If you bait your traps at night and check them first thing in the morning then your kids will not see any squirrel nearly all the time - they tend to show up early and check out whatever is new then. The one thing I have not done right with my Kania traps is I mounted them to fixed trees and I think they are really better on posts you can hammer into the ground near wherever the squirrels are causing trouble. Once I get some time I am going to re-mount two of them as portable traps. I have a pile of havahart traps that I could not get to reliably work. Part of the problem is dogs etc would kick them over to get the crackers and I never built a platform for them out of dogs reach. This is the reason the Kania need to be on a pole, you don't want Fido from next door with a crushed paw whining in your backyard. Scott

Sounds like fun - what book? Do you have a fireplace? We are having a cold north wind, too; only here when we have a cold north wind, it only gets down to 60. You mentioned the weather, and yes, it's been wonderful - exactly the kind of weather I came here for, except it's a little too chilly at night in the winter, but I have a heater that I run when it's too cold. I've been interested in virtual worlds ever since I saw the movie, Tron. Right now my virtual reality worlds include Second Life, OpenSim, and The Sims2, which my granddaughters gave me for Christmas. I'm glad for it as they play it and it will give us more to talk about. Today, I'm giving two links to a couple of pictures of Sims2 that I put up on Photobucket. copy and past the address into the browser window: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v199/explorer/The%20Sims/Sims02copy.jpg and http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v199/explorer/The%20Sims/Sims01copy.jpg The avatars, or computer-represented people, can walk around in the picture. It's sort of like an interactive movie. They do things, but the player can influence their choices. The second image is of Cassandra Goth and Peter Halliwell. They moved in together and are having a baby soon. I built and furnished the house they are living in. I love building and creating - virtual 3D art. I've put a copy of the first link below in the useful link box. Tomorrow I'll put up some pics of OpenSim or Second Life. In those I have virtual galleries. I'm still working on art in first life, too. And of course for virtual worlds, there is always meditation and painting :) Cyan Co. who created Uru that I played for several years are releasing the code to the fans, so that will be available again soon, too. At least I'm hoping so. In first life, I'm working on my art and trying to get an exhibit ready for the hospital here and maybe for one of the galleries. I get very tired and sometimes discouraged, but still going :) BJ, I'm glad you like the cards. I'll try to get those up on a site soon so others can see them, too. That's all I can write today, but I'll try to get back more and be more involved again. I work on my eating, too, and maybe will share that. I think this is a wonderful forum and that the people here have done the best job I've seen with supporting each other and caring. See you soon Amy Here is a link that might be useful:

I recently had a similar situation. I have been doing a lot of work on my house to get it ready to sell. I have been working with a carpenter (I adore) for almost a year. He has acted as a GC for some things I needed done. He would bring in someone he worked with but I would pay them separately. He recommended a painter who came and gave me an estimate to paint my entire house inside. I agreed and he brought in two workers. They worked for approx 2 weeks. My carpenter came back and didn't like the work they did. He called the head painter on the phone and began screaming at him telling him to get over to my house. Long story short, the painters never came back. I couldn't reach them, never heard from them and lost approx $3,000.00 in the process. My carpenter explained that some of the work was poorly done, no primer was used when it should have been, nails weren't hammered in, picture hooks and outlet covers weren't removed. I was upset that I lost money and painters. He (the carpenter) said he'd finish the painting at no cost to me except the paint. He was right, the work was poor. I noticed some things but not all. I work during the day and was not present to supervise. I still am not sure if I am happy he spoke or if he should have left them alone. Either way, I lost money.

I'm so with you Sherry_7bAL, I have never been a fan of open concept, stainless nor granite, or even tile backsplashes for that matter - kitchens are noisy enough as it is, adding more hard surfaces for sounds to bounce off of, while someone may be watching TV in the same big room has never made sense to me. Rooms people, houses need walls and rooms. :) The house my husband decided he liked the best when we were shopping for one had a semi-open kitchen, one of our first projects was to have the ponywall/bar knocked down and the wall lengthened to make an archway between the now eat-in kitchen and the livingroom, what a lovely difference that made, I even put long drapes from Ikea on the kitchen side of the archway so it can be closed off, just love the kitchen now and the livingroom moreso. We replaced appliances and would like to replace the counters but they'll be a formica type (as they are now), will always keep vinyl on that floor, I like the padding underfoot and ease of cleaning. I like rocks outside, but not in my kitchen.