This is my first year to can it and haven't opened a jar yet but on the yahoo canning group that I belong to everyone was raving about this recipe. They say that it stays very crisp just the way cole slaw should be. They all do agree though that this recipe is way to much sugar and was too sweet for most folks so everyone was cutting back to about 3/4 cup of sugar instead of the amount called for in the original recipe. I make one almost identical and it gets raves anytime I serve it and I always take it to potlucks. If you have a favorite dressing I think you could rinse all the vinegar etc from the canning and use your own dressing. You might have to adjust the ingredients a bit but it should be a pretty good substitute. Here is the recipe... Coleslaw to can or freeze 1 medium head cabbage 1 large carrot 1 green pepper 1 small onion 1 teaspoon salt SYRUP 1 cup vinegar 1/4 cup water 3/4 cups sugar 1 teaspoon celery seeds 1 teaspoon mustard seeds Shred together vegetables. Add the salt. Let stand 1 hour. Drain water from vegetables. Rinse twice and drain well again. Boil syrup ingredients together for 1 minute, cool. Add syrup to vegetables. Pack into quart jars and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes, or put into freezer containers and freeze. Leftovers may be frozen. This slaw may be drained before use and mayonnaise added, or used as is. These are the notes of one of the members...also I added chopped celery to mine because I always put it in my coleslaw. It is the vinegar that preserves the mix not the sugar so I think you can add even less than 3/4 cup but when I made it, I had a huge container full because I grew my own cabbage and onions so I used the 3/4 cup and I made about a triple batch of the liquid/brine. Oh and they all say that the only thing they do is open the jar and add mayonnaise to serve it. I'm not a big mayo person but I love coleslaw...My non canning recipe calls for all the chopped ingredients, and equal amounts of oil, vinegar and sugar....That's way too much oil and sugar for me so I just mix it till it tastes right...but it is soooooo good. DedeÂs (another canning group member) notes: 4/19/08 used 6 one pound bags of coleslaw mix with carrots. Added one large red bell pepper, diced, and one medium sweet onion, diced. Triple the syrup, but double may have been enough. Got 9 pints. GOOD STUFF.

Larry, Since Big Daddy is an improved version of Big Boy, I'm not surprised it is a little bit of a slow starter. That's how Big Boy is when I grow it---just a bit later than many others to set fruit. However, once Big Boy starts, it can really pump out the fruit, so hopefully Big Daddy will be the same way. I usually grow Better Boy instead of Big Boy because it produces more heavily, but sometimes I grow both like I have this year. I look forward to hearing how Big Daddy performs for you over the course of the summer. I almost ordered seed for it and put it on the grow list for this year, but I already was growing too many. I might give it a shot next year if the folks growing it this year have good results from it. Dawn

Even 'greenboard' fails eventually by moisture penetration. Walls that the shower can play on need cement board. Do NOT omit a moisture barrier under the cement board. 15 pound tarpaper is enough, or even one of the newer membranes. Cement board is 'waterproof' only in that IT is not damaged by moisture. Being a cement product it wicks moisture VERY well. Tile can be waterproof AND stop wicking (the glaze layer on wall tile) BUT the grout does wick moisture. This is what kills using plain drywall or greenboard for a backer. Older houses leaked enough that the small amount of moisture through the grout and into the mud bed did not stick around long enough to cause problems. The mud bed could also hold a lot of water before it really started to work through. Newer tight houses and the relative thin cement board require a little more protection from wicking moisture. A single layer of correctly lapped 15 pound tar paper does the job very well, and the stuff remains cheap.

Could it be that you feel by her calling her dad "daddy" vs. "my daddy" you feel that she is leaving you no room to fill a dad role? In other words, if SD called her dad "my dad", she could still call you dad too (ie. Thanks for the new shoes dad, the old ones my daddy bought me were getting too small."). My soon-to-be SD calls her dad and mom "my dad" and "my mom" which I find a little strange compared to my upbringing, but then again my parents have been together for over 40 years so I never dealt with step-family issues. I always called my mom and dad "mom & dad" around them, my sister and other relatives but called them "my mom & my dad" around friends and strangers. In my siutuation the strangest thing to me is when we are sitting around in the living room and SD will say something like "help, my daddy is tickling me" which seems odd to me since #1 - I can see what he is doing, and #2 - I know that he is her dad... Oh well, kids learn all types of communication and her parents refer to each other as "your mom" and "your dad" so I would imagine that is where she picked it up from.