Here is a step-by-step on cleaning sterling silver

Firstly, you must use the right cleaning sterling silver jewelry products. Stay away and never use products such as ammonia, bleach, alcohol, acetone because it can cause permanent damage beyond repair. If you doesnot have commercial products then you can use mild cleaner and some products such as baking soda or mild phosphate free detergents instead.

Secondly, Choose soft brush to avoid scratches or permanent damage that can be done when using hard bristle brushes.

Thirdly, Many people move the brush in circular motion when cleaning sterling silver jewelry and this is totally wrong because doing so can cause scratches and irreversable damage. Use up and down motion instead.

Finally, when drying and finalize cleaning you must use proper cloth material such as 100% cotton or silver cloth because it is very good for taken off natural oils that come out from your skin or left no the sterling silver jewelry itself.

Follow these steps mentioned above and with a little practice you can insure that your sterling silver jewelry will last longer and always in tip top shape.

Learn more about oxidation of sterling silver here including cleaning sterling silver and storing methods, sterling silver jewelry, sterling silver pendants, sterling silver rings and sterling silver necklaces.

Art of the Day: Taino by Maria Garcia.

I love this. You can see the emotion in this face. In the eyes. Someone made this face, this emotion out of rock. Amazing. Sidenote - what an unfortunate name. Maria Garcia. I hope her parents weren't cruel and actually named her this. I hope she married into the rhyme.

Ahahahhaha. I would pay to see this. "We probably sound like a group of grannies in a knitting circle, but it's the truth."
– Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, revealing that he and his bandmates sew clothes while recording albums, to U.K.'s Mirror.

Hmm. I'm trying something different. Normally, plain bagels make me a very happy camper. I am now trying blueberry bagels. I'm just not sure about them. They're sweet and the bread is all purple inside because of the blueberries. Purple bread just messes with my mind. So I don't know. Think I'm gonna have to go back to my plain Jane bagels.

Speaking of Jane, I have a rehearsal dinner to go to tonight. A paid for rehearsal dinner because I'm "part of the bridal party". And I say that in quotations because I'm the guestbook girl. I sit by a book for thirty minutes and I get my meal paid for because of it. I find it all a little too humorous. Jane's wedding has become a much larger production than I would have imagined.

Also, my Aunt Josie will be here today. And I stayed up super late cleaning my apartment last night so that she wouldn't realize what a slob I am. Okay, that's sort of a lie. I cleaned until 11:30 which is earlier than I usually go to bed but considering I wanted to go to bed at 8:30 last night, yeah. I was tuckered out. I found out some rather disturbing things about me while cleaning. I have a shitload of socks. Seriously. A whole drawer full of socks. It looked like a sea of marshmallows. And apparently I'm not just hording socks. Bras too. Bras I never wear. Bras I should throw away. Filling up a whole drawer. It's madness. And none of this compares to my pj's. You won't believe this. I don't believe this. I have THREE drawers full of pj's. Three! Filled to the brim. What person in their right mind needs that many pj's? And what's really scary about all this is that I have a ton of laundry to do so I could have even more bras, socks, and pj's lurking within.

To show you the randomness of my thoughts, I'm looking on art.com just now for my "Art of the Day" feature and I saw art predominantly featuring Chinese symbols. Underneath was the translation. "Enlightenment". How am I to know that that symbol REALLY says that? It could say 'fuck' for all I know. This got me to thinking about an article I read a while back about how in an Asian country (I can't remember if it was China or Japan), it was becoming popular to get English words tattooed on your skin. Only the tattoo artists were screwing them over, giving them random letters like EGWYTK and telling them it meant "Fierce" or something like that. But then my mind went back to the 'fuck' statement and I wondered what curses sounded like in other languages. What's the Chinese word for fuck? Do they even have one or do they have some other completely different set of curse words? These are the things I wonder about. Which is both telling and scary all at the same time.

I've finally done it! I have successfully written a chapter of my story and a blog post in one day! And I must say I'm very happy with the last few chapters. When I want to read them several times over, that makes it good for me. No matter what anybody else thinks.

I saw this on Twitter: "facebook movie to be written by someone who has no clue about it. lol!" My first reaction was okay, whatever, bor-ing. Moving on. Then I thought, wait a minute, they are making a movie about Facebook? Are you serious? So I clicked the link tinythoughts kindly provided. Sure enough, a movie about Facebook. Well, the founders of facebook. And the guy who's making it didn't even know what Facebook was when he first agreed to do it. Which just makes me wonder about this man. He agrees to do a movie when he knows absolutely nothing about it. Doesn't sound promising for a good movie to me. It makes me think that he would agree to do absolutely anything, even if it means filming a bird as it eats roadkill, then slapping a cover on it, and calling it a movie.

