Erin, your window arrangement is awesome, and you have so much room! I'd have that windowsill loaded with greenery in no time! If that were my space, you'd see shop light fixtures hanging from decorative chain over that area, and all flat surface below covered with a pot and saucer growing any number of bulbs and other plants! I like the little bonsai trees! Great starts! And to top it all off, you're so organized! Thanks for sharing your space! Kitty, I do feel better now that everyone is situated and organized! You've just reminded me that I need to get my computer tower taken to the basement, to blow the dust out of it with the small compressor! I can hear the fans inside laboring away... and I'd hate to be responsible for killing it with neglect! I hesitate to peek under my desk... Lord only knows what's rolling around down there! I'll get to that area in due time... I'm on a cleaning kick, so I should just keep going, one area at a time! Isn't it amazing how much dust accumulates under computer desks and on the power cords? They're like magnets for dust bunnies! I think the fact that the days are slowly getting longer is to blame for this cleaning mission I'm on... as I said, I don't normally do the usual spring cleaning thing like most of America, so any time I get in the mood, it's a good thing! Usually, I'm greeted when I awaken by the timers kicking the grow lights on, and my jungle is visible from the bed. It's nice to see all that green growth and any blooms first thing in the early morning... I used to wonder why the heck my Mom got up so early, but it just happens with age, I think... plus, it's a nice quiet time to have coffee and reflect on things. I usually reflect on GW! LOL! Today is Sunday, so there will be no cleaning... it's shopping day. Psyche and I will get our chores done early, and head to town to stock up on groceries and supplies. We'll stop somewhere for lunch... unless Sam's Club has lots of good samples! Maybe I can talk her into checking the local garden center for bulbs, and a stop at Home Depot or Lowe's to see if they have any spring bulbs out yet. I've got to get more tubes and light fixtures for the basement seed starting, and timers for the lights... and I just ran out of liquid fertilizer, so got that on the list... let's see... what else do I need? Well... I'd love to see how everyone else has their indoor plants for winter! Anyone else want to share their jungle photos? It's fun to see how everyone groups their bulbs, and what else they like to grow! And this is getting long, so... have a lovely day, everyone!

The way I make it rain is to "give up", drag out the sprinklers and water the yard (not the garden---it has drip lines). After I water the yard, dragging the hose from the east side of the house, then around to the north, west and south, etc., it will rain. This is especially true if I leave the sprinkler on one section of the yard and go to town. It inevitably will start raining while I am in town so I look like a fool watering my yard in the rain. This is what has worked somewhat well for me this year. It didn't work at all last year. By this time last year, we'd had maybe 11" of rain for the year, and no amount of watering the yard would make it rain. I'm having a better year in 2012 than last year by far, but most of you probably are having a worse year than last year. The only other thing I can think of would be to start painting the house. All we have to do is talk about painting the house, and the rain starts falling on the very day we are scheduled to begin painting. Don't give up. Rain usually returns in September, if not in August, and September is getting closer every day. Dawn

I have shoulder issues, so too much wiping of a window would be giving me a migraine the next day, seriously! I went to a business that sells professional cleaning supplies (love the one for showers, smells so good and doesn't eat the epidermal layer off your hand if you get some on you!). I bought a squeegee with the rubber end being squared instead of tapered like what you usually find in the big box stores - salesman said this removes the water from the glass more efficiently without the streaks. I also bought a car wash style brush - looks like a broomhead - and used that to wash down my window since some brat threw gum on my window (not one of my kids, someone just walking down the street) and I needed a bit of abrasive to work that off. Then he tried to sell me some window cleaner, stating the ammonia contained in windex is so bad for us to breath in (and I love my floral scented windex for in the house!), I asked him what was in it (it was pricey) and he said a little bit of detergent and some vinegar to act as a wetting agent, since a big part of getting the window clean was that there needed to be a sheet of water on it before squeegeeing, and the vinegar slowed down the drying. I chose not to buy, and used a small squirt of sunlight dish soap and some vinegar in my water, and was very pleased how my windows turned out. Two days later it rained just a little, enough to put raindrops on the glass, then the wind blew dirt all over, and I then had spotted windows again! Oh well, nice while it lasted!

Last summer during the rainy weeks, my house windows (which are surrounded by creeping fig I intentionally grow on my concrete block walls) were covered with trails left by planaria (aquarium worms). I would wash the windows with liquid dish soap every few days to clear the trails off. After weeks of constant rain this year, no trails have appeared, . Question: are they cyclical? (Like oak bagworms?) I can't find anything on line to suggest they are.