susie - Emily just got her first Dremel tool and we have done very limited things with it. Talk about a fight with her parents. She will not touch it without my assistance. I got her a Bob The Builder set about six months ago and she does great with tools. Very mechanical! Takes after her Pap Brian. Of course she call it her "Oscar The Builder" set and who am I to argue with her? I also got her a paint set for Christmas and we have been doing lots of 'drawin'. For whatever reason, whenever we do a face, it is not done until she puts a booger on the nose! Ok, here goes another dissertation. Growing up in Morgantown, WV was a great place to grow up - and seemed like a great place to move from when I graduated college in the early 70's. If you can drive here, you can drive anywhere! This state is/was loaded with coal, oil, natural gas, silica sand, limestone, bluestone and tree's galore (WesVaco got it's start here). While a lot of the state is Appalachian and truely backward, other parts, such as Morgantown have never experienced a Recession or Depression. We are not suffering from it now - though my business is really slow at the moment, but we do No business in this state. A tidbit - Morgantown has more Millionaires per capita than any other city in the US. Three doors down from us lived Howard Ward Christopher III, son of Howard Ward Christopher II, who owned Carter Hall Tobacco in Virginia. Ward, as he was called, married Laverne Houze who's parents owned Houze Glass Corp. of Point Marion, PA. Ward also built a resort in Morgantown that was called Lakeview Country Club which was designed with the assistance of Arnold Palmer. They gave me a 'lifetime memborship' for my 13th birthday, but asked that their son Frank and I not play on the golf course any more as we both would lay down on the greens and shoot golf balls like it was a pool table. Back to the chandelier - nancyjean, does your chandelier weigh about 100 pounds or you don't know? The brass counter-weight is filled with pure silica sand, the globe and top 'shade' are hand-blown. I watched them being done at the factory in Morgantown, WV and this was probably about 1959 or 60. After the hand-blowing, they were baked and then moved to a room where what seemed to me to be Really Old Ladies (I was probably 8 or 9 years old then, so 20 was Really Old) began the hand painting. Then they were baked again. Somehow I wonder if the one you have in your beach-house is a copycat? Beaumont, before getting into radical EPA trouble had a lot of really unique glass they made and shared with Seneca Glass of Morgantown. Jackie Kennedy (a really nice woman) selected a Seneca lead crystal pattern for the White House and I was at the factory when she was given a tour (which is why I know she was a really nice lady - didn't ignore the nobody fat kid that asked her about her shiny high heels). I used to hang out at the glass companies as they had dumps that had all sized pieces of glass that they were blowing. Some of the pieces we the size of a football - others the size of marbles. I used to stuff my pockets full of these pieces and had a pretty vast collection of colors. Wonder what my parents ever did with it. Probably threw it away when I was gone for awhile! marlene - disfuntional seems to be all over the place, but I really thought we were unique! When I was 'dying' of leukemia in 1989/90, I was lucky enough to find the most wonderful shrink in the world in Los Angeles! We are still friends. She helped me set it all straight and life has been a lot easier, though more work, since! Lesson of the day - because they are family does not mean they have to be your friends! Holly has taught me that because they are family Can mean they are your friends!

Oh, what creative goddeses you all are! I write (not enough lately), read (Science Fiction, Horror, Classic Lit, Poetry, Fantasy...I'm more interested in the quaility of the author than in the genre or subject), camp, hike, back pack (I like about everything better in a beautiful, natural setting), and cook. I'm a part of a large group that met though a history club, or though role playing games, and we still throw 4 to 6 costumed theme parties a year...I generally set the theme, help brainstorm, and cook. My best friend is a sewing goddess, so she does the most outstanding costuming. We also do at least one Science Fiction Convention a year, with costuming and alchohol. Usually it's Necronomicon. I'm a proffesional student. My major is Anthropology, and I'm into most anything in the Anth or Cultural field. Especially if it relates to pre-industrial agriculture, gender roles, or the Maya. LOVE the Maya. I do like EverQuest II, and alllll of the Civilization games, which might be why I haven't been writing very much lately. And I never get bored...:)

hello my name is mary. I only found out about the Annie's Attic doll patterns last week totally by accident when I found this website while I was looking for answers to ?s about the different doll Annies Attic doll collections. Any way I'm trying to find someone that would be willing to email me a copy of the ones they have of the ones that I need and trade with me some that I have that they don't have. To start with I'm looking for the rest of the Ladies of Fashion. There was a lovely lady on this website down loaded the ones she had for me and I'd like to find and get the rest to finish my collection and give her the ones back that she needs if at all possible. The following is a list of the ones in the Ladies of Fashion that I would like to find and get. I have the others and would be willing to share with others. 1. Dolly Madison. 2. Priscilla Hostess Gown, 3. Patricia of Nashville, 4. Renee of Baton Roque 5. Megan's Wedding Gown 6. Eliza Sunday Promenade 7. Rebecca's Party Frock 8. Cariss of Bainbridge 9. Deborah of St. Louis 10. Silva of Sacramento 11.Jasmine of Louisville Nanette of New York 13. Catherine of London 14. Nadine of Albany 15. Julia of Richmond 16. Susanna of Nacogdoches 17. Victoria of Rochester 18. Kimberly of San Francisco There is 27 more that I already have that I can share. Please if anyone can help I'd appreciate it very much. I am disabled and can't work outside the home because no one will hire me with my disability, so this is the only way that I can afford to give my 18month old granddaughter presents as she grows up and get into dolls and such. There are others in these collections that I'm looking to and planning to finish but this is a good place to start. Thank you to anyone out there that is willing to help. Mary.

Hi Linda in good old Iowa, If you're thinking of scrap value, many say that silver is undervalued these days in relation to the price of gold, and there has been a fairly stable comparison between them, traditionally. Silver's value has been improving relative to its relation to gold in the past year or so and some feel that its price will rise faster than gold's, proportionately. With the huge debt that the U.S. has, and some analysts say that when a country's debt gets up near the value of it's annual value of goods produced, that there becomes a possibility that it may be difficult for it to recover - and the U.S. level is close to that now. Furthermore they're printing money by the boatload ... which will reduce the value of a dollar. I heard some reference a while ago to the Weimarization of our economy, a reference to the German economy after World War I - remember the stories of having to take a wheelbarrow load of currency to the store to buy a not-very-large item? Having a thing that carries value may become more important than having pieces of paper called currency, before long. I think that the days of the U.S. Dollar being the world's reserve currency are numbered. Sorry to rain on your parade. ole joyful