Deburn, try not to worry about mites; if you do you'll never have another plant in your home. lol. Most, if not all tropical plants attract mites, though I admit some plants are more susceptible than others. On a scale from 1-5, 1 being the least chance, MOO's come in about 2. As long as a MOO is cared for, 'like any other plant,' you'll have nothing to worry about. I don't know what type of plants you have, or how many, but you can bet any plant can attract mites. Everytime you bring a new plant home, there's a chance of hitch-hiking mites and/or other pests on the new plant. This happens quite often. One well-known nursery, 'perhaps I shouldn't name it now,' is notorius for sending plants with bugs. One member here purchased plants from this nursery, and found four different types of insects on one plant. He isn't the only one who's dwelt with this problem from the same nursery. Although I detest mites, 'who doesn't except for other mites, lol,' there are many other insects much harder to rid/kill, like Mealy. Ohh, Chaz..how scary..Did your plant have more than one hornet or a whole nest? What did you do? Let me tell you what happened to me this summer.. I keep small plants in window boxes on a picnic table. Although there are holes in the window boxes, they sometimes clog. Sure enough, one window box, holding succulents, was filled with water, to the brim of the box. I removed the succulents, then tilted the box over, to toss water out. A good portion of water fell on another plant beside the table. All of a sudden I felt a sharp pain on my leg, then a second. I started screaming. I didn't know what was happening. I ran, and felt another pain, this time on my hand between thumb and finger. My son was standing outside while this was happening. I was in a state of panic, so I ran in the house, screaming and crying. It turned out, a nest of, I think honey bees were living in the pot beside the table. Guess they got scared when water landed in the pot/their nest, and attacked me. I got stung 5 times. The worse was the one on my hand..That thing swelled. Never being stung by a bee, I checked the puter, for remedies..That's when I saw Danger and Warnings. Bascially allergic reactions. I got so scared, I blacked out! My son called 911..lol..Well, turns out I frightned myself, which is the reason I blacked out. The paramedics assured me I was okay. If I had been allergic I wouldn't be talking. Anyway, sorry didn't mean to write a short story, lol. One lesson I learned, NEVER check the puter for remedies after something happens. lol..Learn ahead of time. Anyway, I think those darn bees are still living in my pot, though they're weak. I don't know what to do. I don't want to leave the plant out to freeze, however, I sure don't want repeat stings. Allergic or not. I don't use chemicals..Do you know how to tell if bees are living in the soil, and how I can rid them, organically? I really don't want to kill them, just get rid of them. Years ago, I feared bees, later, ignored them. After getting stung you'd think I wouldn't want to be near another bee, but I don't feel this way..Spiders are another thing..if there were a nest of spiders living in a plant, plant and spiders could winter outside. I HATE spiders. So, do you have any advice? Did the queen live? Is she still in your pot? Or, did she fly elsewhere? You flavor water/tea with MOO flowers? Is it sweet? Do you let sit before drinking? That's interesting? They're not poisonous? lol.. Toni

About half of my kitchen is the same Brookhaven cabinets that sarahandbray has. They are wonderful -- well made adn beautifully finished. Since I just saw a thread about cabinet depth, I will point out that standard wall cabinet depth on Brookhaven is 13" and allows you to fit larger plates and bowls in your upper cabinets. Don't get trapped into thinking that wood is necessarily better than composite materials. There are different grades of wood (generally plywood) and MDF, poarticle board or other composites. I've had plenty of plywood around here for home and school projects. In fact, there is a sheet sitting under concrete blocks on my driveway because it had some serious warping issues. Plywood is very vulnerable to warping. I can also tell you that in the two years since I had my cabinets installed, I have had several water issues -- my plumber didn't connect the prep sink properly. I had a leak inside the cabinet. Even though I mopped it up and thought I caught it fairly quickly, the bottom of the cabinet bubbled in places. No -- it wasn't MDF or particle board. This was inside my all wood Woodmode cabients on the island. On the other hand, I had water run through the pan of my rangetop and down into the cabinet belwo when someone turned their back on the new and fast flowing potfiller. I was sure there would be a problem, but you would never know. Similarly, the main sink and faucet were also not connected properly (the plumber was the source of the bigger pains in my remodel). I have had water in the bottom of that cabinet at least three times before everything was caught and hopefully fixed. No problems there either. Both the rangetop and main sink cabinets are Brookhaven. Another thing -- my KD ordered the cabinets on the end of each run with wood sides -- not because they wood was better but because she wanted to assure that the finish was the same on the ends as on the front (I have seen the two materials with the same finish and they do look different). Overall construction and finish should be more important that generic terms like "wood" or "MDF". I have heard of Crystal here but don't know anything about them personally. I don't get the imprssion that they are on par with Brookhaven though. If Brookhaven and Kraftmaid are within a few hundred dollars, I have no doubt that I would pick Brookhaven -- for the finish (which also has a lot to do with how well your cabinets last over the years), the added inch of depth and the overall quality. Plus, you have the Woodmode company behind you if you have any problems.

Do NOT use Home Depot or Thomasville. Home Depot forgot my toekick drawers despite being asked if she included them 5 different times. She said they were ordered. When my cabinets came in there were no drawers. I immediately went back to HD and the same designer lied and said my cabinets were too heavy for the drawers- i had pictures ftom the website with my ordered configuration. 2nd problem is Thomasville - they have shipped defective product 4 times now. Their shipper lost 1 shipment for a week and today they never showed up with the 4th attempt to give me usable cabinets. Even with a specialist agent from Thomasville I can't get this resolved. I ordered the cabinets 8 months ago. I could have special ordered cabinets for the same amount of money and had my kitchen back together by now. RUN to anyone else although I've been told Lowe's is even worse.

I am in agreement with shaknzmom. We paid our daughters for their good grades. $5.00 for each A, $3.00 for each B, nothing for C's and they owed us, if they ever would bring home anything less. WE also said that we would pay them $100 if they brought home straight A's. They all always made the honor roll, but our youngest really liked the money. She received one B the first semester of her freshman year of high school. She decided that while $38 was good, it wouldn't be that much harder to make straight A's. So, she did -- every grading period for the remainder of her high school life. She graduated tied for 1st in her class, and received full tuition scholarships to three different college, plus another $2,000 a year scholarship. That doesn't include the partial scholarships that she received from other universities. The $1538 or so that she received from us over the 4 years high school more than paid itself back for her college. She will graduate with no debt. We do pay for her room and board and books. She pays for spending money. The money she earned this summer not only went for spending money, but also to fund her IRA. This semester has cost us $1,800 for everything. Not bad at all. She is a highly motivated student. The money was a little extra that she enjoyed getting. My other daughters never quite made the straight A's in high school, but they did make it a couple of times in college. All three received scholarships to several colleges. Looking back, I wouldn't do it any differently.