Well, today was the day for some answers. I finally got in touch with the nice man I was trying to find. He is doing what he can (which isn't much). He's ordered all the drains cleaned out, plus he is running a search to see if the city has an older than 25 year (which is what the Realtor would have run) easement on the property. I mentioned I think that was done but nobody would tell me yes or no. At least now I'll know. He does not know why site development is not in cahoots with watershed. But he moved me to another man. That man was one I had spoken to before. He is the nicest of them all but still rude and arrogant. I could not get any information from him at all and finally I said "I had a landscape architect look at it" He HOLLERED "now why would you do that (but less politely). I answered, I didn't know who else to call. He said "CIVIL ENGINEER" - so of course I asked him "why on earth did you not say that in the first place?!!!". He refused to answer and told me to just do it and then MAYBE they would speak to me. I got some action when I spoke to the other nice man and explained that I was very well aware of my rights as a citizen and if the city was responsible they would be held responsible and if they were not, I just wanted the work done and finished and I would pay for it. He was quite ammeanable then, especially when I also explained the run around and expense I've already paid to meet standards that do not exist on paper but in some persons head. I asked about drainage from other properties. I pushed him a bit and finally he said if a developer wants to do something in Atlanta they can, and all the code is just pushed to the side and signed off on. If a homeowner does the work they will be require to hold to the letter of the law and even worse -the whims of whomever is giving final approval. My fellows were caught red handed by too many folks now. I think that it will take a lot of green but we'll get there eventually. I hope I can do it myself. It will get done much faster than if I wait on the city! You've never heard someone so happy to hear the words "civil engineer"!!!!

Meant to answer your personal email question but you do not have an email contact through GW!! You might want to change that if you do attempt email contacts :-) Previous answers are good - any time the tree is dormant and the ground workable (not frozen or overly saturated) is a fine time to move/transplant. In my area (actually same as the two above), JM's do not emerge from dormancy until well into March. I'd say you have several months still to accomplish your move :-))

I have some tried-and-true recipes for cakes that I could/should have made. I had made a good coffee cake once before with canned pears using a Penzey's recipe, but it called for chopped candied ginger which I didn't have and can't get locally. Since I knew the candied ginger was a big part of the cake's appeal, I tried googling a recipe that didn't rely on that ingredient. Hence the one I found, which had a great streusel top and I guess might even be a great cake made with fresh pears, but who knows if I will try that again. If I make a whole cake in a 10 inch springform pan for just myself and dad, it will mold before I can get it all used up. I know this because I have had umpteen cakes mold on me and even go bad in the freezer since I just can't eat them up fast enough. I have tried to find a definitive recipe for ginger pear muffins without a smashing success so far. As for the yogurt container being filled with cooked white beans, and not knowing I was out of brown sugar, that I can rack up to my crazy life where I am running around between my folks old house where my mom's stuff is, my dad's new condo where he is living, my apt. in another town, and the two storage places where the rest of my personal belongings are. I had just gotten brown sugar, but it was at my dad's condo, not my mom's old kitchen where I made the cake but the kitchens look somewhat alike and I got mixed up. I had two containers in my apt. fridge that were for yogurt. One was an old one I put the white beans in and didn't take time to label with masking tape, and the other was the real yogurt. I forgot about the beans and grabbed the wrong one. The rest was trying to kill too many birds with one stone, which I am guilty of lately since I have so many birds in the air around me! I was overly optimistic about how a little sugar and spice might counteract the lousy tasting pears. I am not just a scientist but an adventurer. It could have been an epic good tasting Rube Goldberg cake, but instead it was (thankfully) a marginal but not awful cake. The spinach dip was just the recipe from the back of the Knorr vegetable dip packet. Mom had it left over in the cupboard and I had the ingredients on hand to use it up, along with a bag of bagel chips. I don't normally use the Knorr veg. dip for spinach dip since it has MSG in it which I am mildly sensitive too, and WAY too much salt for my taste. The best part of the tea for me was the Edam cheese, which I almost never buy, it is too expensive!

Those little spots can be kind of a harsh light and cast weird shadows, and if they are halogen (as opposed to LEDs) they will also get very very hot (we used similar fixtures in my husband's office which is how I know). I probably wouldn't use something like that as your only light near the vanity. I really liked the first fixture you posted way up top with the 6 round bulbs. That said, we were working with something like 10" between the ceiling and the medicine cabinet doors....it is possible to find normal vanity lighting that fits there. We ended up bringing the light out to the same depth as the medicine cabinet so the lights wouldn't be pointing directly down on top of the cabinet -- I'm sure your contractor could do something similar by building an extension or a light box kind of thing that is the same depth as the cabinet then mounting the vanity lights to it. Another alternative would be to swap out the medicine cabinet for something that has built in lighting - Ikea has one that I think is really cool. This may not be practical since you already own the cabinet though. Ikea Storjorm: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80250066/ Or actually IKEA makes a flat LED light that fits on top of their Godmorgon series cabinets - I can't find a photo of it installed but I saw it in the store and it was really neat (picture a 2" tall square light spanning the top of the medicine cabinet).