Seil, that is not the CFHRS, it is the central fla. rose society----a different organization..... the Central Fla. HERITAGE Rose Society is at Fla. Southern College in Lakeland, Dr.Malcolm Manners can be contacted @ mmanners@flsouthern.edu.,..... Pres. Gil Sanchez at gil_sanchez@verizon.net,(813)962-0110.... Secty. Carol Hoffman , rosycarol1@juno.com ,(863)647-1548..... .......we are members of Amer. Rose Society call 1-800-637-6534 for membership info. or go to www.srs.org for Amer. Rose Society info...... The CFHRS doesn't have a website, like the other Society....Hope this clears up some confusion... the $15. yearly dues come due in Jan., and are well worth it, especially if you can get to the meetings... sally

I'm so torn!! We have a lot of rentals and we've had problems with agressive bees on several occasions. While I want to support the bees, I worry every time I walk past the 4-H club that the bees there have been africanized and I will be a target. I know - the stuff of my nightmares. I watched that movie - was it the Bees or the Swarm or something, at 12. In the night the hiway noise came up the hill and rattled around in a hollow tree in our yard. I went under the bed and used books to hold the covers down all the way around the bed so the bees couldn't get to me. It makes me laugh now - but at the time I was terrified. Anyway, I'm a gardener and I need bees too. I am just confused!

I'm not necessarily good in the poem department but I have an idea for your ornaments. That is, print out pics of your family members, your folks' friends, etc. and glue them onto cardstock with a few embellishments, and punch a hole in the top for a piece of yarn, etc. as a hanger. Another idea is, you and your sibblings and especially the grandchildren write something on the back of the cardstock with their pic on it in gold/silver magic marker and I'm sure your folks would just be thrilled with joy that they can decorate their new tree with familiar faces and writings from the heart! You could make the topper star out of thicker cardstock and write in glitter or just plain marker, something like ".... Family Christmas Tree." Walmart has a great selection of cardstock/scrapbooking stuff at reasonable prices. Buy a "booklet" of Christmas cardstock (Joann's Fabric & Craft store carries these and their on sale right now). There'd be enough cardstock in one of those books for everyone to get enough for all their family members. They'd coordinate on the tree also. Cut the cardstock in winter shapes - trees, glass ornaments, ice skates, sleds, snowballs, etc. Trace the hands of the grandchildren onto colored construction paper, cut them out and take digital photos of them, upload them to your computer and then downsize them to fit on the cardstock when you cut them out. A good size for the pics to fit onto premade hang tags is 2.25 width by 3.75 height. You don't need an expensive computer photo program to do this, just use your Word program. When you paste a pic on a piece of paper in word, click on the photo and a black lined box will appear around it. From there, click on the little "moveable" edges and downsize it to the correct height and width. Make your "ruler" appear on the page for easy sizing. Regular tacky glue like Elmer's glue is watery and runny for paper crafts (the pic will buckle), get a glue stick or use double-sided tape to put on the back of the pics to attach to the cardstock. Here are pics of some Christmas cards I made recently to give you an idea of what you can do. Hope this helps you. Sal

Cheryl, I have Minas Soapstone from Dorado. Originally, my soapstone was fabricated and finished at 220 grit so as to have that very smooth surface. After several months of living with it and having lots of water marks, rings and chips, scratches and dings that were not oiling out, I was very frustrated. I called Dave at Dorado and he told me that in his experience soapstone does better at a rougher grit and he came by and sanded my island down to 80 grit with a hand orbital sander. After living with it for about a week I noticed how much less it was scratching and how much longer the oil darkening lasted which helped with the water marks. I then sanded the perimeter with an orbital hand sander to 80 grit myself. Other than a lot of dust (I wore a mask and connected the sander to a shopvac, but it still was very dusty), it was easy to do. My countertop surface is flat and even and this grit is working out much better for me in terms of maintenance and how the counter looks and I know that I can personally take care of any future damage to the countertop. Hopefully, your fabricator will take care of this for you. But worse case scenario, you can try it yourself. There is a video on how to sand soapstone that I found very helpful. http://www.soapstonecounters.com/Howto.htm I have gotten used to the rougher feel of the soapstone at 80 grit, which I didn't think I would like. Over time though it gradually becomes smoother. For my stone, it has made a huge difference in how good the stone looks. Good luck and hope they fix it for you.