I twitted/twittered about my blueberry bagels this morning and got this reply back from one of my followers. "Blueberry bagels are eeeevil. Get everything or go home! </jewrant>" I thought the 'eeeevil' bit was funny as if reminded me of Dr. Evil and I love him so much that he's my ringtone that I wake up to every morning. I didn't fully understand the 'get everything or go home' bit though. and the </jewrant> thing, are Jewish people not supposed to have blueberries and I just didn't know about it or is it some kind of computer lingo that I am clueless about?

Got back from the rehearsal dinner about oh wow, it's already been two hours ago. There were a ton of people there. I walked in the same time as Denny. Denny and I have a sort of history together. We were friends for maybe I guess a year and somewhere during that time he began to like me. I was oblivious at first as I usually am until I was informed of his affection by Lanae. It was extremely high school-ish. Anyway, I didn't like him in that way and I couldn't see why on earth he liked me. We had nothing in common. I think we seriously disagreed on every single topic. It wasn't a problem as friends. Made for interesting discussions, even if I would occasionally lose my temper when I thought he had a particularly stupid viewpoint. But in a relationship? I'm not into the whole opposites attract thing. Okay, I'm getting way into detail here. The point is our lovely friends took it upon themselves to butt in continually and I forget the details now but somehow they communicated to him that I didn't like him like that and that I knew how he felt. Being the person that he is, he felt the need to call me and tell me that they were all wrong, that he didn't like me like that and that he didn't want things to be awkward between us. Rolling my eyes at the lie part of his tale to cover his own ego, I agreed perfectly that I didn't want things to be awkward between us. I was perfectly fine continuing to be friends with him. That was one of the last if not the very last conversations we had that was not completely and totally awkward. Which I guess that conversation was awkward as well but you get my point.

He makes it especially difficult because he constantly goes back and forth between refusing to even look at me and being friendly to me. So I never know which Denny I'm going to get. Blah. Boys are so complicated. I just want to be able to talk to the guy when I see him without having to wonder, "Is he going to completely blow me off this time?" I guess I never actually got around to telling what happened tonight with Denny. So I walk in right behind him and he's being the don't-look-at-Jules-under-any-circumstances Denny even though I'm right behind him. I internally sigh. And of course we end up sitting at the same table. But I think he realized we were sitting at the same table before me because he started talking to me at the salad bar as if he hadn't just completely ignored me five minutes before and then I saw we were sitting together. Maybe he just had to work up something to say? Which I guess I can understand that. I do that with certain people. Think of conversation topics when I know it's going to be difficult to talk to them. That makes me sad though that it's difficult to talk to me. It's been a year since all our drama.

And that's really all I have to say about the dinner. Other than the fact that I'm kind of sad about where my friendship with Lanae is. We hardly ever talk anymore and when we do, most of the time we don't really have anything to talk about. I love her. She is and always will be my best friend but our lives are so very different now. She's married, has two step-kids, and a baby due any day now. And me? I'm single and well, single. Oh! That reminds me. I would love love love love LOVE if people didn't find the need to ask me if I had a boyfriend or to helpfully point out 'young available men' to me. I'm not looking. Maybe that makes me weird in the minds of the general population but at this point and time, the idea of being in a relationship just completely sounds like too much work to me. I'm happy being single. No one seems to understand that. They look at me like I'm an alien, I have a mental disease, or they think I'm flat out lying because they think I don't want them to pity me. Urg. And I especially would appreciate if they didn't do the whole look-at-this-available-young-man thing when the guy is from 3 states away and is just visiting. Who in their right mind would purposely get in a long-distance relationship? If you're dating someone and they have to move, sure. But to start one that way? Yeah, I'm not for that. I'm not saying that I absolutely refuse to date anyone right now. If a guy comes along and completely knocks my socks off and by some miracle likes me back, then sure. But he would have to be REALLY worth it. Because I'm actually happy with the way things are for the moment.

I think this new stance of mine may also have a teeny bit to due with the fact I don't want to get hurt again. I don't like the idea of putting my heart on the line to only get it ripped open. And yes that makes me a chicken shit but since I've finally gotten to the point where I'm not just content being single but I'm happy with it, then I'm not gonna worry about my cowardly tendencies.

Man that's a funny cartoon. Amazing what you find when you Google images something. Guess that's all for tonight. I actually wish I had more to say as I'm in a really talkative mood but at the moment I think I've pretty much said everything. Oh! Video of the Day. I'm getting really bad about that.

Video of the Day: Juliet by Royal Wood (the most interesting thing I found attached to my name on youtube in my admittedly short search)

Companies Profiled:

Coverall North America Incorporated
Jani-King International Incorporated
JAN-PRO Franchising International Incorporated
Table of Contents:

HIGHLIGHTS

INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
Market Size
Materials Segmentation
Applications Segmentation

INDUSTRY TRENDS & FORECASTS
Market Environment
Materials Forecasts
Applications Forecasts

INDUSTRY STRUCTURE
Industry Composition
Industry Leaders

RESOURCES

Focus Report Overview

Each Freedonia Focus provides access to a wealth of industry insights and analysis including:

Market size

Product segmentation

Market segmentation

Product forecasts

Market forecasts

Industry composition

Market leaders

Business trends
 

For more Information, Kindly visit - http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=71670

It's a little heart in my hands...
So easily breakable..yet able to mend together easily, with some work that is~
It's just candy right?

