My favorite and preferred way to get your soil revivified is to apply LOTS of either composted manure (horse, goat, etc) or straight rabbit manure, composted or not. I achieved a startling change in my front yard from pavement-feeling clayey stuff to an incredibly springy, almost turfy feel by distributing the waste from my 100+ rabbits and then adding redworms. The resulting texture brought in the rest of the native worms, who took care of integrating the top with the old soil, and now I have a yard I could grow pretty much anything in if the dog would quit trampling it. :) My roses and other established plants get frequent doses of fresh rabbit manure and worm castings (rabbit manure won't burn but you do want it away from the stem about an inch for air), and my Queen Elizabeth generally gets pruned down from its habitual 8-10 FEET of height about four times a year. :) BUNNY POWER RULES! :)

Glenda, we are leaving Feb. 7th. and doing the Western Caribbean and thinking about booking the same ship on the 14th. and doing the Eastern Caribbean. This is our good time to get away and we are flying into Florida so the airfare will cost the same if we stay one week or two. We have already been to all the ports we will visit, but we don't care. Are you leaving from Florida and what cruiseline? I would say to have a good time, but I know you will. But I will say it anyway, have a good time and enjoy your cruise.

1852 pages of 20 items each ... ... and the librarian says that some people have too much time on their hands. Heck ... I'll show you how to make 35% on your money ... guaranteed ... for five dollars. In fact ... I've done it, here, for free - all you need to do is look. How to get a dollar's worth of value ... for 50 to 60 cents or so. How to make over $46,500. annual income and pay no income tax (well ... there'll almost surely be some Provincial to pay) ... if you're a Canadian resident "taxpayer". How to save gas when approaching a yellow traffic light (red works just as well) ... or running downhill ... and it works better if your car has a standard transmission. Not advisable in states where it's illegal to coast ... clear? How to cut your credit card interest costs to zero. How to arrange to use your last dollar on the last day of your life. There are probably more. ole joyfilled

I'm sorry, but fabrication is expensive and these countertops are expensive and so I don't see how working with a customer to make sure they like the templating is "donating time." Are you saying that people spending thousands of dollars on countertops should just take it however the fabricator decides (which would likely be whatever is most convenient for him and never mind how it looks in the end or if the customer likes it)? There are several people in the trades on this board who seem to have rather dim views of their customers. I don't understand this because you make your living off of these people. I do understand that some people are more difficult than others, but that's how it goes, right? I interact with my clients every day that I'm at work. So, I do understand how some people can be, but...there are so many threads on here with photos of stuff that's really not acceptable. My Dad worked in construction. He did work for both general contractors and for individual homeowners. He took pride in his work, did a good job and wanted his customers to be happy with the work he did. He had no problem taking time to make sure these things happened and he worked REALLY hard, often in unpleasant weather, to produce a good quality finished product. I never heard him complain about anything...not the heat that he worked in over the summers, the lack of bathroom facilities on many of his jobsites, the condition his job left his hands in, etc. He never complained that his customers wanted a good job or that he had to spend time with them. He also didn't gouge people or charge more when he was busy. He didn't call any of his customers a PITA or try to charge anyone a PITA fee or anything like that. I see many tradesmen, contractors, etc., these days, who seem to have really big egos, look down on their customers, try to take advantage of customers whenever they can, who feel entitled to be paid a lot of money for a minimum amount of work (or poor quality work), who refuse to take hard jobs because they are only looking to do what's easy, and who take no pride in their finished product. I'm not saying this is anyone here, but I am saying that you often seem pretty quick to criticize the customers, who are paying a lot of money and who mostly just want a good job in exchange for their money. Overall, I've been very disappointed with most of the people I've hired to do work on my home. No, I've not hired anywhere near the cheapest guys and, yes, I've been willing to pay for someone who does quality work. You can jump to calling me a PITA, if you want, but then we could talk about how much I've paid/been willing to pay (much more per hour than my husband or I have ever earned and we make a decent living) and I have photos to show the poor quality of work these guys have tried to leave us with. We could also talk about the way some of these men have acted in my home (regarding bathroom facilities that I provided, the use of my refrigerator/icemaker, etc.) and about the shocking lack of any work ethic (sheer laziness and lack of any pride in their work, not caring about the quality of their work and trying to take advantage of us in many ways, including by trying to pass off horrible quality work as perfectly fine/a good job) some of them have displayed. We could also talk about the various lies we've been told by multiple people we've talked to about doing jobs. Thank goodness we know enough to mostly prevent ourselves from being taken advantage of... Then, we could talk about the experiences of a good friend who is a single woman and how everyone she has hired over the past 15 years (and she's paid them a LOT and has never tried to hire anyone on the cheap) has basically taken advantage of her, charging a LOT and then doing subpar work. Things have changed, and not for the better. It seems that you can't trust anyone these days. I'd NEVER pay thousands of dollars for new countertops and then not be present for both templating and installation. If someone tried to charge me for that, I would find someone else. If I couldn't find someone else, I'd put in countertops myself (tile, butcherblock or maybe cut soapstone myself--which is what a family member did and it looks beautiful) before I'd allow myself to be treated that way.