Wonderful ideas, everybody! I finally purchased an old wooden door for $15. The bottom half is 3 rows of 3 panes of glass, and the top is empty/open (used to be paned, as well). I'm making it into a garden gate to go under an arbor. I'll post more details later, as the project progresses. Theresa, some other places near Waldo to visit are the Blue Star Nursery in Hawthorne (352-481-3300), south of Waldo on 301, and the Breezy Oaks Nursery (352-481-3795) outside of Hawthorne, a couple miles east of the intersection of 301 and Hwy 20, on Hwy 20. Both are lovely nurseries, but very different. Also near Waldo is the Herb Garden nursery in Melrose on Hwy 26, but I'm not sure what their hours are. You can call them at (352) 475-5475. There is also the Greathouse Butterfly Farm on Hwy 26, between Melrose and Orange Heights. http://www.greathousebutterflyfarm.com/contact.htm Another wonderful place to visit in the area is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' old home place, which is now a state park on Orange Lake in Cross Creek. http://abfla.com/parks/MarjorieKinnanRawlings/marjoriekinnanrawlings.html The restaurant The Yearling in Cross Creek is absolutely stellar ( http://www.florida-secrets.com/Restaurants/ENW/Yearling.htm ), as is the Blue Water Bay Restaurant in Melrose ( http://thebluewaterbay.com/ ), where they grow their own herbs! The Friday night seafood buffet is just unbelievable. I am a very picky restuarant goer (because it is rare I find a place that can cook better than I do), and I am telling you, I've had company from Seattle and Chicago who were very impressed with the cuisine at both these places. All these places are in east Alachua County or just over the county line in Putnam County. You wouldn't even have to go through Gainesville. If you wanted to make a weekend of it, you could find a bed and breakfast in Micanopy http://www.lanierbb.com/inns/bb7562.html or Melrose http://bed.florida-2.us/profile/FL/Melrose/4746 . Micanopy is famous for its antique shops, but I find it pricey. Quaint little town, though. Oh yeah, Crone's Cradle Conserve is in Citra, just south of Alachua County and Cross Creek, in Marion County http://www.cronescradleconserve.com/ If you wanted to make a weekend of it, and also go into G-ville, there is the Kanapaha Gardens there http://www.kanapaha.org/, and to the west, in Newberry, is Dudley Farm State Park http://www.floridastateparks.org/dudleyfarm/default.cfm , which I HIGHLY recommend! Also, a very nice B&B in G-ville, the Sweetwater Branch Inn http://www.sweetwaterinn.com/inn.html, where I used to have the most delicious lunches, until they quit opening to the public. Have fun! (If you were to check out everything I've suggested, you'd need 3-5 days, at least!) It's a lovely area of Florida. I don't know what your internet search skills are, and don't mean to be condescending, but if you go to yellowpages.com, you can get addresses for all these places, and then go to mapquest.com and put in those addresses and get the mileage between them. Hope this isn't too off-topic for everyone, but also hope if anyone is ever planning a trip to Florida, it will enrich your experience.

I guess there's no law they have to fit the window vertically. That was rather ingenuous what you came up with. You probably have central air. I have to be able to keep the windows at least partially open in the summer, but your idea wouldn't necessarily preclude that. I just got my comeuppance. The shutters are sitting on the extra loveseat, I'll put them somewhere until I finish up my current projects and from the ideas I got just may be able to implement one of those. Stopped by a garage sale and they had the most beautiful antique oak bed and matching dresser for $250. Oh man was I tempted. There are antiques and there are antiques. This had a beautiful golden patina and was carved in a wheat pattern. I could make room for it, but enough is enough. Shame though. I won't soon forget that. Ended up telling her to try ebay with local pickup. Forgot she could try to sell it on consignment through an antique store. I don't know why antiques are going so cheap now, at least in my area, maybe there is a glut of them. I wouldn't try to sell really nice antiques at a garage sale though. You just can't have everything even if you have the money to pay for it at the moment. I will not forget that beautiful set for a long, long time. I never saw an oak one I liked as well as that except one piece I bought for my granddaughter when she was a baby, actually it was a little similar. My granddaughter's needs some TLC now, but nothing major. I did track one beautiful French set on ebay, white with beautiful flowers painted on it, exquisite details, many extra pieces. It went for over $4 thou, but I was guessing it would get about $6 thou. Those shutters are really pretty though, have the side pieces, too, not sure what they are for. Only thing I noticed once I got them out is they weren't painted too carefully. Dried drips. No biggie. They can be sanded off and touched up, I used to be more fussy about painting than I've gotten of late. Thanks for the suggestion. I told my granddaughter about them and she wants them lol. She just moved into an older (new to her) duplex yesterday so I don't think she can put them up there.

Mama, can you repost it over to Garden Junk forum, I don't think you put it there & they will love it. it's been a little slow lately, everyone planting their gardens & trying to get things done this spring! Love all your pics!! They will too.

Personally I would not put it out to pasture that is not really a big investment in a machine that is still capable of working well. Doing some maintenance on it, cleaning out the old junk that is taking up space and resources etc should be done anyway. You can use it plugged in to the ac, I use mine that way 90% of the time. the lot of work you mention is work that needs doing on any machine we have to keep up with all that or we end up in these situations. Help! My computer is slow! and run the Secunia software inspector to make sure all your stuff is updated too. I have a couple of xp machines, a windows 7 laptop and some linux machines, they all take maintenance just have to dedicate the time to it.