Omgsh this morning was horrific >.<
My sister knocked off nail polish off the desk and it broke! Plus splattered all over!! T.T;;
(I didn't witness it though... >.<;;)
So I got on my hand and knees to clean it up inhaleing those fumes from the nail polish and the nail polish remover T.T
The worst part is probably for my brother though, the smell is still in there after hours and hours!!
(Plus he's a guy, and naturally they don't like the smell, mostly when its in their 'bubble' lol XD)

--Kimiko--

What a busy day!  It started out with a drive to the city, where I spent a Target gift card (new pliers), got the car's wheels aligned and balanced, and fought off the salesman's desparate attempt to sell me tires.  He was right in the fact that I will need them soon, but I'm not as quickly won over as the lady he convinced needed tie rods like RIGHT...MEOW.

I also went to the friendly Lowe's, where they sell you $20 power washers and give you a military discount any time of the year.  It's amazing how capitalism and competition can drive prices down, so I guess it makes sense to take that away with national health care right???  I got a set of saw blades and a new fire extinguisher.

After that, I came home and got to work.  Here is the end result of my efforts for the day:

Deck and Patio Cleared of Debris.

So, one might ask, how did the grill get off the deck?  It was simple - I decided to take a cue from Obama and miracle that piece off the deck!!!  I knew if I spoke eloquently enough, I could convince it to float off the deck and down to the ground.  Next week maybe I'll sit down and speak eloquently with our enemies, right???

The firewood is a temporary pile until something more permanent is arranged inside the basement.  You wouldn't believe the spider I found in it while moving logs - that thing had it's own zipcode and I'm pretty sure I caught it in the middle of doing long division or something to that effect that you expect from higher life forms.  At 4 inches in diameter (legs, not body, and not a daddy long legs), I thought about taking a picture but decided not to let it escape.  It died under the mouse 2 x 4 in a very messy splat.

After looking at the neighbors house, I decided I'll need to protect the ground when I tackle the deck.  I think the other thing I'm going to do is stain and seal the bottom side so it has a uniform appearance.  I haven't decided completely yet, but I am leaning in that direction.  We'll just have to see how much stain, sealant, time, and patience I will have at my disposal on Sunday or Monday or whenever I start this thing.  I can't believe I did this every day for an entire summer when I was younger.

While I was taking a picture of the deck, I also went next door and snapped a picture of the neighbor's house taking shape.  Here are some pictures, in order, looking from left to right from the entrance to their bedrooms off of the great room in the southwest corner of which I am standing:

2.  Do the washing

3.  Do some time on the cross trainer

4.  Buy a card, a sweet, sweet, card.  I am all about the cards.

5.  Investigate retirement schemes and health insurance - oh my goodness, that sounds so grown up

1. Clean the kitchen...or clean. Anything. Somethingpleasegodjustfreakingclean.

OR

2. Read Ch. 1 of "End-User Information Systems: Implementing Individual and Work Group Technologies"---

2nd Edition

YES!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I was having some interent problems on my laptop. Initially I was having trouble connecting. In thinking I could poke around and fix it, I ended up making it worse. So, after a small plea and a pathetic look, I got the IT guy at my work to look at it and fix it. So, I am now back in business and it's a celebration of Van Damme proportions!

He's got some funky moves in his little spandex getup there!

Since I had a few days without interent access at home it gave me time to do other less fun things, like cleaning. Not that I'm a dirt mongrel, but I started cleaning drawers and cupboards that normally don't get cleaned as often. Speaking of, why does it seem everyone has a junk drawer in their kitchen? Every place I've lived I had a kitchen junk drawer and my mom has one in her house too. Mind you, I didn't clean it out because it'll go back to being filled with junk in no time. I just thought I'd ponder the reason for it's existence.

Anyways, while cleaning I always come across something odd that I own. I like having weird things and I'll often buy them for the strange factor alone. I came across one of those odd yet cool things recently. My Spiderman chain/crime deterrent.

Sure, you see a cool looking Spiderman because, let's face it, Spiderman is alwayscool! But, alas my dear readers, this is also a form of protection for myself. You see, I'm an on the go gal who often travels alone, drives alone, and for the next 2 weeks, lives alone. So, I need something to protect myself in the face of crime, but that can also accessorize any outfit. I know...now you're thinking "But, how can that flashy yet stylish chain help, DC?" Does it's coolness distract attackers therefore giving me a chance to escape? No. Do I throw it at my attacker's eye rendering him blind so that I can make a run for it? No. The answer lies below.

