For the last two weeks, I have been dealing with a dust storm in our house.
It was bad enough that it had snowed so much that my husband couldn’t get the ash bucket emptied on the ash pile.
It was even worse that the little boy I babysat for decided the ash bucket was a great pile to use his toy bucket truck. When I asked my husband to clean the hearth for me, he gave me attitude. After he cleaned the fireplace earlier in the season, I was only dusting one a week. Now that the ashes were all over the fireplace, I was dusting every date. My china hutch and china were covered in dust and dust webs. It looked like it had been neglected for months instead of hours. When the snow finally let up, my husband pulled out his shop vac and went to work on the fireplace. It took him a couple of hours to clean up the ash so I could clean up the dust. He had to empty the ash bucket twice. I was glad he was able to make a path to where the ash pile was supposed to be. We won’t know for sure until the snow melts, but for now, he has ashes down to help cover the ice, and my fireplace is clean. Of course, our little boy isn’t happy with me. He now has mountains to excavate. When he realizes he can play without sneezing and that there is heat in the fireplace, I think he’ll be less unhappy.