Coleus

It felt good to be outside at Mom and Dad’s home, for a short time. The mosquitoes are really viscious right now given all of the rain. I got bit four times in a matter of a couple of minutes, and that was with staying off the lawn and out of the gardens. So I took faraway photos, except for this coleus, which is thriving with all of the rain, too:

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Cleaning Rant, Queen Anne’s Lace

Okay, I *try* to be really good about using cleaning products that are environmentally friendly for everything I do around my home. . . except for one area. . . the bathroom. I *hate* all bathrooms, I don’t discriminate. In cleaning the bathroom, I am the most non-environmentally friendly person around. I get out the arsenal of cleaning products that really work great when it comes to cleaning. I spray *everything*, I scrub, I spray *everything* some more, I scrub some more. I feel bad about using these products, but after I’m done, I’m happy with the bathroom, for a few minutes, that is. I would clean that room twice a day if I had nothing else to do, that’s how much I hate it. Which leads me to public restrooms. My Mom tells me that when she was young, public bathrooms had people that worked in public restrooms to keep them clean. They smelled good, for a bathroom. There used to be pride in keeping things clean. Not nowadays. And not only that, but some peoples’ habits are disgusting. The flush then the walk out without washing the hands makes me almost throw-up. I’ve heard and seen people of all walks of life do this. I’m not a germaphobe, but there are some people that need to realize they need to wash their hands and wash them thoroughly. My nightmares usually consist of a gross, dirty bathroom. I’m serious. No I don’t need help, I just need a sparkling clean bathroom that *smells* clean when I gotta go. You can’t fake me out with those sprays. Oh, and when the furnace man is here for the once a year clean/check, he always has to use my bathroom. I won’t even go there.

I think a self-cleaning bathroom would be amazing. I’m ranting because I just got done scrubbing the bathroom. And now I’m going outside to get away from the cleaning product smell.

But before I go, here’s another photo I took on July 13, 2006 of Queen Anne’s Lace:

Admin Stuff, Chinese Chestnut

I finally decided to update my websites and blogroll and added two new categories of blogs – one for Needlework and one for History – just a couple of my *other* interests. I own the For My Family blog, which is a blog, ummm, for my family, so unless you’re my father, mother, brother, cousin, aunt, uncle, or relative in some other way, you’ll probably find it a big snore. The other blog I write for is OHA Making History – which is the Onondaga Historical Association Museum & Research Center blog that I started for them a few weeks ago (like I didn’t have enough other stuff to do). But I like the history – of places, people and nature.

So as to not be a complete bore with this administrative stuff, here’s a photo I took on July 13th of Mom’s Chinese Chestnut tree (Castanea mollissima):

I’ve seen this tree for years, but never really noticed these yellow white flowers – I think they’re so pretty!