Thanks for your kind words . . . and your enabling (LOL) ;^D I do have to make one correction, though: the gold & white plates were $1 each, not $2. Patty: girl, you get out a lot! I've seen your bargains, but if you want to zip down here, we can go out bargain hunting together and really do some damage! Jane: you have the turquoise? I saw a few of those recently; they're lovely! I have 4 (or 6?) of the same pattern in the cream and really like them. It's scary when you have so many dishes you can't remember things like that! You should have seen DD yesterday when she saw the 3 new groups of dishes (ROFLMAO). There was a lot of eye rolling! Jeanne: yes, you are a very bad/good enabler! I plan on checking out some tablescape pics here to inspire me. Kathleen: thanks. If you have any pics of white & gold tables, I'd love to see them. I need inspiration. Punk: Thanks! I'm anxious to get started on the plates.

No, I was in the 1st house here in AZ for 2 years and this house now for 1 year. I would like to find a decent house so I could stay at least 2-3 years. I thought I found a house yesterday. I was going to see if we could get a price break if I signed a 2 year lease but this owner or property manager have been very unrealistic in the pricing as well as unwilling to negitiate. Then today I went in the house and boy, was I disappointed. The listing says a 2 car garage but then you go in the garage and they built an enclosed room in there. You might fit a skinny car in there but no room to open the car door. Talk about false advertising. Plus an alley behind the house had graffitti sprayed on the block wall. Gangs? No heat and a dinky air conditioning unit just junkily cut into the wall. Bad kitchen, no gas pipe for my dryer, so many things wrong for asking that rent price. Of course, two days ago I saw one that the previous renters had TRASHED!! It needed all new carpeting, new bedroom doors (old ones had holes punched in them), a new fridge, and the yard would be difficult for my 13 year old dog, so many high and low spots. So I have 2 different agencies looking for me and sending me links. Pray that something reasonably price in decent shape shows up. One smaller place might have worked except that the back area that they counted in as square footage has no heat or air conditioning or much electricity or even a tile floor, ust concrete which is what the main hous had too. That's cold at night. It's basically an enclosed back porch, not livable space. That area would be big enough to make a nice dining room but I would hate to ruin my nice wood furniture by having it there or in storage. You can't keep furniture nice in temps of 110, 120 or higher in unconditioned space. I will find something soon. Thanks everyone.

@writersblock- ">Everyone will tell you that if you replace, you are REQUIRED to get impact windows and doors Hmm, I live on a barrier island off the east coast and I have never heard anyone say that." - If you're not in Florida, you may not have heard this. It may even be just south Florida. It seems to come up in discussion with Realtors, contractors, neighbors, etc, and thinking about it, just conversations with people who live here in St Pete or more south (Ft Myers, Cape Coral, Marco Island, Sanibel, Captiva, Keys, etc). And it's not just limited to windows - people just don't check the code requirements themselves - they rely on what some contractor told them or how their neighbor had to do it - I saw this also with building our pool (setbacks and such, which changed dramatically the year we built ours) and seawalls and docks and lifts (the major improvements we did to our house) One particularly opinionated neighbor even asked if we had talked to our insurance company before we planted our Royal Palms. ">since they were impact, they had huge frames and tiny panes Confused by this. It's true that the frame of an impact window goes further into the wall, but it should not make any difference at all in the amount of visible glass. There are places, like my upstairs sliders, where I couldn't use impact glass because there's not enough wall at the sides to anchor them properly, but if there were, the amount of actual window would be identical with regular glass." - What you describe is exactly the problem. It was a grouping of (I recall) about 4 or 6 separate impact windows where one would normally put a large picture window (I don't know if it was less expensive to do this way or why they didn't put in one window - but even they now admit that this add-on was a mistake). And the window panes are slightly smaller and the frames slightly bigger on the impact windows you buy here (Maybe just Florida? Miami-Dade code we all have to follow now). But if you can imagine the framing support requirements for each window, it put about, I don't know, 8-10" between the window frames (seems like more). The main horizontal support between the upper and lower windows is right at my eye height (I'm 5'7") and I can't see into the upper windows without hopping up, and have to squat a little to see out the lower windows. Remember this is the waterview side of the room. There are new tenants moving in right now, but maybe I can sneak over and get a picture from the outside sometime... Your neighbors' insurance story is awful. I can't believe they need certification for shutters, but I assume it's the insurance company inspector and they can do whatever they want. The city inspector didn't even look at the certification for our one impact window (for egress) because he was familiar enough with the PGT brand that he took one look and knew it was fine. For the front door, he just looked at the anchors around the door, and saw the shutters stacked in the garage, and signed off. I had pictures on my camera to show him with the shutters installed and he just waved me off. My insurance company hasn't even asked, and we have almost all original single-pane Miami windows (with no shutters) and we don't want to replace them because you can't get them here anymore (unless we do it unpermitted). But we are concrete block, didn't insure the carpet, and the rest of the house is tile, and we have a newer tile roof. Those are bigger factors here for insurance.

Susan- my revolver is a 357 magnum and you're correct about the noise protection. We always wear both eye goggles and hearing protection when we shoot. As for hunting- I don't. It just doesn't interest me but I do enjoy target shooting with my husband. We do regular targets and sporting clay. I do allow my brother and one other friend to hunt deer on my property. Both men have permits for 2 doe a year and they do eat all the meat or donate it to the local group who distributes it to the needy. I personally couldn't shoot a deer but I don't have a problem with my brother hunting for deer or turkey. We have 135 acres in the PA mountains and my forest has been decimated by the overbrowsing of deer. The only way to restore our woods is to drastically reduce the number of deer. It's not unusual to look out the window and see 10 to 15 deer browsing. The only oak trees we have left are the mature ones, there are no young oaks growing because the deer eat all the acorns and the young trees. We are enrolled in the PA Forest Stewardship Program and the goal is to protect and enhance our property for the betterment of all species of flora and fauna. Here's the recommendation from the 2 foresters and 1 naturalist from the Yale School of Forestry: ......"The recommended deer density to allow for adequate tree regeneration is 20 deer per forested square mile (one deer per 32 acres). However, to perpetuate a healthy native forest with a diversity of native shrubs and wildflowers, the recommended deer density is 10 deer per forested square mile (one deer per 64 acres). The habitat value of forests is greatest where there is an extensive unbroken canopy of mature trees with a diversity of native understory species that includes shrubs and herbaceous plants. Given that there are about 138 acres of forest on the property, the recommended number of deer that should be using this property to sustain a healthy forest is two."........ It's a serious problem. Melanie I think it's a real accomplishment whenever we're able to overcome a fear. Congrats!