Trading seeds is a fun way to add new varieties of plants to your flowerbeds without breaking the bank. Before offering seeds for trade, I typically Google the botanical name and include as much information on the label as possible, including botanical name, common name, cultivar name, height, zone hardiness, light/soil/water requirements, bloom time/length plus any other pertinent information that will fit on a standard mailing label. You'll find the seed quantity information in the FAQs but I typically trade no less than 24 seeds or an eighth teaspoon if they're too tiny to count. Foxglove, butterfly bush, cardinal flower and a few other seed types are really tiny. Welcome to the wonderful world of growing from seed!

Go to your local library and see what they have to offer in the way of how to books, or something with easy, quick projects. I think it important to start simple and get a success under your belt, early on. If you start with a project that is too complex, it's discouraging. I think scarves are a good thing to start with....a plain garter stitch scarf is easy, is the use of the same stitch over and over, so you should soon be very comfortable with the knit stitch...plus, your scarf won't roll up at the ends or sides in garter stitch, and will lie flat, like it's suppose to....just keep going till it's long enough to wrap a couple times around your neck, and then some! Tie some fringe on the ends and you'll have something you can actually use. Personally, I only knit with wool...I use acrylic only for a baby item that needs to go in the washer and drier. Wool is so forgiving, and after the item is finished, it may be blocked into the shape you want. I pin things onto the back of a door, with push pins, to the shape I want, and then mist it with water. When it's dry, it retains the shape I pinned it into. You can't do this with acrylics. Forget crocheting....it has no resemblance to knitting....so, start fresh and don't try to liken it, in any way, to crocheting.... I think the idea of a class would be good. You might also want to check, not only at yarn shops, but with craft stores like Michaels...I know they offer classes here. Another thing to keep in mind is a Knitting group...there are lots of those around...sometimes called a guild...and any yarn shop in your neighborhood should know if there are any where you live. They're just a bunch of women who get together and knit.

Justgotabme - Ha ha! Sadly I wasn't much better before I had kids. At least not about getting organized and staying that way. But I did have more energy to just stay up an extra half hour and tidy up so it didn't get quite so crazy. The good news is that after I wrote my pity-party posting last night I did get up and pick up the scattered mail, any trash on the floor, DD's books and got the toys back to her zone. Some of the stuff is gone off the couch too, mostly just the trash stuff though. Looking at what I just wrote about not being able to get organized and stay that way... I'm not sure that's true. I don't think I have EVER been organized. I have gotten my house neat and clean, but I think I can't keep it that way precisely because it is not organized. On the other hand, I think my kitchen is fairly organized and everything there that belongs there has a home... but it doesn't stay neat because other things like to camp out on the kitchen counter and table. I don't think most of my house is unorganized because I have too much unloved stuff (though that's certainly true of the garage), we do haul stuff to Goodwill several times a year and there's an ongoing goodwill pile in the garage. But I'm sure if I started digging through my closets I could find more to haul away.

This feels like a six-figure list, but hard to say much beyond that to price. Don't understand Sophie's dismissal of solar -- ours has a 10-year payback estimate, and that's before we sell any credits. It's great to have zero heating costs at some times of the year, to feel like we're decreasing our environmental footprint, and to hope someday to run our car off the system too. For your project, agree with aprilneverends about just getting some contractors to walk through it with you. It will clarify some things (probably none of them have solar connections, or you'll find out there are zoning issues, or whatev.), it will give you some numbers, and they may have advice about how to think about the projects in the sense of logistics (can you live there, etc) that will help you plan and even assess your enthusiasm. For sure, I wouldn't sweat a designer yet, although you will probably want a kitchen specialist to help you get the most from your enlarged kitchen space. Are there some parts of this project that are needs and others that are wants? because you might decide you don't need to do it all. Your kitchen looks pretty great for a family of four, for example, and I'm not sure you'll ever get back the (extravagent) cost of getting an extra 3-4 feet in each direction...