daybreak2, Since you had good success the first year, something must have changed since you built your "perfect" soil. I'm thinking about several things: 1. Your irrigation water might contain chemicals that have built up in your soil; 2. Your compost might have the wrong pH or be missing important nutrients (what is "soil builder" btw?); 3. Disease organisms might have been introduced into your soil; 4. The amount of sun your boxes gets could have changed. It sounds as if your garden is getting progressively more heat as it moves from box #1 (soaked) to box #4 (too dry) or you're growing plants that use more water in some boxes than others. Here are some suggestions: 1. Have your soil and water tested. 2. Rotate your crops among the boxes. 3. Make your own compost. 4. Fix your irrigation so that it delivers different amounts of water depending upon where each box is located (full sun, part shade, windy or not) and the water demands of the various crops. 5. If those don't work, start over with your boxes in different locations and without the landscaping fabric.

I've had good luck renting with two cats, even with landlords who normally don't take pets. One, I always volunteer to pay double the security deposit. Fortunately, my cats are not destructive and always hit the litter box, so I always get the whole deposit back. Two, I tend to rent from landlords that own a few units, not from large complexes. I arrange to see the apartment before I mention a word about the cats. I want the landlord to meet me and realize that I am a good potential tenant. Then I mention the cats. Most landlords have been willing to work with me. I also offer to produce vet certificates if I think it would help. Nflifer has a point about vacant units. My current apartment is hard to rent--its a large studio, about 1,000 sf. It's large enough to be a three bedroom apartment. But because its only one room, it is really only suitable for a single person or a couple that gets along really, really well. A unit this size in my area, with a university in town, would normally have three or four roommates to split the rent. So in order to rent the place, the landlord has to charge lower than market rate rent. It had been vacant four months when I rented it. So I get low rent and a great space and the landlord has a free mouse-removal service in my cats and everyone is happy. (He says that my first winter there was the first winter no one complained about mice.)

Here's where I heard about the hashbrowns in waffle iron (have since seen it several places): Hashbrown Waffles by Waffleizer.com Directions: 1. Wash and peel the potatoes. Shred them and squeeze them dry with a towel. (This ensures that your potatoes brown nicely.) 2. In a mixing bowl, add the potatoes, followed by salt and pepper to taste. 3. Spread about a teaspoon of butter on the waffle iron. (A silicone pastry brush works well; neither you nor the brush will melt while you spread the butter around the extremely hot waffle iron, and any nonstick finish on your waffle iron will be spared.) 4. Pile the shredded potatoes into the waffle iron and close the lid. 5. After a few minutes, you may wish to squeeze down the lid a bit. Check the potatoes after 10 minutes. In my waffle iron on the medium heat setting, the potatoes showed golden-brown highlights after about 15 minutes. But yours will vary, possibly by quite a bit. 6. Carefully remove the potatoes from the waffle iron. Serve them with grated cheese or sour cream. You could also serve waffled hash browns with ketchup, alongside a waffleburger. But that takes serious commitment to the concept. And I would worry about you a little. I used mine as the base for a fried egg, topped with shavings of three-year Gouda. It took me about two minutes to clean my plate. And, no, I did not waffle the egg. Not that one, anyway. Cooking bacon came from Alton Brown's show.

My way to deal with cravings in the evening for food in general is to do a hunger assessment. If I'm wanting a snack, am I hungry for a meal? A piece of chicken? If not, then I figure I'm not really hungry, but maybe tired. In general, I find I can feed yoghurt--doesn't have to be sweetened--to an evening craving and it satisfies. Am I looking something sweet? Even plain Greek yoghurt is milky sweet beneath the sour. I try to eat something that's generally "healthy" in those circumstances. I've recently become sensitive to sugariness. If I'm craving something specifically candy sweet--not the kind of ordinary sweet that fruit satisfies--I'll have a frozen yoghurt pop. The chocolate coating serves as "candy", there's some sugar in the yoghurt, and the yoghurt feels like food. It's also pre-portioned and portable, making a quick getaway from the kitchen easy. I have tried substituting "food" for a sweet in that circumstance, including fruit and other naturally sweet foods, but it doesn't work. If I have a sandwich, instead, the craving just gets stronger. I think, for me, the sweet craving is really a low blood sugar thing or something--if I eat a small amount of an actually sugary sweet I feel better. This all supposes general wellbeing! Grainlady mentioned water. Definitely make sure you're well hydrated since what you might be craving is the milk that washes down the cookies, rather than the cookies. :) Also, however, check yourself for sleep deprivation. When I was younger and working way too hard, I'd end up substituting food for sleep. It works short term in terms of alertness and problem solving, but it's unhealthy. If you nod off the instant you're in a warm, relaxing position (i.e., you won't nod off at your desk, but would in an easy chair or laying on a sofa), or if you're out like a light when your head hits the pillow, you're probably sleep deprived. Getting enough sleep is vital! Another thing that can give rise to cravings is missing nutrients. If you don't have a highly varied diet of very fresh foods, especially produce, that have been consumed with almost no cooking or processing, it's likely that you're missing something. People survive without all the vitamins and minerals we grew up hearing about, but you're trying to do more than barely continuing to draw breath. There are a lot of wacky supplements out there, but a good, balanced multivitamin, consumed daily, can take a bunch of cravings right away. Sometimes I crave kale chips. I indulge that one. :) I try not to overdo it only because the way I make/like them takes a lot of work so I do try to make them last. :) And moderation in all things includes kale!