Oh can I relate to your last statement, Marian. I have no dillusions of life in the nursery biz being easy and I'm not afraid of hard work or failure. Everything worth having takes risk, hard work and a lot of faith... but the idea of getting out of my air-conditioned, artificial light, not a second of privacy cubicle farm, making $Ms for corp. exec's who only cut my benefits & pay while raising their own, to be out digging in the dirt with the sun on my back is my idea of heaven on earth! Good luck with your gardens. I know a farm can be a lifelong art project- I used to have some acreage and never left it alone for a season w/o putting a new bed in somewhere. It can be a long labor of love. Hopefully you are able to pass the legacy on to someone who will carry on the efforts so you can smile at it from heaven. Thank you for your well wishes on my dreams. I've wanted to run my own business for better than 25 yrs but trying to settle on one thing and having the confidence for business management held me back. I have chosen the garden industry because a)every personality/career test I've ever taken says I should be in high-tech or plants b)I've managed to keep my interest in gardening for my entire life c)I've started a business within the safety of a corporation so I know I can do it on my own now d)I've researched the industry enough to know that it is possible to double my income as a small biz owner if I use my business knowledge wisely- not everyone can do that but it is possible. Ellen, is the Lily chatroom you are talking about affiliated with the AHS e:mail robin? I just asked to sign up for the robin.

Have you tried acetone yet? That will strip off the wax down to the stone. Try that before sanding. Take a paper towel and pour some of the acetone on it, and rub the area of concern. Use gloves. The acetone wont hurt the stone. It is what a marble fabricator, that I hired to cut out my sink hole, used to clean up the stone after he was done. And if you do sand eventually, use a 400 grit to start. I don't know how smooth your stone is, but I remember the cleaning lady dilemma some months ago. I have my stone finished to a 250 grit or there about's, which is rougher than the 400. If you start with the finest sandpaper first you won't be faced with the green scrubby issue from before. Try the acetone first. Its like a very strong fingernail polish remover, or at least it smells like it.

So I am going. to read through all of these suggestions afain! MIL is coming back in town so we want to just order something for the dining table so its already done and she doesnt try to talk my husband out of it (he is a pushover, lol) I actually saw some chairs at tuesday morning as a for now fix, do you a fhink the actual table is that bad,? because I guess we are just trying to find the right thing and dont want tocwaste tons of $$. do yall know if paint is expensive? have any of you done it by yourself.? I saw an article about how to save on smaller stuff like rugs and coffee tables I am going to look into! Dining table is a biggie. But I def want to keep the room so that it could match any paint color (like a white maybe, or grey) a coffee table and area rug. so whatever we bring in will work. i am going to re-look into ikea and post some pics too. I actually found a lot on pinterest too!

Julia , what I do is click the left mouse button and hold it and swipe it across the image I usually go from right to left . This puts a (in this case right now that I tried) a green overlay on the image and then I hit the delete button and the image is gone.