That's right. Hidden in what appears to be Spidey's feet lies a knife or 'shank' as we call it in the joint. So in the event of a potential attack, all I have to do is clutch my Spiderman while begging for mercy without the criminal knowing that I am in fact reaching for the blade. Then after about 500 stab wounds (the blade is only about 3 inches long) my possible attacker will now be begging me for mercy! Once my fingers un-cramp from having to hold this knife tightly so I wouldn't lose it in my attackers torso, I can dial the police and get help. I don't need any pepper spray or guns. Oh, no...not when I have the Spidey crime protection unit! So, bring on the criminals, me and my Spidey will be ready with some vigilante justice!

Rode Maverick today, can't say riding horses is my thing. I leave that to Alex...

Last day of work. It's great, made my little sidekick do all the window cleaning. I got to buff the whole time I was there.

Rode to Bredon to the Fox and Hounds, pestered them lots. Rejected Ash, I bet he's in a layby somewhere crying, I even bet he's still there, hours later. Frog and Fiddle sounds like a fun place, but I can't be arsed.

Should be going to the Gloscol Open day on monday, again, to enquire about HND's in Graphic Design / Multimedia or Commercial Web Development.

That's it. I'm bored, I'm sweaty, and I should of had a shower first :(

Bye, mniz.

2. I threw away an entire red pepper today because I never felt like chopping it up for the last 3 recipes that called for it.

3. There is probably something growing underneath my sons booster because I haven't felt like unstrapping it to clean it for like ever.  I know, gross!

4. I am sitting here typing this blog instead of doing any of these things!

5. I just realized that I haven't had the inside of my car cleaned in like 3 months!!! This is super lazy because I don't even do it myself I just have to drive to the car wash place.

6. My husband goes through a ridiculous amount of wrinkle releaser because I hate ironing his work shirts or anything else for that matter.

7. Cleaning out the shoe bin. We have a shoe bin by the front door that is so full of shoes I have to search for like 5 minutes ever time I go out and every time I think "I need to clean this thing out."

There are probably a whole bunch more reasons but this is all I feel comfortable disclosing for now :)

I've determined that boys are just gross, and they are okay with it. Remember how I cleaned Anthony's room and even did all his laundry? Can't even tell it happened anymore. Don't even get me started on his bathroom. Yuck. Don't get me wrong, I love him no matter what, but I'm going to remember this and laugh when he's complaining about his kids always having a trashed room! (Just as I'm sure my parents are laughing at me!)

The girls just leave a trail of toys wherever they go (when they're not playing in pee, so maybe they're gross too....).  :) Better stop blogging and go clean AGAIN. :) Ah, the joys of running a household, I have to admit, I do enjoy it! Maybe not the cleaning, but everything else is okay. And I don't always mind the cleaning, it's when I've spent so much time cleaning and look up to see they've not wasted anytime in dirtying it up again!

Gah! now to get off my ass and do it.

As of yesterday, I mean.  We got after it.  And man, it makes a difference.  The virtues of a clean apartment cannot really be overstated.  When you and your worldly possessions are bounded in a one-bedroom nutshell (Hamlet reference anyone?), as some of you may know from personal experience, there's not much room for clutter.  One stray issue of the New Yorker and a balled up sock and you got a mess - a mess that multiplies exponentially by the day, the thinking being "Well shit, there's already a New Yorker and a balled up sock out here, might as well leave yesterday's mail too."  Isn't there some physics to that?  The natural order of things is chaos, or something.  Things want to be messy.  And sometimes, I think, who am I to argue with physics?  You know, let the natural order do its thing.  But then, other times, when we do battle with physics and push back the natural order of things, like now, it feels terrific.  The apartment is orderly.  I feel relaxed.  I can't procrastinate the day's writing by straightening, which is a good thing.  Yep. I can locate the remote with ease.  And procrastinate that way.

We have roles, when we clean.  We never chose them or assigned them, but they evolved, unnoticed by either of us, until they suddenly loomed, fully-formed, non-negotiable, as if contracted.  I de-clutter.  That's my main thing.  A place for everything and everything in its place, all that jazz.  Also, I vacuum - a chore that fell to me, I suppose, because of the excellent vacuuming skills I acquired working for Stanley Steamer Carpet Cleaner many years ago.  I wipe down the computer and organize the desk area.  I used to handle the cat's turd box too, but since Marlowe's arrival, Tara's taken a more active role in the arena of poop scooping, which is appreciated.  I can't remember what else I do.  I get things down from high places.

Tara, by contrast, is the deep cleaner.  She hits the bathroom, gets the triceps and the delts working on that tub.  She mops.  She dusts things.  She waters the plants.  She empties the trash.  But sometimes I empty the trash too, so that one doesn't really count.  She does the dishes more often than I do, which is not to say that I won't do them, but that Tara's tolerance for a sink full of dirty dishes is somewhat less than my own.  She will usually get fed up about the dishes before I will.  So that works out.  For me, I mean.

