of the engine/hopper section - the part I have just filled with wheat.  So I pour the wheat back into the can - spilling more than I care to admit in the process.  Hoppers are not meant to be pouring utensils!  Push the switch, put it back together, pour the wheat in, turn the switch, and...

 Oh, the noise!  I always manage to forget just how awful that high-pitched, whiny sound is.  The cats head out with ears back and tails bushy.  I watch long enough to make sure the wheat is feeding in and everything seems fine.  I double check the instructions - 1 hopper of wheat is supposed to make one bowl of flour.  I had less than a full hopper, so I decide to make like the cats and head for quieter rooms.  I checked back after a couple of minutes and everything still seemed fine.

When I went back to check a couple of minutes later, it wasn't so fine anymore.  Well, the flour was fine.  And it was everywhere!  I don't know why it made so much, but I guess once the bowl filled it just started shooting out the sides.  And this wasn't just a light dusting.  My kitchen looked like the set of a sitcom after a scene with a cooking disaster.

Maggie had to check it out.  Sometimes really tasty things fall on the floor.  She decided that whole wheat flour is not one of those tasty things.  After that, she didn't offer to help with the cleanup.








The whole disaster made enough mess that it couldn't be confined to the kitchen.  This is in my living room, on the opposite side of the wall from my stove.  The piano and TV also got a nice dusting - first of flour, then in the cleanup.

But it was really way past time for me to dust anyway, so maybe I should think of it as extra motivation?