Not Firing on All Cylinders

I was going to tell you about the craft fair (although I forgot to take pictures, so not as interesting as it might have been).  But yesterday was a DAY (not even Friday the 13th!)

Started the day by taking my car in to the mechanic.  The check engine light was on, and blinking, which is apparently NOT GOOD.  The good news?  It made it to the mechanic, they had a light enough day to actually look at it, and it turned out to be the ignition coils which were under a recall notice.  One of my coils was actually cracked, so it really was firing on only 5 cylinders.  The best news?  Free!  Because it was under the recall notice.  Yay!  The bad news?  You really need to replace your rear brakes, at a cost of several hundred dollars.  Ouch.

Showed up to help with the book fair at William's school.  Sat around for 30 minutes before the mom who was authorized to handle the money showed up.  Having rushed through the gym and Costco to make it on time, this was not appreciated.

The day was taking a turn for the better until we started the dishwasher after dinner.  It ran about 10 minutes, then chimed the "help me!" sound and turned off.  After looking up the error code, taking it partially apart to look for obstruction, and spending some time on the Internet looking for wisdom, it still doesn't work.  We think it may be the motor.  This would be less annoying if it wasn't already the 3rd motor in 5 years (original plus replaced twice).  This is WRONG, people!  10 years, ok.  Then I would expect to be doing some work.  But the racks are already rusted through in spots and it's gotten progressively noisier (again).  I'm ready to throw in the (dish)towel on this one and just get one that works.  John wants to pull it out and put the motor that we took out this summer back into it.  He says it's worth a try - fine, but I'm still going to start reading reviews and shopping around.  Because even if the old motor works?  It's only a matter of time.