The letter I copied above, must not have been read too recently! I kept reading it and thinking--"I don't think ACORN is doing the Census since there are several controversies they are involved in that have called them in to a questionable status." Here's what I found: "The Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN notifying the group that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with the community organizing group for all work having to do with the 2010 census. "Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts," read a letter from Census Director Robert M. Groves to the president of ACORN. "Unfortunately, we no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your many local offices. For the reasons stated, we therefore have decided to terminate the partnership," the letter said. The news follows the firing Friday of two more ACORN employees after new hidden-camera footage showed workers for the group advising a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute how to subvert the law." I thought so! Okay--now that's taken care of, what next? :o)

Ginger: The medium Weed Wrench takes a 2 inch diameter trunk, and these were really jammed into the jaws to fit. Most of these had been topped to make them less conspicuous till I could dig them out, so I can't say for sure the height. Since you have a business and mine's just for home use, I'd think you'd need both the medium and large. The instructions say that if a root doesn't come out easily, you're supposed to "pump" the handle, "rhythmically pulling hard, then relaxing the pull." If I'd done what they told me I probably wouldn't have had a problem. But I tried leaning on it with my weight, which is what I had seen my husband do to another one, and that's where I failed. So I'm pretty sure it's a malfunction in the user instead of any problem with the tool not being able to be used by a normal-sized person. I've got a couple of other saplings to pull (I hope tomorrow) and I'll post the results when I've done it. Melanie: You're supposed to have your HANDS in the dirt. You've got them mixed up with your mind... :o)

Kathleen, Your tables always amaze me. Where do find all your energy????? If I do a nice tablesetting a month I'm feeling pretty "Martha Stewarty" I look forward to all your Holiday 2008 tablesettings. Each one I see with the pumpkin bowls just makes me more jealous that we don't have CTS on the west coast.

Sorry, no luck with ads. I tried the Macomb Daily and the Detroit Free Press/News on Sundays, Saturdays, Thursdays- in their Open House sections and in the regular want ad open house areas. Nothing. Nada! Not one visitor to my open houses ever came because of seeing an ad. I started using the ads in March and used them here and there through July. Six months before we signed with our realtor (Tom Farago C21), we had him do a CMA. He advised us to use lots of signage for open houses, and that's what I did. I had the little red "Open House" signs with arrows and stuck on printed addresses. I placed them every Sunday at Gratiot, Groesbeck, Harrington, Mulberry, and Remick - every entry into the area. I was constantly fixing my signs! As a matter of fact, just before we gave up on the FSBO route and signed with Tom, I had bought a bunch of signs from Rocket Signs online, 18x24 signs with descriptions of the house, to draw people into the sub (Seminole Hills/Heights). The arrowheads for the signs were stick-on, so I could place the signs on the side of streets and then stick the arrowhead on, pointing the way, left or right. I didn't get a chance to use them much, we signed with Tom right away. I had a big sign made for the front lawn at Rocket Signs. It was 24 x 24 and gave info about the house to draw people in. I always had two-sided full-color handouts in the box on the lawn. I think I went through over 200 of them. I always listed the price. I notice that some realtors do not put the price on theirs. Tom is not using newspaper ads, either. The house is in the C21 booklet people can pick up in the grocery stores, and on a bunch of websites. Open houses are done once or twice a month, and do draw people in our neighborhood. We had four sets of people at one two weeks ago. One young lady almost offered, but (like everyone else) wanted an eat-in kitchen! Yes, let us all hope for a better season! I hope hearing about our experiences helped. I guess it could be a description of how NOT to sell a house, since it did not work!