Your second question: usually, compost is primarily decomposed plant material (plant material broken down by bacteria, fungi, et al.) and manure is primarily animal-digested plant material, i.e., animal dung. Let's ignore the phrase "green manure" for the time being... ;-) But, as michaelg says, it all ends up more or less the same thing (makes sense, having all started as plant material). Manure is the more dis-assembled form of plant material, has more available nitrogen. But, home composters might throw manure into their compost pile mix to liven things up. "Soil amendment compost" derived from residential green waste might also contain decomposed animal materials (we are urged to throw bones and meat scraps into our "green bin", the contents of which are ground up at a composting facility). Commercial soil amendment products based on compost might also contain a small percentage of animal manure or other animal products: bat guano, chicken manure, feather meal, etc. So, "compost" products may in fact be a combination that also contains manure. What's in a commercial product is always listed on the bag. This post was edited by catspa on Thu, Jul 11, 13 at 14:54

I googled 'icook cookware' and wanted to see what all the hullaballoo was about. Here are my impressions: 1. While they are all made of stainless steel (and by the way, there's no special alloy called 'surgical' stainless--sounds like hype to me) they don't say what this special 'Optitemp' base is. Stainless is a lousy conductor of heat, so pots made of stainless have to incorporate a bottom disc of some other metal--usually aluminum--to improve the heat conduction. My impression: if they ain't telling you what it is, they don't want you to know. Reputable manufacturers will boast about their copper bottoms or aluminum bottoms. Why doesn't icook tell you what theirs is? 2. 'Vitalok' lid sounds like a marketing gimmick. You can find good cookware items in many price ranges that have snug lids. If it locks tightly enough to hold pressure in, it would need safety features like a pressure cooker; since it doesn't have such features, if the pressure builds up it will knock the lid ajar. I fail to see what this 'Vitalok' is other than a snug lid. 3. Seems WAY overpriced. The price I saw quoted for a 21 piece set was just under $1000. Trust me, if you want to spend a grand on cookware, you can do a helluva lot better than that. You can get a nice starter set of Wolfgang Puck stainless at Sam's club for around a TENTH of that, if you really want a matching set (which, as we have said before in other threads, is often a false economy). I don't know how good the Wolfgang Puck set is, but I would wager anything that icook isn't ten times as good as the Puck stuff. (Do a search of this forum; some people have purchased Puck sets and left comments. Sam's carries other lines as well.) 4. It reeks of gimmicky marketing. Multilevel schemes always make me suspicious--not of the quality of the goods or even of the honesty of those people trying to get you to buy them--but the claims made for these products are not consistent with claims made by other cookware companies. For instance, a 'Vitalok' lid holds in a third more nutrients--that reeks of hype and bogus-ness. (Bogosity?) Here's an idea. Find out the total amount of money this Amway rep wants for this set of cookware. Say it's $900, whatever. Post a new thread, saying, "Hey, all you cookware mavens out there: my cookware budget is $900. How would YOU spend that to outfit your kitchen? And what would you do if you had HALF that amount to spend?" You'd be inundated with suggestions by helpful charming people like me who have no financial interest in selling cookware, and I'd bet you dollars to donuts that you'd get a fine set of tools to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish in the kitchen. It would help us to help you if you let us know what type of cooking you do or are interested in doing. If you do a lot of frying, roasting, slow cooking, braising, whatever. And how many people do you cook for, usually? If, on the other hand, what you mostly do is open cans and heat them up (don't be ashamed, we all did that at one time) then you really should just get the cheapest mass market cookware there is, because that would do just fine--the thousand bucks or so for the icook set would be about ten times what you needed to spend. Again, I restate my bias: a set is almost always a bad buy since there are items you won't use. (And my suspicion is that a set from a multilevel marketer is an even worse buy.) You're better off defining what you want to do and then buying a good item that does that task well. If you do this exercise (i.e., asking people how would they spend "X" amount of dollars) you'll get lots of suggestions. But even if you decide to get that pricey set, at least you'd have made the decision with eyes open, seeing what all is out there.

