Fun Fact #1: Rugs aren't worth the trouble.
Years ago, Ken and I inherited six small, Persian-style rugs from his parents' house. Some of them were pretty, others simply passable. We had them cleaned and laid them out throughout our little condo. They added a sense of warmth to the decor.
Recently we decided that it was time to have them cleaned again. A Rug Guy came to our home, rolled up all the rugs, and took them away in his Rug Bus*. (*actually a panel van.) The place seemed a bit empty without them.
I stopped missing the rugs immediately the first time I vacuumed the house without them. Our vacuum has a thingamajobber on the business end of the hose which has to be switched from one setting to another every time you transition from bare floor to carpet. It was a huge pain to have to stop every few feet to switch from floor to rug to floor again. I can't tell you how liberating it was to roll through our entire floor plan without having to switch settings once.
When the rugs came back clean, they went straight into the storage locker. From there they were donated to a charity thrift shop. Never again. If I want warmth on my floors, I will put on slippers.
Fun Fact #2: Surprise! The bathroom smells great!
I picked up some environmentally friendly shower cleaner on sale. The packaging is so minimal that I didn't notice that it was scented. I used it for the first time this morning and it smells so pretty! Maybe I should spray it on my wrists and use it as cologne? I wouldn't have to worry about soap scum accumulation on my arms.
Fun Fact #2.1: Fun Fact #2 was not a Sponsored Fact.
Fun Fact #3: However bad your life is, the Weddell Seal has it worse.
I have been watching a lot of nature specials set in the polar regions this summer. Snow always looks so refreshing when it's hot out. Anyhoo, I learned about these seals that live in the Antarctic. For some reason, (maybe they're not very smart), these seals do not migrate to warmer waters during the Antarctic winter. They stay by the shore while ice builds up around them. Eventually the ice gets so thick that they have to work at maintaining the edges of their breathing holes. When the hole starts to shrink due to ice build-up, they widen it by scraping at the ice with their teeth. According to David Attenborough's voice-over on this special, the Weddell seals spend so much time munching ice that they wear their teeth down, which makes it difficult for them to eat as they get older. Now that's a tough life. I have spent a lot of time since seeing that nature special wondering about the meaning of a Weddell seal's life. But I guess each individual seal has to figure that out for his or herself.
Here's another video, which doesn't mention the ice holes, but it does show cute seal babies:
10 comments:
Ummm... I would start figuring out how to migrate. Imagine the ice cream headaches they must get??
poor seals
Tough to be a seal, no two ways about it. And the idea of using the cleaner as a cleaner AND cologne gets points in my book. Efficiency! Huzzah!
I love it when I discover something that smells good like that. :)
Haha. I cover my cheap apartment carpeting with an area rug. I do hope to escape wall-to-wall carpeting when I buy my own home someday though. And maybe seals are there for whales and polar bears? Sad, but possible.
Wish I cold find that charity thrift shop. I would want to purchase your cast off rugs. Love my large Persian rug inherited from my grandmother. It almost carpets our entire den and is at least 80 years old.
I hate that commercial on Animal Planet that shows the shark lifting out of the ocean to grab the rescued seal out of the net.
Ron: I never even thought of that. They must get wicked brain freeze like, every day.
Adam: Indeed.
DarcKnyt: It was either that or dab dish detergent behind my ears.
Lynn: Also, it's not an overpowering scent, just enough to notice.
Jenski: You'll be happy to hear that these particular seals do not have predators when they are out on the pack ice.
Granny Annie: Right, Snuffy the seal. That's not my favourite either. I have no particular love of Shark Week.
I have a few rugs but not on carpeted floor. Some on wooden floors and the other one on a ceramic tiled floor and I love them, but maybe that's because I really clean the floors. :D
Yay for liberating vacuuming (Oh how I envy you!) and yay for sweet smelling bathrooms! Sounds like you've had some wins this week, Spark. :D
Perhaps it's time for me to stop crunching my ice though, as I do hope to eat when I'm older.
Yay on the rugs! I'm all for simplicity. The cleaner sounds nice...lol...love the bit about using is as cologne.
Those seals seem to have a tough existence. Then again, there's a lot of that in the animal world.
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