Hi Everyone, Sounds like a great day for our plant swap! I will be bringing some hand-crafted things for the doorprizes - an autumn welcome slate, a candleholder with a scarecrow painted on it, a hand painted concrete stepping stone (painted with outdoor safe paint), and I plan on picking up 2 pots of mums. If Heather would like, we could use her crafts as well, for door prizes. I wish she would contact me. I am bringing pickled beets and eggs as my dish. I also promised to bring some trash bags, so I will bring those. So far, I have potted up a lavender (Lady is the variety), a Blue Boy Garden Phlox, some pots of a shorter variety of Shata Daisy called Silver Angel that I started this year from seed, some pots of rooted cutting of Coral Carpet Rose, and like Cathy, I will be bringing some named daylilies and irises in plastic grocery bags...will be digging them tomorrow. I may have a few more things too. Hope to see you all there. Linda

Pretty towels and love the coffee cookbook. I have never had Tayberry jam. Let us know what it was like. Pretty blue bakeware and the bamboo cutting board looks like the perfect size. I will have to look for one. Nice swap Terri. Clare

@tishtoshnm: Oh hun, I don't split the wood with a maul, I use a 3-ton, PTO hydraulic woodsplitter! We burn 5 to 6 full cords every year and if I had to use a maul we'd have frozen to death years ago! Remember, the very first thing on my list of DH's jobs was keeping the d*** cars and machines running, and that includes the woodsplitter and its power supply. I probably glossed over it a bit in my post above, but we had some really hard times over chores in our early years, too. I blush to remember quite how grumpy, cranky and just plain, b**chy I was about it. Sometimes (but more often not, I fear) with justification. Like when the above-mentioned woodsplitter was often on the fritz for months on end preventing me from getting the wood done in time for good seasoning. Of course, I could have hired someone to either bring the wood (not split the way I would have wanted it) or to fix the wretched machine (not done the way he would have done it) but instead we squabbled over it, endlessly. Ex: When we married we were both wood-burners. I was horrified to discover that my DH was content to dig wet wood out of the snow and throw it hissing and dripping on to a smoldering fire. I need to have wood stacked up two or three years in advance to feel secure. I needed to have wood separated by species so I could match the BTU-load to the heating demand of the day's weather. Because I have small hands, I needed to have the wood split into relatively small sizes so I could pick up a log in one hand and load it safely. I needed to have dry kindling in the house every morning to re-kindle the fire. I am terrified of chimney fires so I need the chimney swept regularly (multiple times per burning season). I get great psychic comfort from neatly filled woodricks. I also was at home all day in a house heated ONLY with wood, while he was away in an overheated office. (Once he began working at home, the need for dry wood seem to be driven home to him for some reason. Hah!) Finally, it dawned on me, or maybe desperation took over, and I took command of the fuel issues. (Except for maintenance of the machines.) And Peace finally reigned in our household on this topic. But I really did have to get over my own embarrassment that I had taken over this "masculine" task. I used to be quite cagey about revealing who actually did the wood work in my family. What I learned from this was that I could get it all done, alone, and done in the way that made me happy. (Except for fixing the machines, which is still an issue.) And it taught me that I would be able to continue to live here if I was left living here alone. (Except for fixing the machines, of course.) We gradually started to practice a regime of "whoever is bugged the most about something, does it. And for the rest, who cares?" Not elegant, but practical and it certainly makes for a calmer, more generous and loving household. And that, over multiple decades, is pure gold. L. PS: There are different weights of splitting mauls, you should try more than one if you have to do it by hand, as I did before I married Machine-Man. Handle lengths also make a big difference, too.

We do reuse and recycle many household items here too. My kids are all built differently so we don't hand down many clothes. I donate clothes in decent condition to the school or the thrift stores. People are funny about used things. It can be quite entertaining at times. I've run into people who wouldn't be caught dead shopping at a garage sale or thrift store. Those same people do shop antique stores and estate sales which are glorified garage sales at higher prices. Then there are those people who don't shop thrift stores because that is for poor people. That's laughable. Truly poor people probably couldn't afford the prices at some of the thrift stores. I shop there because I the thrill of the hunt and it is possible to find a bargain on some things, but usually not clothes. I live in one of those areas where people often overprice their garage sale clothes. I can buy new for less. Overall, my best clothes bargains usually come from the mall during the 75-90% off sales. I wouldn't be too offended because someone doesn't want your hand me downs. I've gotten offers before. Honestly, I just didn't want to deal with the extra work. Sometimes when you get clothes ahead, you're storing it for a while even possibly a couple of years. Sometimes less is more when you're trying to organize and manage a household.