Interesting way this discussion has turned. There is a boy at our local public high school who is doing what Jeanne's acquaintance is doing. Full scale, nearly full time, mow & blow. He's an A student, is involved in sports, academic extracuricular projects, at least one of which earned he and his team a trip to California for the national competition. He also has a girl friend! I was able to get him out here twice, but my yard & field are difficult, and he is VERY busy, so he hasn't come back. I'm sad, because he did a good, quick job, and now I have to! Back when President Bush was Governor, he instigated, or strongly encouraged, a system to help do away with quotas and discrimination. The new system automatically allows the top 10% of ANY public (or private???, not sure) high school graduating class to be accepted into any State College, maybe also the private colleges. It sounds like, and probably still is, a good plan. But there are some difficulties in the system. A TV station did a story this late winter about 2 girls vying for a place at The University of Texas (which is, I think, THE most crowded school in the nation, and has become overrun w/ top 10 per centers). Anyway, both girls were straight A students, but one came from a lower economic school somewhere, and the other from an elite preppy high school somewhere else in the state. The girl from the lower economic school got into UT, but didn't have NEAR the GPA or SAT scores as the other girl. Preppy girl was in advanced classes, in possibly a larger school, and tho she had high scores, must have "just" missed out on being the top 10% in her school, therefore, no admittance to UT. No one in the story wanted to deny the good education to the girl from the lower economic school, she was, after all, the top 10% of HER school, but all were worried (even the girl herself), if she could compete w/ the higher achieving scholars who'll be her classmates, and the rigors of first year at UT. It's been months since I saw that story, so I'm sure I've left out or forgotton some details. I know it's a big concern at UT and at Texas A & M, the two biggest schools here. I heard once that "they" (whoever) are considering raising the top 10% to the top 8%. If a kid ISN'T in that top 10%, he/she has virtually NO chance of getting into UT as a freshman, the crush of kids there is so huge. Wow, long derail of the subject! LOL! None of my kids applied themselves enough to be in the top 10%, so whichever colleges they've gone to have involved more complicated admissions processes. One of my friends has brilliant kids, and as they went off to Georgetown or UT, were reminded that MOST of the other kids they'd meet at their colleges were ALSO brilliant, and probably valedictorians/salutatorians/private school alums/ and National Merit Scholars, too, so the competition would continue to be difficult. I sure hope my kids' eventual careers earn them more money than the mow & blow young men we've been discussing here, but they may not. I know a mow & blow guy in another town who made THAT his career, and he told me that one year recently he SAVED $5,000 per month, and used that as a downpayment on a new fancy home. He has a crew of 30 ish, maybe 10 trucks, advertises and self promotes heavily, and is making a FINE living mowing people's yards. He was in the Air Force for many years, may have acquired some college along the way, but I don't think he has a degree. And, back to the child's homelife thoughts: the young man that helped w/ my sewer & moved the compost apparantly DID have a good close family: multiple siblings, all home schooled, and apparantly a strong religious training and action in their home. The highschool boy who has His own business is now in a combined family, with each separate family having massive tragedies in the past--dad of one family died, wife of the other died, the two remaining parents marry. Church is a big part of their family too. I never thought I had the patience to home school any of my kids, but in retrospect, I wish I had. But, they've all turned out pretty good, in spite of me, the plusses and/or minuses of public school, and "average" grades. Gone WAY too long, I'll hush now! Susi.

bumpety bump!

I always check mine, online, before taking a winning ticket in. The only one I didn't check for some reason was a $743 winner. lol. We did have a woman working a local convenience store that got caught stealing scratch offs and if they were winners, she was taking them to another local store to redeem. The other store got suspicious about all the winning tickets she seemed to come up with and called the other store and an investigation revealed she had stolen a huge amount of them. Don't know if she ever cheated a customer or not. Besides checking them at home, they have a reader machine where you can check them at the place you bought them and I always check them again to make sure I didn't miss something before turning them in.

OH and I always use the microfiber cloth for the windows. You can just use water if you use the microfiber cloth, then use a dry one right away before the water dries. If you are too short to reach, I'm sure one of those with a handle will be fine. I would think though, that even someone really short could get up in there maybe even easier than a big person really. Even I, at five feet nine inches, have to do just one side at a time.