My aunt had a miscarriage at the age of 47 and a child at 49. Our family has late menopause, and I was concerned about this subject. My periods stopped when my doctor put me on HRT (years ago) at the age of 53. Until that time there was a possibility that I could get pregnant. She would tell me that my blood tests indicated that it was nearly impossible, but I feared that they would change. These years were very uncomfortable to me. I was afraid that I would go to the doctor for a regular Pap smear and find out I was 6 months pregnant. I always used protection until it was almost impossible to get pregnant. Sammy

Ask for what you want and keep at it until you get it - assuming that is what you contracted for of course. Some of these things cannot be fixed later or will cost a fortune to fix. I had to "train" my GC. he has finally succumbed to the fact that I am "very involved in the details". He does not love it and I had to listen to some comments initially about "how involved" I was but he has come to accept this is how it is going to be. At times he sees the benefits too -I understand what is going on, I am prepared for the next step with required materials or decisions needed. I had to thicken my skin- I want to be liked and he does not love my involvement but hey, at the end of the day I am writing really large checks and will be stuck with the work they complete. My lesson learned - I need to stay ahead of the GC, do my research on upcoming activities, know what I want in terms of specs, don't assume anything and be there the day the work kicks off on any given new activity to ensure it happens to my specs (ex: when laying flooring, electrical, countertop etc). Then I need to continue to monitor as the work progresses to ensure nothing comes off the rails and the end results are what I want. There are times unforseen things come up but that should not be the norm. Sounds like a lot of work? It is and some days I wonder why I have a GC if i am doing all this but in the end I am getting what I want. I did a sanity check on my GC experience on this forum and based on the replies i got my experince is apparently the norm and considered average. Regarding cabinets and crooked ceiling, I had the same problem, i was off 1 3/4" over a span of 5 feet. After a couple of days of mocking up several alternatives we ended up with the molding level to cabs and a gap at ceiling. While it was not my prefered approach the ceiling was so far off in such a short run no amount of visual tricks masked it so "the shadow had to become my friend" as the best alternative. that issue was one i battled with my GC on for a 2 day period, was definately not what i wanted but in the end i learned there are some issues in construction that will not come out exactly as planned due to technial issues - that was one of them. Hope this helps.

Jacqueline, you reminded me of a poem, Let Me Live in a House By The Side of the Road and be a Friend to Man. That absolutely would be gratifying to talk roses with your neighbors. My garden is so far off the beaten path, no one gets to enjoy it except me. But, once in a while I get to talk roses with repair or delivery men. None of my friends are gardeners and think I'm quite bonkers for having so many roses and spending so much time gardening. Sylvia, I'm still waiting for this years flush! They're all pruned to the ground after this long, cold winter. Yours are gorgeous.

Have you tried cleaning the condenser coils? Dirt that collects on a refrigerator's coils causes the condenser to retain heat, rather than dissipating it, which makes the compressor work harder trying to overcome that. Eventually the condenser gives out from that overwork, but if you clean the coils you can avoid that. There’s a ton of articles and videos on how to do it. Basically you vacuum the dust from the coils, then wipe the coils down for any remaining dust.