Use nine: Try softening brushes that are hardened with old, dried-in paint by boiling them in vinegar and let them stand for one hour. Then heat the vinegar and brushes come to a gentle boil. Simmer for 20 minutes. Rinse well, working the softened paint out of the bristles. For extremely heavy paint encrustations, you may need to repeat the process...or head to the hardware store.

Use ten: A little vinegar and salt added to the water you wash leafy green vegetables will float out bugs and kill germs.

Use eleven: Soak or simmer stuck-on food in 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of vinegar. The food will soften and lift off in a few minutes.

Use twelve: Clean and freshen the garbage disposal by running a tray of ice cubes, with 1/2 cup of vinegar poured over them, through it once a week.

Use thirteen: In a pinch, you can use equal parts of lemon juice and vinegar to clean brass and copper. On difficult areas add a little salt to the mix for some abrasive action.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

64. We're All a Little Prickly

I think things went well last night at our first Kennel Club meeting.  At least we didn't seem to embarrass our selves.  There were seven of us who were petitioning for membership and all were interested in the "Furry Friends" program.  A very specialized animal ophthalmologist gave the program which was mostly concerned with a particular Collie ocular condition that is of genetic origin and was enough to scare the pants off of you.  Most of it went straight over our heads.  Mostly what I got out of it was to never breed dogs with that tendency, not that I have ever wanted to breed dogs or any thing else for that matter.  It would be like playing Russian Roulette with puppies.  Advance DNA required on both parents.  No wonder pure bred animals are so expensive.

Our little Maggie is all we need.  When we got home we ate the last of the peaches with crumb topping. Maggie happily licked the bottom of the pie plate and spent the remainder of the evening getting the remnants off the ends of her long floppy ears.  It doesn't get better than that!  It doesn't take much to make us happy, does it?

This will make you smile. Our dear friends Polly and Phil rarely forward things, but when they do we
know they are worth the time to open them.  This was particularly sweet.  Who wouldn't love a face like this?

On one trip through New Mexico we were driving along in the twilight WAY out in the country somewhere between San Il de Fonso and Canyon de Chelle and Bob stopped the car and said "Look quick, Sharon! There is a porcupine!"  This big ole thing was lumbering and clattering along in the culvert by the road.  When you rolled down the window you could actually hear the quills hitting each other.  One of the warnings from the information center at the state border was not to drive over porcupines even if they were dead because the quills would blow out even a truck tire.  Imagine that!

The fable of the porcupine goes something like this: It was the coldest winter ever-many animals died because of the cold.  The porcupines, realizing the seriousness of the situation, decided to group together and protect themselves using the warmth of the group.  Even though their bodies warmed each other their quills proved injurious and uncomfortable.  They had to make a decision: either accept the injury from their companions or disappear from the earth.  Wisely, they decided to return to the group hug.  In this way they learned the life giving warmth of the group far out weighed the little wounds that were caused by the close relationship with their companions.  With this wise decision the porcupine survives to this day.

The moral of the story:  No one's perfect, we all have prickly parts, but if we work together we can figure out how to stay warm and cuddly.  No one said it would be easy, now did they?

My other prickly part just came in and said "What's for lunch?"  He's like a Hobbit, "plenty and often," words to live by.

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