Well of course thereÂs always something else to buy, Jennifer! ItÂs gardeners that are going to get the economy going again! I thought you knew that! ;-) I think all you need for your "thing that spins dirt" is a corner in the yard where you can dump whatever ingredients you want to mix, and a shovel! Unless youÂre mixing some awfully heavy clay or something, it should be pretty easy to stir up whatever peat/compost/etc. mix youÂre using to mix with your soil. Just add the ingredients in layers and then shovel thru it a couple times. But mostlyÂI reallyreallyreally recommend you donÂt try the rubber mulch. I think getting that stuff mixed into your soilÂand if you spread it on top it definitely WILL eventually get mixed into the soilÂwould be as awful as getting rocks (rock mulch) mixed into your soil. ThereÂs an area in my veggie garden where somebody, sometime, dumped a bunch of (I assume) left over rocks, and every year when I turn it over itÂs IMPOSSIBLE to dig in that area. It doesnÂt take much of a rock/stone at all to keep you from being able to push the shovel into the soil. When I get to that area, I spend most of the time trying over and over to "relocate" the shovel so I can get it past the stones. ItÂs EXTREMELY aggravating! Every year I sift out more and more of the rocks with my handsÂand keep hoping I "got most of them this year!" Wishful thinking! At this point I think IÂll be dealing with the problem for as long as IÂm gardening in that area! And I expect that to be a long time! If you get chunks of rubber mixed into your soil, it may not clunk as loudly when you hit it with a shovel, but I think it would create just as much of a problem as having rocks in ths soilÂand I kind of expect youÂre already dealing with enough of those out there where you are! Also, and IÂm definitely not the greenest person around, but it doesnÂt seem to me that mixing a bunch of petroleum based "rubber" into the soilÂwhich would take a LONG time to decomposeÂwould be a good thing for the environment. I donÂt disagree with the recycling idea (and IÂve actually gotten pretty good at it in my olde age), but certainly they can find something better to recycle old tires into! (And the natural mulches actually help the soil when they decompose!) Save the planet-----and the economy! Happy buying, Skybird

Ostentatious stuff - I know who I am, and don't feel any need to impress anyone. Frivolous stuff - when one approaches 80, with a housefull of stuff, (plus garage) one doesn't need more stuff. We in North America and Europe have abused our kids and grandkids ... ... we ran up huge gov't. debts when times were good, and, while Canada has had a balanced budget for a time, the U.S. is still running huge annual deficits, as well... ... we under-funded our pension plans and many are short of funds, plus there are soon to be many more pensioners, and fewer continuing workers to pay into the pension system. We've used up precious energy like it's going out of style: it isn't. But what have we found as alternative(s)? We've polluted air and water. The atmosphere is warming, and whether or not it's a natural change, or we're largely or even slightly responsible ... we can't do anything to alter natural change ... all we can do is alter our actions (and if natural causes are also, or mainly, at work ... altering our actions is the only thing that we can do to alleviate the situation). Some claim that the very continued existence of humankind is close to being at risk: there may be some justification for that claim, distasteful as it may be. We've fished out the seas. We've paved over high quality farmland ... and are running short of food. However, we've chosen to divert substantial quantities of foodstuffs to produce (some say wastefully, inefficiently) ethanol to help fuel our vehicles ... while we've begun to have food riots in several places because the impoverished people can't afford the higher prices. Many of them will be coming here: we can't build a fence high enough to keep them out ... most come by air. While prices of goods have been rising in North America and Europe ... wages haven't (for all but the top 1- 2% of the population), so our standard of living is falling. But many, refusing to accept this, are borrowing using their value of their houses to continue to live at former levels. Question: When they are downsized and forced into early retirement and unable to find comparable employment, with the equity in their homes largely used up ... ... how do they plan to finance their retirement? We're closing a couple of vegetable and fruit processing plants, plus a soup manufacturer locally, and ripping out peach trees that serviced them. Going to bring apples and peach jam (probably soup, also) from China, where stuff can be made cheaply. Yeah - using what for fuel to operate the ships? But there'll be shorter voyages to the east coast, using the nearly ice-free North-west passage. [[End of rant]] I'm getting ready to depart this life ... feeling rather ashamed that we haven't taken better care of this world that God entrusted into our hands. I hope that you all have a happy, thoughtful, fruitful week. Offer a smile and a kindness to the people that you...

