How do you get yourself into these problems? Because you have a problem and are trying to fix it rather than ignore it or dump your problem on someone else. I find that to be very admirable. The good thing about this is you will be learning a lot in the process of getting things back on track. The down side is it is going to take a little bit of time if we do it here. Your are very lucky because there is a lot of experience her and, super people willing to help. There should be no fear of what to do with what fix-it finds if you decide to go that route. They offer several bits of information as to what found information does, and a suggestion of what you should let fix-it do, to fix your computer. You can undo anything fix-it does, with the click of a button. If you go to do anything that will screw things up, fix-it will tell you. If anything in any of the steps does not agree with what you see on the screen, don't continue and get back to us and let us know what the discrepancy is. There are several reasons why you might not be getting to the desk top you are used to and rather than a bunch of mumbo jumbo and jargon, we'll start with the simplest reason first. From what I gather at this point, you have multiple issues that are not necessarily "Computer Problems". To best help you get on track using a forum like this, I suggest we take one issue at a time. There are several ways to skin a cat so I am going to use what I know will get you to where you want to be. Of course, if you know a faster way that works for you, no problem, as long as we both get to where we want to be. We don't know what you know so if we describe a step that you well know, it is not to insult your intelligence or belittle you, it's just to get you where you need to be in a step by step manner. 1....The folder that YOU created named "desk top", rename it to "My Icons" and do so without the start and end quotes. The folder you created, from what you indicated here, has a space between the words "desk" and "top". That's the one you want to rename. 2....Click on the START button at the bottom left of you computer screen. Look for "My Computer" and click on that. 3....RIGHT click Local Drive (C:) In the left column at the top, you should see "Desktop" with no space between desk and top. Looking down a little further, you should see C: with a plus next to it. Click on that plus. When it expands, look down the list and you should see the renamed directory "My Icons" that you did previously. Click on that and in the right column, everything you moved should be listed there. 4....At the top of this window click on EDIT and when the menu drops down, click on SELECT ALL. Everything in the right column should become highlighted, usually in blue. 5....Take your mouse pointer over to the highlighted column click down on the LEFT mouse button and HOLD IT DOWN. While holding it down, drag everything over to the left column and up to the "DESKTOP", at the top of the left column. You will see the DESKTOP change color when you are on it and at that point, let up on the mouse button. Make sure you are on the DESKTOP name and that it highlights because if you don't, you may move everything into another directory, compounding the issue!!! Everything should now be back the way it was before you moved your desk top. If everything is back to what you are used to, we'll take the next step. My particular next step is going to ask for a list of everything in the task manager under the tab "PROCESSES". Do a "Ctrl" "Alt" "Delete". When the task manager pops up, click on the "Processes" tab. After you enter this tab, hover your pointer over the words "User Name". This will be the name of one of the columns. You have to hover over the actual words. Left click that and you will see everything organize itself. If you could then get us a list as it appears on your screen, we can work on the next steps. I have to go on an errand so it might be some time before I get back to you, I live in a rural area. Someone else here may pick up where I left off, I have no problem with that. The beauty of this particular forum is many knowledgeable people willing to help.

I used the same bean pot style enameled West Bend slow cooker for decades. I was doing bookkeeping in an appliance and hardware store newly married and the West Bend salesman sent one to each of us. Completely simple. It had high or low, off or on. Nothing else and did a wonderful job. I could put it on cooking as I left for the office and come home to a kitchen that smelled wonderful and a fully cooked tender meal. After many years of use, the interior was looking pretty stained and worn. What i found in researching new was that all more recent models cooked hotter than those early appliances. It was explained as a safety thing, food temps. Only - hotter was not turning out better tasting products. In frustration, I bought a Fagor multi cooker after carefully researching its temps. Could have been as long as 20 years ago? The browning function worked flawlessly, it would slow cook on high or low, there was a rice cooking setting and it would pressure cook or even just keep warm. I use it a lot and enjoy it still. I don't know what I'll do when it quits - I understand they've gone out of business. I think I could be tempted by a Breville product, I've had quite good luck with their small appliances. Mushy discolored vegetables is making me think possibly cooking at too warm a temp and I don't know how you get away from that since someone has decided the original cooler cooking models were not always safe. We were certainly never sick from my original (70's) West Benn Bean pot style 😊

