Ok, they are gone. Now I am down to 2. Two little ones to keep me company. Until September 6th, then I will lose Dan to Pre-K/preschool. Sigh. I am fine. I just have to remember how much I used to get done when they weren't here, asking for meals, snacks and juice all the time! Back to the days of a schedule. Maybe that is what I am sad about. The dreaded SCHEDULE! EEk! Just kidding. I am really not upset. I just hate summer to end, carefree summer days. Love them with all my heart! When there is frost again and no flowers I will really be sad! Carpe Diem! Right Girls? Becki, I can totally relate to trying to control a crowd of kids when trying to shop for clothing in the store. I am going to tell you the cure all story that has worked for me. My mother totally cured me of bad public behavior. She used this method on me exactly 1 time in my life. In church. I have not had to use it yet, but the children all know about it, how bad it is, and how it has left a very serious impression on me since I was 5 years old. I recommend only telling your children about it as a threat. Look away if you do not have a strong stomach for torture and psychological manipulation of small people. Here it comes: My mother was not too happy with my squirming in church one Sunday morning, I was talking, fooling around with my brother, I believe we were both knuckle punching each other. I nailed him hard enough for him to yelp. My Mom had reached her limit! She lightly looped her hand under my upper arm, I thought she was going to move me away from my brother. Then shock appeared in my eyes, then pain registered in my brain, next the tears started welling up in my eyes. My mother leaned down to my ear and whispered "If you cry or make any noise, I will do it AGAIN." While she had looped her arm through mine she pinched the soft underside of my little upper arm with her long nails and twisted the skin over 180 degrees. I sucked it up as hard as I could, little gulps, heaving chest and silent sniffs. I sat perfectly still and never goofed off in church again, (unless I was seated next to Dad, then I quietly goofed off with him, careful not to be caught by mom). I absolutely never ever embarassed her in public again, gone were the days of hiding in clothes racks, and tormenting my brother anywhere near her! Oh yeah, and I made sure that I always made Tom sit next to mom in church after that.

Hi Prairiemoon. To see how much a folder holds you open Explorer, right click on the folder in question then click Properties. This will tell you the total size of the folder and how many files are in there. There is no way to tell how many files can fit on a CD simply because there are files of just a few kilobytes and other can be many megabytes. In future you might consider creating a new folder inside ÂMy documents perhaps  (open Explorer, click ÂMy documents to highlight it, click File at the top, click ÂNew click ÂFolderÂ. Type a name you wish to use. Now you can copy your photos into that occasionally doing the right click/properties thing on the folder name to check for overall folder size, stopping when you either have all the needed photos or capacity is reached. As you have 262 megs on the CD you can add about 438 more megs to fill it. You may get a warning about compatibility but continue on. I do and it is fine. No, you cannot delete anything from a CD once it is burned. Practise a little, you may make a few throw away disks but you will learn the right way. (Any I throw away I scratch across the medium a few times in case it gets picked out of the garbage  unlikely but I am a bit cautious with family photos) All files burned to CD are ÂRead onlyÂ, they cannot be otherwise because you cannot alter them. You can copy any that need editing back to your hard drive but you will need to give it another name before being allowed to modify it. I generally add a number to the end if it is a name or a letter if the title is numerical. Again, once the CD is burned changes are not possible so the name remains the same. You can of course write what you like on the CD using a Sharpie or getting fancy with CD labels if you plan on doing quite a few. Labelling kits are around $20  and up for the kit and software or the opportunity to download software from the vendorÂs site. Using a Sharpie I write right across the middle of a CD or DVD so it shows through the window of my paper sleeves. I have no time or space for the plastic things CDs go in. I use any known brand of CD or DVD myself, I do not use off brands. Why risk failing? If the material is considered important enough to save then save it confident that it can be retrieved at a future time. I would not burn photos to a DVD simply because of the huge numbers capable of being burned. Of course if you really plan ahead and get all you photos lined up as you want them in folders and sub folders then it might be feasible. On that note, why are blank DVDs so much cheaper than blank CDs these days? Books to my mind are not the answer regarding computers. They are out of date before they reach the street at times and can be very expensive. Personally I am a big fan of Google. Type Âphoto editing tutorial or what ever you need to know ending in Âtutorial and you will get thousands of pages come up. Look through those and find perhaps 3 that are written in a style you personally are comfortable with and save those to your Bookmarks/Favourites. I hope this helps and I have not bored you to tears, haha.

Sell first. We recently put money down towards a new build out of state. Our home is on the market. But the market is slow. The good news is we have a year to sell bc our builder will not be available to us until next May 2014. He only builds one home at a time. In order to book him, we had to put money down towards a new home on our lot. (we bought the lot in 2004 and it is oficially paid for) In the meantime, we are flexible and can move out as soon as the buyer wants and rent a home near where ours will be built or we perhaps we can rent this one back from the buyer. One way or the other, we felt it was better to sell first, but we have already laid out money towards the build and the clock is ticking!

byronroad, you make a good point: our house is somewhat rural, and I'll bet most would agree that a more "organic" material would fit the house better. Even though the interior is going to be much more contemporary than the last time I built, there is still a "lodge" feel about the profile of the house. I don't think my fabricator was pushing a particular choice; I asked him if he could get the primary orange Caesarstone - when he realized I was only thinking of using it on a bath vanity, he educated me about the fact that quartz is purchased by the slab just like granite. In my mind, I'd thought of Caesarstone/Silestone, etc. as more of a man-made product (I automatically attach "engineered" to it in my head) and as such, could be purchased in amounts closer to the area needed (like tile.) Der! I hadn't done my research, and he was simply pointing out that in the five years since he did my first house, granite no longer held the title of "MOST EXPENSIVE." Truly? I don't think price will be the deciding factor, because it sounds like you all have been quoted prices that - while more than some granites - aren't actually twice the cost. Especially since I have verrrry expensive taste in granite. ;) francoise47: that's an interesting question posed by your architect. However, should we adjust our thinking to reflect the fact that Caesarstone/Cambria/Zodiaq, etc. are almost 100% quartz, which is a natural stone? To me, what dated older materials was obvious areas of wear and age: laminate that separated or showed cut marks, for instance. I can't imagine the quartz products aging at all, really - from what I understand, they are more difficult to "hurt" than most granites. Corian is something I'm very interested in for the aforementioned bath vanity top: they offer a solid primary blue (close to the LEGO blue I'm shooting for), but I'm still not quite clear on the true nature of Corian. Man-made, yes. Solid surface - esp w/the concern of color throughout the entire depth - yes. But I'm not really sure what it's made of! That decision will come down to color, no doubt: I'm trying desperately to convince DH that an orange Caesarstone counter in DS's bath could be "LEGO-like" now, yet easily updated by changes in cab pulls, accent tiles, and the acrylic inserts in center panels of four cabinet doors. I had almost talked myself out of even visiting a slab yard this time, because I knew I would see something amazing and all thoughts of my pure white countertops in the kitchen would be thrown away. And sure enough, that's what happened yesterday: Crazy Horse, Aurora Borealis/Amadaeus, River White, Stillwater Gray, Snowdrift ... so many beautiful granites and not enough surfaces! But I wanted to gather opinions from the people who literally saved my sanity while building my first house. I value the opinions here so highly! I guess I came looking for reassurance that the (now) more expensive surfaces I didn't even consider last time, weren't somehow superior to granite on every level. Clearly there are advantages/disadvantages to every surface choice (hence the agony of the decision process!), and I need to choose the product that will best serve my family & my kitchen well, for manymanymany years to come. skyedog,yakkinyetti,dar5: I'd LOVE to see pictures, if you have any!!