I can't spare you some of the agonizing, but it might help you to separate out one type of concern from another and so maybe whittle down to the real priorities. Since it sounds like you are buying the piano to really play it, and you have the ability to detect differences in pianos and what you like and don't, I would first focus on that--the piano you would most like to play ( that fits in your house, of course!). Holding value (monetary value) has some importance but maybe less for pianos than for cars, say, since most people go through several cars for themselves, kids, etc. and get future benefits from a good trade-in. You might not end up buying the piano that you most love to play if it in fact is so expensive it would hurt your finances in some way. Everyone has some price that is too high--though the number of OO's might vary a lot! Or you might determine that you simply don't VALUE the very best piano. I bought a guitar a while back and I knew I did not need or want the "best" guitar and did not need to impress anybody with how cool my guitar was. Also I am a beginner and knew I might not become a real expert. I did buy a better guitar than I expected, and maybe I should have bought one much cheaper until I learned more, but the price was okay for my finances so I made a "match". If I were actually a good guitar player, I would not hesitate to buy a much better one than I did but again, I think the focus would be on what played the best, felt the best, that I myself got the best sound from, and that might be different for me than for another musician. I am sure that must be true of pianos to some extent. So if there is one single piano you keep going back to because you love how it sounds/plays and you "can" afford it, buy that one. If there are a couple that are sort of equally good but in different ways--and I mean in terms of musical quality, not prestige or later value ( I had that dilemma with guitars) , that is where I would get some feedback from another musician/piano expert. The car price comparison is fine as long as you look at in the right way--you don't value European sedans (neither do I) so you drive something cheaper and buy pianos. For other people it is the opposite and that is perfectly fine. You might enjoy reading some things by Amy Dacyzn (The Tightwad Gazette). She is or has been an extreme saver and re-user and most people would not want to do as much of that as she does. But that was not her main point or her greatest strength. Her mantra was, save on everything that you can that really has no value or benefit to you if you were to spend more; don't let your money just slip away on this and that. Don't buy things just because other people do if you really want something else. Decide what is really important and don't whine that you can't afford it, because it is likely that if you really focus and avoid daily spending traps you can afford a lot of really nice things--just not EVERYTHING. Her deal was empowerment to be in control of spending. Several posters above gave good examples of that. Typical examples that have been used in some budget/happiness books is a person who wistfully says they would love to take a trip to Europe,it's their heart's desire, but just can't afford it--said while sitting on their new sofa that cost $2000. So your situation is an extension of that--there are people who have your same income who actually cannot afford a major piano purchase because they have a huge mortgage and have bought cars, and furniture, and jewelry instead. Which is perfectly fine unless all they really want is a piano!

I went to the realtor's open house (my neighbor) on Sunday to be nosey :) and see what had been upgraded. Realtor said, "we did just what you did, painted and de-cluttered" (omg I did SO much more than that, but whatever). The kitchen was 1960 cheap particle board Jacobean painted white - purely done for the web photos - it is a tear down. Counters were original glossy gold and white flake formica - ok that would make them 50 years old. Tub in family bath, a rip out with iron scratches covering the floor of it. Paint job was sloppy. It was simply a tired 1960s house with pottery barn furniture. Seeing their sliding shower door I remember the realtor's parting words last summer: "And replace the shower door" and I shouted back - I already did, it's frameless now. She told me on Sunday not to put my house on the market until May when the gardens would be a show stopper. So I wonder if her motivation was to make me feel like the house was a piece of crap and I would lower the price so it wouldn't be in competition with her now. Oh well, that didn't work out. Thanks for everyone's comments. I will post before and after staging photos here when done. I will put my 1990 dovetailed solid oak against her 1960 white painted particle board any day. I got a quote on swapping out the brass hinges and door knobs. $3,000. So the brass stays too. The paintings are going back up and the price is being lowered and I have a buyer coming to look the first week of April who wants to be at the end of a cul de sac. They are first time home buyers who hopefully aren't looking for a smooth ceilings :)