ut you last post is the stressed part. You or anyone can not make that assumption of who is more stressed. You do not know their life. When I had breast cancer, my garden was my outlet for stress more than any other time in my life. I wintersowed very slowly because I could hardly do it, but it gave me a sense of purpose and things to come in the spring. I dreamed through the catalogs of what to buy believing I would be there to live to see them bloom. I tended my plants best I could in spring. I'm sorry I'm getting teary eyed now. I'm sorry. I know what cancer is like. My dad had chemical based leukemia, 14% chance of survival.. he didn't. Treatment was horrible, he did a clinical trial, I have to say that what he went through in the month plus that he was doing the clinical trial, I don't know why anyone would fight that particular cancer. Back to the garden & plants. When he came out of the hospital he was greeted by plants. My hubby, son & I worked really hard to plant his vegetable garden at his new house (it closed a week after being diagnosed) plus I duplicated my gardens at his house. We'd dug up a few of his roses, plus I bought more. I even bought a daylily that was not common, which I now call Matty for him. He was speechless when he came home. We used to like to sit on his porch & watch the butterflies & hummingbirds. While he wasn't allowed near the plants due to his particular type of cancer, he could sit there and enjoy it. He wasn't allowed to eat his veggies either until he went into remission a few months later. His guardian angel gave us really warm weather until November, we were able to have his Hungarian peppers in my stuffing for Thanksgiving. Through his whole nightmare, gardening & plants brightened the time he was out of the hospital. I'm not able to buy a lot of plants any more due to my back problems. There's a reason why I haven't added many photos to helpmefind, I'm not able to walk around the garden like I used to. I do want to buy a few roses next year & will probably be buying from David Austin. Since I'll use a regular credit card, I doubt I'll have issues and so far have not had a bad experience the last time we ordered. I'd ordered a Benjamin Britten rose, it was horrible, a phone call or email with no questions asked and they replaced it.

jayeta, I used to have LG WM2301 which I think was a predecessor of WM2650. It had very similar features, including Add Water. I liked that machine a lot and it did a great job washing. However, the additional water did not seem to make a difference in the water level in most loads. In other words, it wasn't significant enough to be noticeable. I now have WM3070 without the "Add Water" feature and like it just as well. It has Turbo Wash which appears to use more water in the cycle. Turbo Wash consists of two recirculating jets that spray the wash water onto the load all throughout the cycle and ensure better saturation of the load. Another washer with the "Add Water" feature is the high end Frigidaire front loader FAFS4174. The feature is called Max Fill. I believe it also has recirculating jets which I think would be helpful for washing diapers. I have read some good reviews of that washer and considered it when buying my current LG. But my local stores did not have any Frigidaires on display and I was hesitant about buying a washer without seeing or touching it.

I'm far from a Walmart fan, but I'm also not a nutzo against them either. Their corporate business model is working, whether you like it or not. I realize that there are some people that buy fabric and make/repair things. That's great. The term "a lot" of people is relative so what's a lot to one is insignificant to another. We'd all like to have our hobbies and such be cheap and readily available. But, in reality and especially todays economy, things are tight and it'll be a bit before it loosens back up like the old days. I laugh every time I see this kind of foolishness: "How many little fabric/variety stores did your Walmart put out of business when they came into your area? It is what they do." Walmart has NEVER put so much as ONE store out of business. YOU THE CUSTOMER make Walmart huge by buying there and YOU THE CUSTOMER who refuses to patronize the little stores put them out of business. Although I understand how Walmart and all the big box stores strike fear into the small businesses, it's simply knowing that customers are fickle. They come to the small store and demand more service than they do of the big box and when the small business has to charge a dollar or two more to give what the customer demands, the traitor will run down the street, buy it at Walmart to save the dollar and on top of it, come in and ask the small business to give the support they can't get at big box on the item they bought at big box! When I had my shop, I was ordered by a "customer" to give warranty service on his junkbox. To top it off, it was out of warranty! People are amazing. Walmart is in business to make money, I realize and respect that. They're not going to carry things that won't make them money. You don't see a large section of Wiccan holiday cards there, even under the threat that they're shooting themselves in the foot for the other sales. They won't sell enough to make it worthwhile, they're not going to give up the retail space. Few people realize the cost of operating these stores and having things that don't turn is expensive to a store. They will keep a few things that will definitely offset the cost by the obvious companion purchases. I'm sure that they could have kept the fabric and raised the prices, but I know what the comments would be in that case. I don't shop Walmart often. Maybe once every few years at most. There's a few things there I like. Many of their prices are good. But I can't justify going there for a number of reasons, probably not worth elucidating now. Fabric is an item that people won't buy in quantities from a retail store. It's also something for which people won't pay much per unit. And this will offend some so the requisite CDC applies, but people who buy this don't spend much money elsewhere. I don't see many people buying fabric but when I think back, they don't have a cart filled with other high-profit items. After all, if someone won't buy an apron, curtain or something for a few dollars, rather make it themself, they're not going to buy high-buck stereos too often. It's the way it is. Nobody should be offended but I'm sure plenty are. I think if you rationally think about it, putting up a shelf of convenience snacks, CDs, diapers or most anything else would give the owner a far better income. I fully understand why they'd drop it. AFAIK none of the Walmarts around here carry fabric nor have they in years. And craft stores are closing to say nothing of fabric stores. And again, you can't in a right mind blame Walmart for that. Let's face it, if there is such a market there'll be a number of stores opening up to cash in on the sales. Just out of curiosity I looked to see how many Joann Fabric stores were in Minnesota. There lists 20 of them. That's not a lot. As mentioned, the labor costs for a lot of these departments are incredible. Had cosmetics not been such an unusually HUGE seller for these stores, they certainly wouldn't be carrying cosmetics as a convenience. I can say this with a lot of certainty. Instead of online petitions, complaints to corporate offices, insulting district managers and the like, if you really want these stores to carry fabric, start buying fabric. Get all your friends and neighbors to buy fabric. Make fabric a commodity in short supply and I'll gamble that Walmart will reconsider their planograms in short order. People don't realize that their dollars are powerful votes. But you can't talk you must act. If you put all your votes into the pharmacy, shoe, soft drink and salty snack departments you outvote the other departments.

I too had an excellent cs experience with Kirklands. We live and hour away from ANY shopping (except for WM and that's only 25 minutes <g>). I found the perfect picture for DH's newly renovated bathroom late last summer. It had all the colors, the theme...it gave "meaning" to or an explanation to everything we did with the reno. I know, that sounds silly LOL. I called Kirklands to see if they had one. I think the online store said the inventory was "low" at my particular store. She not only confirmed they had some but actually called back when she said she would, looked them over and made sure I got one that wasn't damaged, wrapped it with brown paper, bagged it, put my name on it and had it up front behind the desk when I got there. How many times have I expected to find an item waiting on me behind the counter and it wasn't there!!! Many.