One thing that's nice about Tara's cleaning technique: she cleans in her underwear.  Yesterday she scrubbed the windows wearing a wife beater and boy briefs.  You can do that sort of thing when you own the place.  I think a few people, if they happened to look up at the right moment, might have seen my wife in her undies at the window.  That's OK.  The view was better from up here.

A wife that cleans my house in her panties.  Wow.  You'd think I trained her.

We've all had this happen to us... We call a service company to come work on our roof or satelite dish and they come into our clean beautiful homes with dirty boots ALL covered in tar from their last job.   I don't have to describe what happens next... BUT you end up with a big problem on your clean carpets and in your home.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  With a little patients, a white towel and and some volatile dry solvent you can remove the tar without damaging your carpet.  So how do you do this???

Simply purchase some volatile dry solvent like "Goo Gone" and put some on a white towel (Do not be tempted to pour directly into the spot as this will drive the tar in deeper into your carpet).  Take your white towel and begin working the tar spot in 8 different directions like an asterisk.  You'll notice the tar will begin to transfer from the carpet onto the towel.  Once the area on your towel is saturated, turn the towel to a clean area, apply more solvent and continue cleaning.  Simply keep working and turning the towel over the tar spot until the stain is gone.  Be careful not to scrub the carpet hard as this can cause permanent damaga to your carpet fibers.

Once the tar spot is gone, place an oscillating fan over the are and allow to air dry.  Be sure to open a window and allow the air to vent out.

If a shadow still exists, contact a professional carpet cleaner.  The tar may have penetrated deep into the carpet pile near the backing which requires vacuum and rinsing to remove tar from below.

Emilio Martinez, FiberCare Carpet Cleaning, El Paso, Texas (El Paso's Best Carpet Cleaning)

For as long as I can remember, a sweet Lysol scent was the indicator of a clean house.  Nowadays though, the smell of Lysol along with many other cleaners makes me think of poison, and since becoming a mother I am much more aware of what comes in and goes on the house. 

I’ve tried numerous cleaning products, mostly natural, some not so natural (yet claim to be), and some that I make myself.  My fav is the products from Eco-me.  Eco-me supplies you with all the items necessary to make your own products.  You can purchase the Home, Body, Baby, Dog, and Cat kits to create your own 100% natural products. 

The Home kit comes complete with :

1 natural fiber storage bag
2 spray bottles for mixing spray cleaner and polish
1 jar for mixing scrub cleanser
1 natural bristle scrub brush
1 handy mixer
1 microfiber cleaning cloth
1 bottle Eco-Me Home Cleaning Essential Oil
Easy to follow instructions show you how to mix ingredients right from your own kitchen.

All you need to do is follow the instructions, and bring your own oil, vinegar, water, and baking soda, most of which you probably already have in your home.  I have tried the Home kit and love the smell of lemongrass that is left behind, and now I would like to try the Baby kit.

[gallery]

It's a version of that poem I posted a few days ago, I saw this version on another site, but it was missing the "Where is the Mother whose house is so shocking?" line so I just had to add that back in, it's my favourite line :) Here's my version:

Where is the Mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s out on the swingset, blissfully rocking!

I hope that my child, looking back on today
Will remember a mother who had time to play;

Because children grow up while you're not looking,
There are years ahead for cleaning and cooking.

So, quiet now cobwebs, dust go to sleep.
I'm nursing my baby, and babies don't keep.

For those who are interested in such factoids, it is printed on Nepalese Lokta paper, which I then tore to give a rough edge and stuck onto a Thai Mulberry paper card (much thicker than Lokta). The flowers are Mulberry paper too, the broom is twiggy stuff.

I went mad a few months ago and bought heaps and heaps of Mulberry embellishments on Ebay just because I love them and because everyone should have a box full of mixed up paper flowers to stick onto letters, cards or anything at all! Littlepixie, needless to say, had a ball playing with all the flowers, she even swept them all up afterwards with the miniature broom. Too cute!

My house is still messy, by the way, but now I have a pretty little card to remind me everyday that it's ok, it's a "home" not just a "house" after all!

ONE and TWO shrieked as they crawled through the house after each other yesterday. I stood in the kitchen, looked around at the elements of dinner, all in various degrees of completion and wanted to disappear.

Though yesterday SUCKED, I'm breathing a little better in general because days  like this have been less frequent. In the last month I decided to make a change. ONE thrives with consistency and a schedule. I figured I probably would too. I knew I needed more time for myself, but had no idea how I would make that work. So here is what I've done.

4:30A-7:00A: Wake up, coffee and writing. Time for me. (If ONE gets up during this juncture, she "sleeps" quietly on the couch until 7-0-0. If she stays in bed she gets three Princess snack treats.)

