Compared to the people I deal with personally I am an Excel God, because I can do things like Vlookups, conditional formatting, and an occasional complicated-looking formula like

=IF(B9="","",IF(OR(B9=$W$10,B9=$W$11,B9=$W$12),K8,VLOOKUP(C9,'D:\$ Mexico\Hiking\01_MASTER_DATABASE.xlsx]Sheet1'!$K$1:$L$200,2,FALSE)))
and actually understand it.

In reality I am a rank novice, barely skimming the top of what Excel can do. So I'm not a God, but maybe a junior level acolyte or something. That's why the attached spreadsheet is making me crazy.

WHY does my conditional formatting only highlight the first column of the supposedly formatted rows of the spreadsheet?

The attachment is an excerpt from a larger spreadsheet of household accounting and expenditures, including the big item, construction of a swimming pool in my back yard. Don't be misled by the numbers, this isn't some half-million dollar pool, the amounts are in pesos. Divide by about 20 and you'll have a more realistic figure.

First one to figure this out for me (I'm looking at you, Shonky!) I'll take out to dinner at any restaurant in Ajijic the next time you visit.

tanstaafl.