It's been such a busy spring, I'm sorry to see it end... but I'm delighted to welcome summer: The first of my cherry tomatoes will be ripening any day. After that, it'll be a produce blur. The lightening bugs are impatient, and have been putting on dazzling shows for the past week. Spain was an absolute delight, and I really mean to post photos and a description of our trip. It's just that I was absent during "planting week" so have spent weeks catching up, and am now in "hammock time." Our front patio addition turned out ridiculously well. It really did turn out like I hoped. We added a low cocktail table with a central fire pit powered by a hidden LP tank, and neighbors have been drawn to it like, well, the moths have. Most weekend and many week nights have ended with Steve and me enjoying the fire, and then neighbors inviting themselves and their friends over. I enjoy the feeling of community and am happy to mix drinks and set out nibbles for them. The sunflower fort I built with the four year old across the street is now about a foot high. It'll be 10 feet or taller by summer's end. He keeps coming over to survey the progress and see what else is growing in my garden. I'm keeping him apprised of the progress of my baby cukes and tomatoes and he tastes and smells my herbs every chance he gets. He's never seen veggies grow before and seems fascinated by the process. I've even walked in on him giving tours of my garden to other kids. Since his parents aren't gardeners (though his grandparents are) it tickles me beyond measure to "corrupt" him in this way. One of my coworkers lost her job this month. Her position is being eliminated due to budget realities at the end of the month, and both she and my management seem to be relying on me to mentor her through the transition. She's been working for this non-profit for the seven-year entirety of her adult career, is clinically depressed, and is not coping well, so it's been a heartbreaking challenge. Today she came over so we could take our dogs (she has a greyhound) to the park and then work on her resume. After some riotous play, I ended up jumping into a lake after her greyhound who decided to jump off a dock (to follow Izzy) and see if she could swim (none can... they lack the fat that makes other dogs buoyant). We laughed hard and then we came back to my house to tackle her resume together. What started out as a sad document that drastically undersold her, turned into an honest and impressive chronical of her skills and achievements. I know it'll serve her well, and I could see her become visibly lifted in the process. It felt so good to be able to do something productive in the midst of what seems to be senseless suffering, and I was grateful for her trust in me. After she left, I drove to my twice-weekly ESL tutoring appointment and savored the progress we've been making over the past few months. I wonder if teaching English as a Second Language could be a fulfilling second career for me... one that would enable me to see the world, and continue meeting new people as I get older... which is especially important given the statistical realities of having a husband 15 years my senior... Hmmmm. So far, so good. Oh, I nearly killed myself the other morning. Seriously! It took me 30-45 minutes to realize that the "weird eggy smell" in my kitchen, my sudden headache, spaciness and "brain tickles," my insistently barking dog (a la "Timmy is in the well"), and that "hissing noise" I couldn't locate all had everything to do with the gas burner I extinguished in an expresso brewing mishap but failed to shut off. I finally figured it out when the auditory hallucinations ramped up and I began focusing on what I suddenly realized was the sound of the burner emitting a steady stream of gas. Thank goodness I don't smoke! Needless to say, Steve was a bit miffed when I relayed the harrowing saga to him while he was away on his business trip! I bought a non-stove top espresso maker today because he vowed to throw away my stove top model the moment he returns tonight. Other than that and some life and death familial health sagas that promise to play themselves out this summer, nothing much is going on. I welcome the new season and each and every day thereafter I'm lucky enough to walk this earth...