You said you applied plumbers tape, but sight unseen I would bet you got the wrong tape. Those cheap little blue&white rolls of PTFE(teflon) tape commonly found in all the hardware and home supply stores are single density Teflon tape. Single density tape is only intended to by used on SAE & NPT threads up to 3/8". You angle stop valve is no doubt a 1/2" NPT thread. For 1/2" and greater threads you should use the red triple density tape and even with the triple density tape it still requires three full layers to insure a seal. You can find the red triple density tape in all Lowe's or HD stores in the section where they keep solders and soldering paste. You will find Yellow Rolls Double density tape (commonly labeled as "Gas Tape"), the tape is also yellow, and you will find RED rolls of Triple Density Tape. Although it is called Red, in reality the roll is red but the tape is a light pink color. When applying the tape you begin on the end of the pipe and make one complete turn around the threads even with the end of the pipe then continue wrapping so that each wrap overlaps the successive wrap by 2/3 the width so that by the time you get to the solid part of the pipe at the end of the thread section you will have 3 full layers at any given point. The tape must be pulled to tension while wrapping to insure it gets down into the thread grooves. Those cheap rolls of white single density tape are about $.99 a roll, expect to pay about $2.98 a roll for the triple density.

Hi Cori Ann - I'm a big proponent of the "mulch and don't wait" school of enriching soil, but I start with decent soil in the first place. It's clay, but loamy clay, so once I can get past the rocks and whatever else was growing instead of roses (like, horrors, a LAWN), I have decent stuff to work with. I do the usual lasagne method over the top of the grass or whatever, since I am wayyyyy too lazy to double dig anything (once at my old house, and never again). When I have a new area I want to turn into a garden, I give myself maybe a day's lead time (but fine if not) to do the following: - lay down cardboard, paper bags and/or newspapers, and cover with organic stuff like leaves, compost, vegetable trimmings, or whatever - usually 3-5" thick at least - Add some cheater topsoil to jumpstart the breakdown process - maybe 1" - top with leaves as top mulch, not necessary to shred if you have something to hold them in place (too much like work) or mulch if you're not cheap like me. A good additional 3" or so of these will break down over the season to enrich the whole bed. - Go ahead and plant where I jolly well want to. Dig a hole through the lasagne layers into the crappy soil, and mix all of the above into the planting hole, chopping vigorously at the vicious little grubs as you find them (good for the soul as well as soil). I always add some extra manure and compost as well as alfalfa when I plant (even in established beds), mixed about 1/3 with the rest regular soil, so this prepares the hole a little extra. - Let the worms do your work for you, to even out the discrepancy between your Cadillac planting hole and Nova rest of the bed. You don't want to create a huge sink if you have super clay soil, where all the water pools in your good hole and rots your rose, so by conditioning the rest of the soil while you plant you get the best of both worlds. Not having to wait, but not really leaving the rest of the bed on its own either. - When some of your roses die (as half of them will in zone 5 for me), plant the new rose in a slightly different spot from the old one to expand the Cadillac-ness of the rest of the bed. - Keep everything mulched with leaves or other organic material indefinitely to keep feeding your soil for a minimum of work, and maximum benefit with minimum wait time. Make those worms WORK for their grub. I've done this dozens of times in soil that you couldn't get a pitchfork into without serious sweat, and ended up mid-season with soil good enough to flip with a hand tool. The copious amounts of organic material mixed in with some real soil does it for me, and I don't fuss with waiting at all. Of course that's my soil and yours may differ. Cynthia