7-8:30: Breakfast for the girls, get dressed, walk the dog and play.

8:30-9:30: TWO goes down for first nap, ONE can pick two shows of her (limited) choice to watch. During this time I shower, meditate, pray, etc.

9:30-10:30: ONE and I work on her workbooks, crafts, art projects

10:30-12: TWO gets up, ONE gets a snack and then we go somewhere. Errands, a park, or when the weather's bad and I have no money, we go to Target and "dream shop" or try on shoes.

12-12:30: Lunch. If we're at a park, then a picnic.

12:30-2: Naps for ONE & TWO. Sometimes me too if I'm exhausted from the morning. If not, I watch TV while I clean up, prep dinner or tackle laundry. And by TV, I mean my guilty pleasure of Sex in the City. Any random episode will do. I know them all by heart at this point. Just something to listen to (not produced by Disney) while doing the things that can make me numb.

2-4: One day a week this is partially for grocery shopping or trips to Costco. The rest of it is for walking the dog, playing at the park, playing together. This can also be mind numbing, I mean, there's only so many times I can be Prince Phillip, Gaston or LeFou, but since I've had time for myself, I don't feel as though my life is limp and someone else's.

4-5: TWO goes back down one last time. Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she doesn't. ONE colors, or plays with play-doh or finishes her art projects while I start dinner. Either way, we're listening to Disney again and I'm counting down the hours/minutes until HUSBAND returns. ONE is counting the minutes until 5-0-0 when she can watch Arthur.

5-6: Making dinner and getting TWO back up and fed. As we head into the witching hour (hungry, bored, tired and whining), relief comes in the form of Charlie and Lola, Mickey Mouse, Little Einsteins or Arthur. They're all much easier to tune out than she is. And while I know she's watching 150% more TV than her doctor feels she should, I know my limitations as a mom. This is part of my best, and I'm okay with it.

6-8: Dinner, bath, family games.

8-8:30. TWO goes down. Story time/prayers with ONE.

So yeah. Rainy days are rough. Winter will suck. But it's a start. And somehow, for me, compartmentalizing a day makes it much easier to exist within it.

Looong before I discovered the awesome health benefits of the raw-foods lifestyle, yeah way back when I was a teenager and munched my share of junk-food, I had a passion for living an earth friendly lifestyle.  I learned a lot about the many issues surrounding the use of synthetic chemical household products from the pollution involved in their production, the effects they have on our indoor environments (i.e. our homes!) and the after effects when they were washed down the drain (adding more volatile compounds to our wastewater). I was excited whenever I found a safer version of a cleaning product my family used (yeah I’ve always been a bit dorky!) and often the best ones were also ones that I could make myself using non-toxic (often formerly edible) household products such as baking soda and vinegar! Like I once heard in a movie, “With enough baking soda and vinegar one could blow up just about anything” wait...they were talking about soap...oh well back to the dynamos of eco-friendly cleaning. BS and V. You can use either of these on their own or in combination to clean darn near anything!! There have been whole books written on the many uses of both of these products.

     You can replace your:

Carpet freshener, stain remover, tub and tile scrub, toilet cleaner, all purpose spray cleaners, window sprays, fabric softeners, laundry boosters, sink drain deodorizers, oven and range top cleaners and shower spray using either baking soda or vinegar alone or in combination!! Imagine what a huge reduction in pollution that would amount to!

     How they work. Let’s start with baking soda, a.k.a. sodium bicarbonate. Baking soda has a natural tendency towards neutralizing acids and balancing ph. What this means is that odors which are generally acid based are neutralized! Also most dirt and grease around the house is composed of fatty acids which can be neutralized by baking soda and will then dissolve away in water!  Baking soda has a soft crystalline molecular structure which makes it an awesomely effective yet gentle abrasive substance for scrubbing!

   On the other side of the ph scale we have vinegar. Vinegar is formed when alcohol is allowed to ferment into acetic acid. Being an acid, vinegar boasts the power of a solvent and also has been found to have disinfectant, antifungal and anti-mold properties! In many studies it’s been found to kill 99% of bacteria, 82% of mold and 80% of germs (viruses) when used straight up with its original 5% vinegar solution!

Here are some formulas to get you started!

A spray bottle full of a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water can be used to clean windows and other glass surfaces, wipe down counter tops, cutting boards, stove tops, and get rid of food residues on your fridge and freezers’ interior.  Spritz it on your dishes in the sink as a pre-wash to loosen up the tough stuff, clean your toilet seat and lid and spray down your shower after each use to prevent mold and mildew growth and reduce hard water build up and soap scum.  Spray on clothes and carpet stains and blot out with a rag or paper towel (this works better the sooner you get to it, just like other cleaners).

Use about ½ cup of vinegar in a bucket of water to mop your floors. It’ll dissolve all sorts of spilled dried on foods, grime, and reduces germs and molds in the process!!

