well, that didn't go as planned.

Yesterday morning, the kids and I headed up to the Amish for our weekly farm pick-up.  I normally have a pretty fail-proof system for packing the back of the van so that everything rides securely on the way home.  All my milk bottles fit into two milk crates, and I usually rest eggs on top of these, or on the front seat.  Next to my milk crates, I wedge in a small cooler with bottles I pick up for a friend.  Between all this, and the foldable wagon I take to help me haul the full crates to the van once the bottles have been filled, everything is pretty locked down.

Imagine a little cooler wedged in there between the wagon and the milk crate.

Yesterday, however... (I think you can see where this is going).  Yesterday, I didn't have my friend's cooler along - she still wanted milk, but had forgotten to bring her cooler and bottles in advance.  So I just borrowed a couple of plastic jugs from the Amish gal we get milk from, and figured they would be fine riding flat next to my milk crates.

WRONG-O.

I got home, opened the back hatch, and immediately saw that one of the milk jugs had tipped over, spilling about three-quarters of its contents.  However, when I looked under the jug, the carpet was suspiciously dry - where had all the milk gone?

Well, friends, it had followed a narrow channel of carpet all the way from the back, past the two bench seats, and puddled on the floor by the front passenger seat.  There was milk spilled the entire length of my van.  By the time I walked around to the side to see what the damage was, milk was literally pouring out the bottom seal of the sliding door, onto the driveway.

So instead of cozying up with the kids in the afternoon, doing read-alouds and drinking tea, I spent THREE HOURS cleaning out the van.  Why three hours?  Well, because first I had to remove a bunch of car seats in order to get the bench seat out of the back.  Then, I covered everything in baking soda to suck up the moisture and absorb the milk smell.  Then I vacuumed the baking soda, but because the carpet was still somewhat wet, I needed a second go-round with the baking soda.  Then, when I tried vacuuming that up, the wet pasty mess clogged the Shop Vac.  So then I had to wait for everything to dry, and try again with the house vacuum.  Once that was vacuumed up, I tried an upholstery cleaner spray I found in the garage... the instructions of which directed me to spray it on, scrub it in, let it dry, and then vacuum it up.

So in all, I vacuumed my van four times.  And did it help?  Sort of.  At least I got the baking soda cleaned up, but my van still smells like milk.  And it's only September in Missouri, so I fully anticipate another stretch of 80+-degree days to hit us here soon, which will really allow that milky smell to fully express its true self.  Looking forward to it!

And that is how my day went yesterday.  How was yours?