I'm with digger on this one as far as red smelly hybrid teas. My taste hasn't changed much in thirty years. Still love those the best. But I AM actually more interested in fragrance than before. My taste/interest has broadened. I've only grown minis for the past 7 years, but now they're about half of my roses. That has mostly to do with the practical consideration of limited space. But I have really learned to appreciate their "bang for the buck" --they generally bloom more and more rapidly than big roses (generally, that it. there's always variation) Down side of minis is the lack of fragrance in so many. Only a handful of them so far are significantly fragrant. I sense a market opportunity there. hmm... Never knew a thing about old garden roses before about 8 years ago. Since then I've learned a lot and have familiarity, not expert, but at least respectible, with various OGR varieities. Still they don't compare for me with the performance potential of moderns (translation: my biased preference for big, flashy florist-style blooms on straight stems). My secondary color interests vary from year to year, from whites, blushes, mauves, yellows, apricots, and orange blends. I like them all. But red is always #1 for me. Must be a "guy" thing? Note: Please feel free to consider the preceding sentence a shameless gender-based stereotyping generalization. I still think it's "generally" true. : )

Well, we did a mini "refresh" on our kitchen in 1999 to add a dishwasher and standard-sized range, as we had one of those apartment-sized ranges that DH detested. When we did the mini refresh, we also changed countertops, sink & faucet, and we had put in peel and stick vinyl over the hideous gold linoleum when we first moved in. That being said, we still had issues with layout, with the only really useable countertop being the 15" to left of the range and 5" to the right of it. There was a small swath of countertop across from the stove, next to the sink, but because it was right by the back door, it became a catchall. When I took anything out of the oven, it pretty much had to go on the stovetop. Baking cookies just wasn't very fun after a while. I sorta stopped doing it. :^( Then there was the wall between the kitchen and livingroom that made the kitchen seem so dark and cramped. The lack of storage was the biggest issue we had. I still get the heebs when I think of that cabinet where the plastic storage containers lived. I don't know how many times I sat on the floor and cleaned out that blasted cabinet, just to have it heave out plasticware all over me the next time I opened that door. I'm pretty sure that DH would open the door *just enough* to throw an item in there. We had no venting over the range, instead we had a cabinet directly over the range, and it was lower than standard. When we did the remodel, we could see big black burn marks underneath. Lovely. Our garbage was located across the kitchen on the stairwell landing. If I had gunk in my hands, I had the pleasure of carrying it across the floor, leaving a nice little dribble trail. Fun times! The giant fluorescent light box, with that hideous tube light. I tried to "tart it up" at one point, but in the end, it was just a big rectangle with an ugly light, so it had to go. My peel and stick vinyl tiles, so wonderful and bright when we installed them, were pitted and cracking in places. No matter how long I scrubbed on my hands and knees, there were areas where the tile was worn, and the dirt was embedded. Yuck. The kitchen wasn't awful; it just was not a joy to work in. Now I enjoy baking and cooking in there, and putting away the tupperware is not an exercise in frustration! Hooray! Oh, happy day! :^)

My dreams are mostly random thoughts jammed together into some sort of incoherent story line, and after I awake, most of them do not make any sense. When my sister and I were children, at one period, we'd discuss our dreams with each other. Mostly, we would try to determine if we had dreamed in color or black-and-white. It seems that many of our dreams were in shades of gray like a photo. Then we experimented seeing if we could influence the color of our dreams. We found that if we went to sleep while making a conscience effort to dream in color, more of our dreams would be in color. It was a wish on our part to have colorful dreams. That was a long time ago. All the recent dreams that I can remember have been in true color. I find it difficult to remember a dream a few minutes after becomming fully awake unless it was an earth shattering dream or nightmare. I do remember a nightmare that I had many years ago, and its memory has not faded. I was a senior in college and had just finished exam week on Friday. Graduation was the following weekend. My parents were comming to the graduation ceremony and then we were to say our goodbyes as I was taking off immediately to a new job and career to begin the Monday following graduation. I opted to stay in the Dorm for the week between the final exams and graduation. I had planned to relax and tidy up my affairs in an unhurried manner. And then, the nightmare came early Saturday morning after the close of finals. I dreamed that I had forgotten to attend a minor class for the last half of the semester and had forgotten to show for the finals. My life was in ruins. Although it was minor class, the credits were needed for graduation. I was working my way through college and had taken a NDEA loan so that I could put two semesters together and finish my senior year. At 4am in the morning, I awoke in a cold sweat and could not shake the feeling that the dream was true. I turned on a lamp and checked my class schedule - there was no mention of any class of that name on the schedule, but the nightmare had been so real that I could not shake the idea that somehow I had messed up. It ruined a good nights sleep; I could not fall back into a good sleep, but only dosed and tossed and turned. I began Saturday bleary eyed and I could not shake the thought that somehow, I had blown a class. It was awful. At other times, my dreams are about solutions to problems that I may have been actively tusseling with, or had been on my unconscience mind. On awaking, most of the time these "solutions" were absurd and laughable, but on a few occasions, the ideas in the dream were helpful and got me to think 'outside of the box'.

Having worked in a florist here is a nit picking version on how to keep roses fresh. You cut the rose blooms when the sepals have turned down. If you squeeze the bud and it feels hard then wait a day until it feels soft and the petals are starting to show. That is the general rule for roses with lots of petals. For roses with fewer petals, also wait until the sepals have turned down but make sure the petals have started to open a little. Carry a container with warm water and put the cut rose into it right away. In the house make a mixture of half a teaspoon sugar, a few drops of pure bleach into a quart of cool water. If you want the blooms to open quickly, then use really warm water and remove the guard petals by blowing on them close to your mouth. Cut your rose ends on a slant with a sharp knife or scissors, under water. Remove any leaves that would be in under water in the vase. Keep in a cool place overnight. Add a little warm water daily. If water starts to look cloudy, change, rinse and cut stems again, repeat sugar etc. Try to leave the guard petals on as long as you can as they hold the shape of the bloom. Remove dying flowers quickly as they will cause the others to die also. Never mist garden roses in an effort to revive them. It will rot them. If you want to save a bouquet of garden roses for someone, then place them in the fridge. If your fridge is a frost free one, place a plastic bag over the bouquet so it won't dry out and the gas that the fruits and vegetables give off, will not make then wither and die. Roses are kept in a cooler in a florist shop with temperature between 35 to 37 degrees. If you receive a florist rose and it looks droopy,cut the stem, place it in a container with hot water for about half an hour. Warm water for nearly an hour if very wilted. The rose will come back if the cause was just that it needed water or the stem was plugged.