Pour a cup of vinegar in your toilet and let it sit for about half hour then scrub as normal without the need of any synthetic cleaners!

Adding a ¼ cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle of your laundry will act as a natural fabric softener. I’ve also found it boosts the cleaning power of my detergent when I add it to the wash cycle!

Pour some vinegar down a smelly drain and let it set for an hour (if possible) to dissolve food gunk deposits and kill bacteria and molds in the p-trap.

A neat way to unclog drains ~ pour about a ¼ cup of baking soda into the drain and get the sinks plug ready. Next pour in a ½ cup of vinegar and plug ASAP! The chemical reaction will cause a fizzing and build of gas which may help push the clog down, kinda like a lil’ model volcano goin’ off in your plumbing! Sweet!

Baking Soda can be kept in a squeeze condiment container on your sink top where you’ll find it handy for scrubbing the grime and mildew off of your sinks interior and gently polishing the faucet and fixtures as well as your tile backsplash.  It’ll also help scrub away oily residues from plates, pots, and pans etc., and de-funkify your plastic storage containers! Keep one of these squeeze containers handy in the bathroom as well for scrubbing tiles, sinks, fixtures, and the tub!

Fill a mason jar with baking soda and add in some powdered cinnamon, or dried mint leaves and/or essential oils.  Shake it thoroughly and keep it stored in a cool dark place. This powder can be sprinkled on your carpets and allowed to set for an hour or more it will absorb and neutralize odors then just vacuum away! This powder can also be sprinkled in funky trashcans and the litter box!

And everyone knows about baking sodas ability to absorb fridge and freezer funk! Just leave a slightly open box in the fridge.  Mind the placement though; I’ve had the displeasure of having to clean up a butt-ton of spilled powder a few times myself.

Now you have an arsenal of earth-friendly cleaners to get your place clean and still keep it “green”!

Many of these cleaners can be further pimped out with the addition of all natural essential oils such as lavender, patchouli, ylang-ylang, lemon, lime, orange, cinnamon, vanilla, sandalwood, thyme- the list of awesome scents available goes on and on! Many essential oils have aromatherapuetic qualities which is an added bonus! Be sure to check any precautions with the oils and use your best judgment when adding scents to the cleaners for their purposes, i.e. you might not want to put patchouli in the spray you use for the fridgerator unless you wanna get a whiff of the 70’s when you open the door, not to mention what your food would taste like! Ewww)

Art of the Day: Asian Hydrangea Bloom by Edo Painters

I don't typically enjoy Asian art. That's not completely true. Obviously by my posting this picture. But my mother loves it. I think her house would be a perfect replica of a traditional Chinese home if she could. I like Asian colors and designs that that use in their fabrics. Their paintings are much more muted in alot of cases and I guess that may have something to do with why I'm not as much of a fan of the art work.

Sorry about no post yesterday. I found myself sitting at the laptop at 10:30pm and I still hadn't even started a post for the day. And I was exhausted. It's official that I can't write both a blog and a chapter of my story in one day. Because yesterday I wrote one or two chapters and was completely blogged out. I had no words left.

I found an interesting article online today. And when I say interesting, I mean weird. The world is discussing ownership rights of the moon. You heard me, the moon. Apparently several countries are planning to go back to the moon and set up little moon camps. This is all fascinating, really, but doesn't it cost millions and millions ...and millions of dollars to go to the moon? And let me just check this... but isn't the moon basically just a big rock? Yeah, I thought so. Oh, don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful rock. And going would be very cool. But I don't think it ranks above using those millions and millions and ...millions of dollars to help this planet. Ya know, the one with people on it. If we can't even feed our own people and NOT destroy our own ecosystems, do you really think going to the moon is a good idea? We're more likely to screw it up and Earth in the process than do any good. And the very fact that they aren't even there yet and are discussing 'property rights' doesn't bode well. Forget Star Wars, I see Moon Wars in our future.

I brought up the fact that my sister had a miscarriage the other day in my blog. What I didn't mention was what I was doing when I found out. I was in the process of writing a chapter for my story about a threatened abortion which is just another term for an almost miscarriage. It was bizarre on so many levels. But one thing that is true about me, I don't like to talk about these types of things. The ones that cut too close to home and hurt. So I'm done with this subject for now.

I had an old man repeatedly check out my chest in conversation today. Usually I am pretty oblivious to these type of things. That or they just don't happen. I'm going to go with oblivious. But I had a cliche moment with this man because for maybe the second time in my life I actually felt the desire to say, "I'm up here." It's not like I have a great rack either. Small chested female present and accounted for. Guess it wasn't too much of a problem with this guy. And he was old so the first time he did it I almost looked down thinking I had spilled something on my shirt or somehow I was exposing myself and hadn't become aware of it.

My Aunt Josie is coming in tomorrow. She'll be coming by my apartment at some point so I have to have it sparkling clean. It is WAY far from that now so even though for once I am dog tired at ten and ready to go to bed I'm going to be up all night cleaning. Figures. Damn procrastination.