Its been months since I posted but I find myself struggling with issues that the long distance may have started but I just don't know what to do now! Upon my arrival it was apparent that he had fundamentally changed in his feelings towards our marriage and so his attitude towards me has been extremely hurtful. Its long so please bear with me as I really need help. Just before I came back he told me he had only 1 hour online access at work and no access at his Moms, and he blamed this as the reason he didn't respond to my messages and emails, but as soon as I arrived at his Moms he said 'you can go online and tell the kids your here safe' I asked him why he had told me he didn't have internet at home and he flew off the handle denying ever having said any such thing! I logged onto our yahoo account as it is more reliable in the middle east, he has never been tidy with the yahoo account so it was overloaded with old emails spam and the conversation list was pages long. I started to delete and generally tidy up the account when I noticed that he had over 30 emails from a woman I didn't know, I opened a few of them and they were love/friendship poems and pretty gif art featuring hearts and romantic settings. I don't know why I did it but I forwarded a few of them to another account. after an hour or so he came over with a coffee and nearly dropped it when he saw I was using the yahoo account instead of my msn. neither of us said anything. Later the same day I logged on again and All OF HER EMAILS HAD BEEN DELETED nothing else just those and she was no longer in his contact list!! rightly or wrongly I said nothing for a number of weeks as I didn't want to put even more pressure on what was looking more and more like a marriage he no longer wanted. Over the next few weeks he was so changeable he would either be emotionally shut down towards me or very loving, he became very negative about our years together saying it was a mistake for us to ever be together then he would say things like your different I think we can make this work only to change his mind again a few hours later. He started asking strange questions like 'do you think I will marry again?' or 'what should I do if someone else fell in love with you?' what kind of questions are those to ask your wife???!! I still tried to stay calm and would answer things like that by saying ' I'm not sure I understand what your asking, why would you be thinking of getting married again? I'm here with you" but no matter what I did he would become frustrated with me. One evening he was particularly hurtful and I tried to reason with him but eventually we ended up in a terrible row and I let him know that I knew about the woman at work and had seen all the emails before he deleted them. He told me I was crazy he had never received such emails and certainly never deleted them!! He was visibly shocked when I told him I still had copies and that I knew her name her facebook account and so I also had a photo of her. (where we live adultery carries the death penalty) and I keep wondering if this was not the case he may have been honest about this emotional affair I don't think it went further than sharing a private office together but I cant be certain as he will not speak of it. He then later said he should be allowed to do what he wants as I used to have a work friend that called me a lot. the guy was gay and proud of it and I always took calls from him in front of my husband. His family have all been very different towards me and I have since learned that just before I came back he talked openly about me not coming back and 'moving on' they of course all said what he wanted to hear at the time things like: you should have children of your own/ you need a Persian wife/ it was never meant to be etc etc. and now they seem embarrassed to be around me unlike when I used to live here and they came to us every week for a get together. His mother was very very rude to me throwing things at me and when she realized we were moving into our own home again she kept saying things like you can go but he owes me his life he has to stay/ she would make hurtful comments like 'he wants his own children and a new wife' my husband never told her off for any of this not even when she threw things at me and so it got to the point when we did move out that I asked him to have no contact for a while as I belived she was not good for our marriage. of course the first opportunity he got he went to her and this caused me such emotional termoil, when he came back he could tell I was unhappy and he just kept saying 'I can leave if you want' or an hour or so later ' I think you want me to leave' I ignored it for as long as I could and after a drink or 5! I finally snapped and said yes just go back to your Mom! and so he quickly packed and did!! I immediately felt that I had blwn it so I called him and said I was sorry for getting so angry, he got his brother to call me from USA to tell me to leave the country as my husband was never coming back and didn't want to see me!! My husband texted me the next day saying he felt he couldn't come home but didn't want to go to his Moms I told him to come home and we would see what we could work out. After work he came home but was very very cruel and said things I never thought I would hear from him, and in the middle of saying such things he would look at me and say 'I could never have said these things before as I know it hurts you' but it was as if he was enjoying hurting me. later the same night he started having sex with me but he was very drunk and he forced me to have anal sex which was so very painful!!afterwards he just said 'go shower' and then went to sleep. I cried all night and all the next day I tried to make a joke of it! I know that sounds stupid but I didn't know how to deal with it. I blamed myself as throughout our marriage he has 'tried' but it has always been too painful for me and so he has always stopped. But I feel that because I've always been willing to try maybe he thought it was OK or I tell myself he was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing...but he was sober enough to tell me to wash. If Im honest my gut feeling was that his cruel words before and this forced sex act were a punishment!! He wanted to hurt me??? This was 2 months ago and we are still together, he still is very loving towards me but then doesn't want to be with me, he will often just come home get drunk or stoned and go straight to sleep, but other nights he is lovely to me. If I upset him at all he repeats things like I will only stay if Im happy./ I want a perfect marriage/ if I get to 40 and this is no good then I have no kids of my own etc etc I never promised to stay with you forever!! But then the next day he will say things like 'please don't leave me/ your amazing/ I love you/ I adore you !!!!!! Please help me I dont know which husband to belive? I feel truly suicidal at times Im so confused.

Find some things to do that you really love that you wouldn't necessarily do while your DH was around. My husband leaves every summer for the whole summer (6 months) and is out for up to a month at a time with no email or telephone contact. We see eachother about once every three months for a few days each time. It's not easy. There will be good days and terrible days. There will be days that you are so proud of all you've achieved on your own and days you feel you will feel overwhelmed by your aloneness. Lean on your friends and family. Get involved with a new project you simply wouldn't have the time to do if your husband were there with you. Take good care of yourself (this one's important). Though I hate it when my husband is gone, I have started to really love having my girlfriends over for dinner parties whenever I want, destroying the living room with arts and crafts projects (including the glitter my husband can't stand), and doing silly dance workout videos with no fear of teasing! Whatever you do, I think it's important to remain connected to your spouse. Be proud of your ability to maintain your life on your own. Try not to feel sorry for yourself. Do your best to stay positive during your interactions. Fighting, anger and resentment are pure poison. Let your spouse know that you miss him, but you are okay. Men worry about their wives and want to make sure we are safe and comfortable. Reassure him you are. Like I said, it's not easy. Though I'll admit to calling my mom on occasion and having a full-on cry fest, I'll also admit to having great moments of strength and accomplishment. Who knew fixing a toilet or installing a new light fixture could be so empowering! Hang in there and know he's doing this for you, he'll need support too. Share what help get you through the day and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!