Santa rosa is excellent, you will see red on it when it is ripe. Never saw that until I grew them. Burgundy is awesome and stays on tree like pluots for a while. Methley is so juicy, my wife calls it her tree and does not want me to eat any. Beauty is good but not as good as Santa Rosaas far as I am concerned. I don't buy peaches, nectarines or p,ums for grocery store they just are not the same as home grown. Ate one early nectarine tonight it was so good.

One of the things that I'd be looking at is the value of the house. If we're talking about a $100,000 house I wouldn't spend a grand on a ticket. If it's a million dollar house I'd be in. For a $250,000....maybe a $500 ticket? I'd try to scale your price to your market. I wouldn't sell a thousand dollar ticket if your house isn't a half million dollar home (appraised or tax assessed value). think of scaling your ticket price to your house value somewhat...ie a lot of tickets at 100 if it's a 200,000 or below price is likely to be more successful than trying to market a thousand dollar ticket for a house of that value. People are going to do a little homework on a grand price ticket so be prepared to have an appraisal that makes sense next to your tax assessed value. You throw me off when you say that the homeowners are going to get their full price no matter what....you mean they're not taking a bit of a loss here as a tax deduction? That seems....well like an easy way to sell a house. I'd come back a bit hardball on them. It's only a donation when you give something up. Getting full price and "offering" the difference to the HS seems a bit greedy..and a bit inappropriate. I certainly wouldn't expect you'd be paying all of the advertising costs etc. What on earth would their agent fee be? I think your HS might be getting snowed here. I've been involved with a lot of fund raisers....and this has a bit of a smell to it. Not on your part or the HS. I've seen charities take a hit when trying to take advantage of something that sounds too good to be true. People on the board don't think it through...the possible numbers make their eyes glaze over and they forget the downside. I think if you go forward as is with the homeowner expecting a full return, you're going to take a hit, not make money. You won't embaress yourself...the lottery winner will win something, but it could cost your society more than you might think. I'd go back with a reasonable return idea to the homeowner and the offer to split the costs of marketing, no matter the outcome. They can still take this as a deduction if it's a reimbursement to the HS. So it's still a decent deal for them.

I mentioned to DH last night that I thought we should buy a ticket. He said no way was he going to why don't I do it? For one thing, I am seldom anywhere that I would have the opportunity. Secondly, I am tightfisted when it comes to things like that. The few times I've been in a casino I've won a couple hundred dollars and then cashed out as soon as I won. I never played after winning and never played with more than $25. Still, it's nice to dream of what you would do with a win. We have been using our pastor's home for years because we are too small of a congregation to afford a church so that would be first on my list. The SPCA and animal rescue organizations would be next. There are so many worthy organizations. I would gift each of my children with a home, each getting the same amount dollar wise. I would set up college funds for my DGC. As for us, we could put an addition on the house to get an upstairs laundry and I would hire a lawn crew and a full time housekeeper. I think the key to a successful win would be to do as much good as possible with the windfall.

DH received one for Christmas from a business contact. My poor husband had been totally unaware of the Stanley craze and when he opened the package he thought it was a joke. When I told him that it retailed for $46 dollars he thought I was teasing him. Then in January he started physical therapy for back pain and commented after his first visit about the therapists and clients carrying jugs of water around. He said it reminded him of our pre-school grand daughters and their sippy cups. I guess the two of us go through life dehydrated since the only time we have water bottles with us is on a long car trip. It's just not a habit that we've developed. I take an aquatics class every morning and some how manage to get through 90 minutes of water exercises without stopping for a drink. When I return home I'll drink a glass of iced tea. When I was working we never had beverages in our offices. There was a water fountain if you were thirsty but other than that we only had beverages during lunch or breaktime.