No video today. Been too busy.

I scrubbed the kitchen sink and have done a load of laundry. Breakfast was a waffle and a glass of OJ. Lunch was a bean and cheese burrito; it was so good! Dinner is pasta with seitan.

Some man rang my doorbell this morning. It so happened that I was on the phone with the Mister at the time.
ME: Some man IN A SUIT just rang the bell
Mister: Do you see a vehicle?
ME: NO!!! He's walking down our driveway now. OH! HE HAS A BRIEFCASE.
Mister: Where is he?
ME: He's walking down the street now. Wait, he just did one of those "ALRIGHT" signs with his arm.
Mister: What?
ME: You know, that thing men do when they have scored some hot chick's number.
Mister: Ok. You know, he's probably canvassing the neighborhood to see who's home.
ME: That's possible. I mean, honestly, who wears a suit anymore?

In my home, the cleaning process is perpetually a work-in-progress. I've found that if cleaning a certain section of the house requires more than just a 10-15 minute wipe down, it probably won't get done. Problem is, after a few months, things start getting really dirty. So I'm forever in pursuit of an effective maintenance plan. And super-effective cleaners are my primary weapon in the development of this plan.

So last night I embarked on a journey, albeit a short one, to figure out if there was a combination of cleaning products and/or natural products that I could combine to create an effective cleaner. Ideally, what I'm looking for is a product that I can spray on, let sit a few minutes, wipe off, and have magically whiten up my grout. If I can find, or fabricate, a cleaner like that, I could hose down my countertops every night, thereby lightening up the grout little by little, until it reaches the level where my spray-and-wipe attacks are just maintenance.

I have not been successful thus far.

My initial idea was some form of acid-base two step process that when applied to the grout would create a chemical reaction that quickly lifts excessive gunk out of the grout so it could be wiped away. First up: lemon juice (acid) and Windex (base). No luck. Not much reaction and the grout was no cleaner. I'm chalking this failure up to the fact that Windex contains a substantial amount of water, thus reducing it's status as a base.

Next try: lemon juice (acid) and baking soda (base). Good reaction but no cleaning. Even when I scrubbed it with a brush. I also discovered an unfortunate by-product of using lemon juice: a yellowish stain. Seeing as how this new staining is completely contradictory to effect I'm trying to achieve, any solution containing lemon juice has been dismissed as invalid.

Next up: Simple Green. I've been very successful with my other applications of Simple Green (cleaning hardened food stains, animal feces stains) and I've had mild success using it as a grout cleaner for my tile floor. Sprayed it on, let it dwell for 5 minutes, wiped it up. Nothing.

I had similar results with other products I use frequently: Mr. Clean, Lysol, even an industrial disinfectant/cleaner I got from work.

So after my hour's worth of trials and failures, I turned in my scrubbing brush and paper towels, and vowed to try again when I'd come up with more viable, and hopefully successful solutions. After all, it's grout. If all else fails, there's always bleach.

But this woman?  A cleaning machine.  I'm not even kidding.  Somehow she manages not to come off as a freak about it (perhaps because the deep clean is limited to one day a week and usually carried out when no one else is home) but her house is always immaculate.  The stainless steel sink - the kind that easily accumulates fingerprints and water marks?  Spotless.  She wipes it down with a soft, dry towel 10 times a day.  There are no nicks in the walls, no ugly switchplates, no snotty spots on the french doors where the dogs smoosh their noses while they wait to be let out into the yard.  There are no errant hairs in the corners of the bathrooms, no wadded up balls of lint on top of the dryer.  I asked her recently why she is so meticulous and if she always has been.  Her answer was simple: she grew up in a house with 10 (yep, t-e-n) brothers and sisters and so it was never perfect or well maintained.  There just wasn't the money or the time to do it.  And she was embarrassed, not by her family of course but by the reality of life with that many people coming and going and dragging their messes behind them.  So her vow was to create a home where neither she nor her kids ever had to be embarrassed.  And she has.

So now I clean every Thursday ("That way you have the whole weekend free to do better things," as she says) and I wipe the sink and I am very careful not to touch any part of the refrigerator door except for the handle.  I don't know how she ever managed to keep up with it on her own in this house, which is more than twice the size of our old rental - if it was all on me I would totally hire a cleaning service - it's just too big.  Too much floor, too many surfaces, too many rooms.  And the yard?  Equally enormous, by suburban standards anyway.  A half an acre in front and a half an acre in back, plus all the little walkways and gardens right up next to the house itself.  The grass is always mowed, the shrubs are always even, there are always, always, always fragrant yellow and orange and red roses for cutting and arranging in little vases around the house.  It's a nice way to live and nicer that neither one of us has to do it all.  There is a freedom in the way we share the responsibilities and the way we can share the pride when the result is so lovely.