I enjoy some of the craft shows: quilting, knitting, and Carol Duvall. I learn a ton from them. I have gotten a lot of maintenance and decorating ideas from Room by Room which is the pleasantest show on tv. I watch it to feel happy. Design to Sell gave me a bunch of decorating tricks that I have applied to my ugly house but the new decorators are not as good as Lisa. I dislike the rich guy home decorating shows where people get $20,000 bathroom makeovers and have their yards re-done by hoardes of hispanic landscapers. Gay is the word, at least for one show which I call the rich gay guy's dream pad makeover. Nothing wrong with that except it's not for me. I don't care about buying 500,000 euro flats in Barcelona, or nasty people who get ugly when their overpriced houses won't sell either. Room-by-Room is the closest to reality in my town. THere isn't much garden in HGTV. Gardening by the Yard is fun to watch but it isn't my type of gardening, since I am going native. I cut my grass to avoid a ticket! Wouldn't it be great to have a program that took a mundane yard and slowly changed it to a native scape. They could show how to collect seeds, and teach us to identify the plants. Native plant id is a program by itself. Native plants and trees have so many uses. (cotronwood is used for popsicle sticks!) People could learn how wonderful the natives are. We need a program about creating woodlands, the reason wood-scapes are good. I knwo the suppliers do not want this to cut sales of turf products but there is a whole untapped market if the public is converted to native scaping. (And I miss 'Help Around the House' which showed you how to hang a door, or use a pry bar. Because of that show I was able to build a new windowsill with zero experience. I fixed a broken window, and built an inside storm too.)

Bless your heart, Wendy! My sister went through much the same thing with her ex (You are not alone, though I know it may feel that way sometimes ~ I hope that makes you feel a bit better.). It's a tough thing to do ~ trying to help your children understand while constantly feeling betrayed, alone and embarassed yourself (even though it's NOT your fault). Sis finally opened up to me and I was her confidant through much of her ordeal, so I feel for you tremendously. But you WILL overcome this! Diane's suggestion is a great one. You can spend the money you would have spent on toys to buy supplies to make cookies and ornaments for the tree or gas for the car to take the kids to see the lights (GOTTA' do that! It's SO fun!). Besides the Salvation Army and churches, a lot of police and fire departments have programs that give toys away. The Austin Police Dept. calls their program Blue Santa (they have blue uniforms) and the Travis County Sheriff's Dept.'s is called Brown Santa (yep, they have brown uniforms!). When I was in a local volunteer fire dept., we took donations of toys for people in need, wrapped them and delivered them on the fire engine Christmas Eve! That was fun!! One firefighter dressed as Santa and the rest as elves! I honestly don't know who has more fun with programs like this ~ the parents who don't have to stress over Christmas gifts, the kids who get the presents or the people who deliver them and get to see the smiling faces! So DON'T feel bad about getting this service from anyone! Not only are you saving that money at a time when $5 is a lot of money to you, you are giving someone the chance to do something nice. And THAT is what Christmas is all about! How much "stuff" you get at Christmas isn't. Nowadays, most people have gotten so far away from the true meaning of Christmas that it makes me want to cry. Things are so commercial. I don't like going to any store at Christmas anymore. And the malls! Oh, they're the worst! All those displays, all those people, and all those signs saying, "They won't be happy unless you buy them this $499 thing!" Horse-crap! I completely and wholeheartedly agree that the best gift you can give your children is your time. It doesn't matter how much $$$ you spend or what you do. What does matter is that you all are together. My sis was crying one time about how she coulnd't afford to give her two sons everything she wanted to. I told her flat out that we didn't have much growing up and we turned out great, so don't focus on what you can't give them ~ focus on what you CAN give them. And, Wendy, what you CAN give your children are memories. Those are much more precious than ANY storebought gift.

Someone has suggested getting a glass place to drill the holes in the blocks for you - anyone done this? At what cost? I promised to make several of these for friends at work and thought my hand-held drill with a bit I use for ceramic tiles would work - now, not sure it will (and, my husband won't let me do it and will not be happy if it takes 10 minutes per block!) I know a woman who did these with the battery lites and used them as a centerpiece for a 50th anniversary party.

Yes, that's the one. I liked the non-textured ones as much as the textured, though. And I was wondering if there's not some other way to get that look without globbing up a mallet. I hate to get my hot glue gun out! I've always wanted to make a cigar-box purse and I think the copper would look great on one of those. In fact, I've been thinking of changing the back-splash in my kitchen and using copper or tin somehow... BTW, looking at the website for that project... they mention Memories permanent ink. Is that the kind Walmart sells?