Paula, I can't believe you had to go to work in this mess. Well, yes I can, because it is the FAA after all. You be careful out driving in this and especially walking on the parking lots and sidewalks! So many people are falling and breaking bones and stuff. Tracy, I'm just across the river from Gainesville and while I-35 is a mess, Gainesville itself is basically fine. As far as I know, their power has remained on more or less and they only had 3-4" of snow. Some people on the Texas side of the Red River have had minor rolling blackouts where the power is out for about 15 minutes at a time about once every couple of hours, but I think that all occurred yesterday and not today, and I don't even know if the affected area included Gainesville. I know it included a lot of the D-FW metroplex. DH drives through Gainesville on his way to work and thought Gainesville seemed fine once you get away from the low-lying river valley area along the highway where all the traffic problems are occurring. If you want to see the Gainesville news, you can go to KXII.com or visit the webpage of the Gainesville newspaper, which I've linked below. Most of the "bad news" (other than travelers rolling over on or sliding off of I-35) locally seems to be coming more from the Sherman and Denison area than from the Ardmore, Marietta, and Gainesville area, if that is any consolation. Maybe your friends are down in Fort Worth for the Stock Show? I'm sorry to hear the cold has hit your plants so hard. It doesn't seem fair that the cold would hit y'all that hard after you already had to endure all the summer heat. Hang in there and when your DH finishes his degree, y'all can move back here where the weather is more normal. Well, OK, not exactly normal, but you know what I mean. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Gainesville Daily Register

Texas Gem, there's nothing wrong with choosing the flames. :) Amck, if you want the look of an impressive range anchoring your kitchen, but with a sleek, new induction cooktop, you can install it over drawers, or any kind of cabinet that will give you the correct air channel for cooling, and bump them out a couple of inches to give them prominence. Then, paint, stain, leaf or clad the stove base to make its statement and find cool hardware to complement the look. Add feet in the toekick to finish out the picture. It won't look like a range, per se (or at least not without being hopelessly kitsch), but it'll highlight the importance to the kitchen of the cooking area, and add some pizzazz. If you have an oven below your cooktop, add some tall side storage, and a shallow drawer under, for trays and racks, and dress as above. RE NOISE: There are high pitched tones that some induction cooktops make that only kids can hear (and the occasional outlier adult who is highly atypical in not losing that range of hearing with maturity). Additionally, there can be perfectly audible buzzes, thrums and clicks. These noises vary with the pan, the contents and the power level, so it's possible to have a unit that does it and never know for the first five years. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but in general, the massier the pan and the denser the food, the less you'll hear. Boiling water in a thin pan will often reveal them. Sometimes clicks come from inductors turning on and off at lower settings and are unavoidable. The audible to kids only sounds are usually persistent. If old fashioned fluorescent tube lighting always drives you buggy, then the sounds of induction might not be for you, especially if you have a quiet kitchen in a quiet house in a quiet neighborhood. If you're thinking "Huh? What noise from the lights?" you probably won't hear it. If the noise from the fluorescents is something you hear but doesn't bug you, the same will probably be true with induction. When in doubt, turn on the hood and some music. :)

It appears to me that the OP is between two extremes in this argument and neither extreme fits the original need/wish list. By my read the OP made avoiding voltage variations and surges top priority with some run time on battery backup AS A BONUS. On the one hand, surge suppressor does nothing for voltage and frequency variations. I don' t know a lot about UPSs, but it appears that they must be chosen with care if you are backing up anything but electronics. (The manuals that I've looked at specifically say no motors. Note that I understand the difference between running an AC motor and a DC motor off of a power supply.) I believe that frequency variations are often a harbinger of voltage failures and are certainly bad for motors on their own. It would be nice to monitor frequency as well as voltage for obvious reasons. I don't think that even less common OTS, built for home or office use, UPSs do that. The expressed need for monitoring voltage variations with accompanied cut-off of equipment for a period was why I mentioned the Intermatic equipment. It monitors voltage and disconnects the attached equipment so it should work for a furnace or boiler. It has a three-minute time-out which might not be ideal in this situation, but would help with repeated surges in a short period and allow time for someone to pull a disconnect or breakers. There is no battery to buy or keep up which cuts expense. Intermatic solution Note that an item on my wish list is an inexpensive device for lower power applications that would turn off power to small pieces of equipment (think [not plasma] televisions, cable boxes, other home entertainment and associated gadgets in terms of power demand.) and leave them off until reset manually. I have lots of lab equipment that is normally plugged in on standby 24/7/365 but it would not hurt anything if it shut off in response to dirty power.