So lovely! Thank you for sharing. If the pelargonium doesn't pan out, maybe lamium? That stuff is hard to kill around here in NJ, and there are some nicely variegated forms. Stay away from the one with yellow flowers, though; it's considered highly invasive.

Mindy et al, I got that tall blue pot I had my eye on. It might have been $200 marked down to 40 marked down to TEN DOLLARS. I also got a big metal/copper bucket marked down from at least 150 to $37.50 (I don't think she did the math right. I'll have to check in the morning. I had wanted something like a watering trough near the bees, and this might fill the bill. Or we can use it for logs. That magnificient green pot. I met the nice guy who works the floor. I told him what I wanted to pay for it and without my knowing it he called the ?manager? anyway a woman, and she no way was she going below $160. I think the problem is there was no pink marked down price, so it was 75 % off 699. I really don't want to pay that much because I know I won't move it in freezing weather, and it may break. I'm only willing to risk 100 or less. If anyone can talk them down to $100 or less, I'll take you to LaPatisserie for lunch or Quebrada in Arlington for a cake. Could also do Lakota for a dozen cookies. There's a challenge for the bargainers out there! I'll pay you back in cash and could even meet you at Mahoneys to load and transport pot. Mindy, I saw two "maroonish" pots (one upside down, the other on top) on the pallet, next to the sky blue tall. Are those the ones you are talking about? If there was a salmon pot in the "transition room" I missed it entirely. I'm not looking at your post right this second, but I thought you said it had some branches dispayed it it. I'll look again, maybe when I check to see if the christmas tree is marked down. I wasn't too offended by the look of its branches. But then I had pots on my mind. Marie

Snidely - good point about not removing things if they're not causing trouble - lest they turn out to have been needed. So I have left some things that I have no idea about. I did delete Dell Stage - bc. it's a real pain - gets in the way all the time (my daughter who's had this on her laptop for 2 years confirmed that it's just in the way). I did all the microsoft updates, ran a few antivirus, got rid of what I want to get rid of, and it's mostly good to go. Here's the trouble that remains: I can't get the printer working. It's a Canon Pixma MX850 - on the home network. I did not want to install the Canon disk bc. it has a ton of it's own bloatware. So I went to Canon and downloaded the driver - as well as the IJ utility software (I think that helps the computer find a printer on the network). Went to devices and printers, added the printer and made it the default printer. It shows up in printers and devices, but when I go to print something, it fails. Troubleshooting says the test page didn't print bc. something else is in the queue. But there is nothing else in the queue. I opened the queue from my pain desktop (that's connected to the printer) - and there's no documents in the queue. Went to the printer queue on DH's lapto; - it also shows nothing in the queue. I can print from other computers. Don't know what else to do. And I just remembered that I did not see Java. It didnt come up as needing updating when I ran the Secunia scan. I am not sure which programs need it, but can imagine my husband being stumped if he tries to do something that needs Java and asks him to install. I'd like to install it for him. Got to remember that. I also have a question about Microsoft Security Essentials. Twice now it found something bad - and I selected to remove the couple of files. Does this AV just run in the background or do I also need to run scans? Thank you. Lynn.

You did not mention what the laptop would be used for so here are some general suggestions from Consumer Reports, listed by screen size. They liked these >$1k 13" Sony Models: the Vaio VGN-Z540 and the VGN-SR190. They also liked these 14" models: HP dv4t and Lenovo Thinkpad SL400. Among the 15" laptops, they liked Toshiba Satellite A305-S6872 and Lenovo Ideapad Y530. For desktop replacements, they liked HP dv7t (> $1k) and the Toshiba Satellite L350-ST2121. The 13" Dell Inspiron 13 was not highly rated but is slightly less than $1k. Battery life is a problem. Also, Toshiba Satellite U405D-S2848 is 13" and under $1K but was recently discontinued.