Tomatofreak I know that this will cause you more whining but I have 8 clematis and 6 of them are doing great and from these 6 3 of them are blooming now. I have 2 clematis pitcheri that are blooming all spring, summer and fall and sometimes if the winter is mild will bloom sporadicaly. I have a clematis Etoile de Violette(I think) that every year is getting better. This spring I counted 40 blooms and it's got 4 blooms now. I bought from E-bay to canyon clematis this year and they are growing beautifully but no flowers yet. Most of them receive just morning sun and I planted lots of plants around their roots but one of the pitcheri is in full sun but intertwine with wisteria and the perenial morning glory and I quess it's keeping it shaded. The other reason is the soil; very moisture retentive, full of earthworms. I fertilize them several times a year with organic fertilizer and top the soil with organic matter as often as I can. I wish I have the same results with the tomatoes. If you have the right spot maybe you should give them a try. Happy gardening Rodica

I worked maintenance in a large apartment complex for about 6yrs and one of my duties was cleaning ovens after the tenants moved out and we were turning the apartment around for new tenants. Believe me, after you clean 10 to 15 ovens a month, most of which have not been cleaned since the tenants moved in for six years you learn all the hints, kinks & tricks and you go on to make up a few of your own. The first problem we encountered was that most spray oven cleaners require you to preheat the oven, but in our case the tenants paid the electric bill, so there was no electric in the apartments when we were cleaning. When I first started working there we were buying EasyOff oven cleaner by the case and it works okay, but it also requires a lot of elbow grease. We next tried a commercial brand that is only sold to appliance companies and apartment complexes and I will say, it was a bit easier than the EasyOff, but not much, and it was about twice the price. One day my helper came to work and he handed me a red can of generic oven cleaner. He said, try this one, my wife used it on our oven at home and it works great. I tried it, and I must confess it was better than both the EasyOff & the commercial, but it still took a lot of elbow grease to finish the job until I found the trick by mistake. One day I sprayed the oven and planned on letting it set for an hour like the directions said, but as luck would have it,before I could get back to it, I got called on a emergency maintenance call to fix an air conditioner. I did not get back to the oven until the next day. When I went in the apartment and looked in the oven I thought, "OOH NO, look at the mess I have now!". The spray oven cleaner had loosened all the burnt on gunk then it dried in place again giving the entire oven cavity a black crinkle finish with a light white film on top, what a mess. I took out my trusty putty knife and attempted to scrape that mess off, but it would not budge so I thought to myself, what the heck, maybe if I spray some more of that cleaner on it will at least loosen that gunk; so I sprayed it again and waited about 30 minutes. When I went back I began by lifting the door off the hinges and taking it to the sink counter where I could at least stand up and not be all stooped over while I attempted to clean that mess. To my surprise, as I was carrying the door to the counter all that goop started shifting like a thick creamy paste, and when I got the door to the sink, I used the sprayer to wet it down, so I thought, Instead of simply wetting it down, the sprayer actually rinsed the whole mess off effortlessly. I then went back to the oven with a little bucket, a sponge and a roll of paper towels. To my surprise a quick wipe with a wet sponge and the gunk was gone, Dry it down with the paper towels and the interior of that oven looked good as new again. I told my helper what I had done and he tried the same technique on another one, with the same results. Spray it down in the afternoon, let it sit overnight, then spray it again in the morning and simply wipe the gunk out. I told my helper to ask his wife where she got that stuff because I wanted to buy a case of it today. He called her and she says, "They have it at the Family dollar store for $1 a can." I told our manager and she went and got five cans, only the cans she got looked the same, but they were blue instead of red and that stuff was crap. My helper then called his wife again and asked her about it. She told us that the Oven cleaner in the Red can is the regular oven cleaner, then they have a blue can and a green. The blue can is listed as some kind of enviromentally friendly stuff and the green cans are supposed to be scented or something like that. All I know is only the stuff in the red cans works good. After that I had a standing order at our Family dollar store for two cases a month.

We met him at a signing event this past December, and he is just as nice as can be. Enthusiastic about his designs, and genuinely thrilled for the purchaser of each and every piece. He even signed the free gift-with-purchase (which the store personnel were trying to discourage), and signed items purchased prior to the "event" (again, against the "rules," but he didn't pay any attention to that!).

I think the lighting makes a big difference! When we had the marble in the middle of the living room, the etching wasn't really noticeable. When I moved it right by the window, it really showed up...so I'm thinking marble will not be by the window :) Seriously, we are thinking about moving the baking area to where we were going to leave an existing desk space. That extra few feet will make a big difference and is still pretty close to the oven.