Hi Terrance nice to meet ya and thanks for the reply! Yes I must get outside in scratch that dirt. Where I live now, in Aberdeen, we gravelled the whole backyard due to having multiple horses in the house. LOL..my great danes make a terrible miss on grass so it was the only way. And mud? As in garden? Would be destroyed unless I built a fence around it. We are planning to buy a house soon, so hope to change all that. I can not wait to get into roses outdoors and perenials, grow my own veggies. Lily's too! I hope he builds me a greenhouse, as I am a die hard fan of tropicals. Plumeria and hibiscus are my fave's. Been growing them indoors for a year under lights, and lots of blooms. I also enjoy propagating and starting from seed indoors. Fun stuff! I guess when you grow up as a small town girl, you stick to your roots..hahahaha..too funny! Krista - sorry I left Sharon's name in the original post, so she knew I ressurrected it.

lurkandkibitz, great question. What I think... 1) I never noticed it until you said something, guess I assumed it was some kind of ad. 2) requires a lot more clicking. 3) leaves the page (right-click "open in new window" disabled.) 4) the writing is so small I can barely see it, and even after I noticed it, it's so small I didn't realize at first that it's actually a bunch of different links. Maybe if they were in list form it would be visually easier to use. 5) If there is a way to access my clippings (without making a bookmark) without first entering a forum, and then a thread, I'm the idiot who can't figure it out. 6) It's not the function I want. Unless I remember the date of the last comment on each thread, I don't know if something new has been said without opening each thread. 7) It's not the function I want #2. I want to easily find entire threads, not something said by an individual. 8) Ideally, I would like the option to receive an email notifying me of a new post in regard to each thread. 9) The page is clunky to look at/use, displaying each entire result instead of a list. These are the basics of how modern forums function, many other details I didn't even mention.

These threads are not sticky---they will stay at the top only for a few days and then sink like a rock in a lake when no one replies as the headline suggests. Is there no way to do a sticky post that will stay at the top?

I have an upright freezer in my kitchen. It has an opening in the oak cabinetry that my DH built when he did the rest of the kitchen cabinetry and looks like the refrig opening (match-matchy). Having it there makes so much more sense than one out in the pole barn (sorry annie1992). I also have a chest freezer in the bakery kitchen. To organize them, I put like things together on the shelves, some in baskets, some not. They are labeled on the outside (plain paper under a magnet) as to what is on each shelf of the upright, and what is in the left, middle, and right of the chest. They do get a lot of scritch-scratch on the papers, but I can finally keep track of all the "just stuff it in there" that may be labeled (like cloudy_christine) from too many years ago. The labels are: poultry, meat, seafood, fruit, veggies (including onions, sweet peppers, mashed potatoes), dairy (cheese/butter/eggs), finished stuff to reheat, and the additives (fat back, dried herbs, ginger, zest, bread &/or crumbs, vodka). All of the labels include dates - it only takes a minute - truthfully! The shelf for stuff to reheat is the wisest thing I've done since there's just the two of us and I cook for an army mostly, old habit having multiple children and/or relatives in the house. Pulling out a pile of waffles, bean soup, cooked rice, or ravioli is a god-send when it comes to lunch or dinner time. No stress. Do invest in a new gasket for whatever you buy new. The freezer will last a long time but the gaskets age and, like you discovered sleeven-dog, the manufactures stop offering them when you need them, years later. Extended warranty on most appliances are totally worthless. The unit is covered, usually by a 1-yr warranty, so what you are buying is just more money out the front door because it is not going to fail the first year. IMO Do buy a Food Saver or other air-sucker to preserve your frozen stuff. Even the lowly Mason pint or quart jars work exceptionally well in the freezer. IMO. Keep a thermometer in it. OF is OK but -10F is better. If you have a lot of open space in the freezer - stuff it heavily with newspaper or rice/flour/cornmeal/cereal/staples, or even ice cubes in a bag. The less air circulates in the open areas the better to maintain the freezing solid temperature in there. Nancy