I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how much I love your stories of days gone by. I am reading Willa Cather's "My Antonia" right now and it brings to mind how important it is to record our personal memories in some way. My sister is interviewing with a museum for the job of recording such stories as these from the old timers in her county. Lifestyles change and we lose an important record of the past and this museum is seeking to record oral histories. Have you put any of these in writing? Hopefully you are printing out these threads. Gold, pure gold. It's obvious to me the effect that the depression had on many people as I live with someone whose behaviors of a lifetime have been effected by those times. My mom escaped any hardships as her father was the postmaster. What a terrible tragedy to have happened to Leona's cousin. So many lives have been visited by these horrors you wonder how a person can find the strength to go on. Again, thanks from the bottom of my heart. (Maybe you should write a book?)

I don't think he was scamming us, he really wanted to do us a favor. There were some extras (I had started to type a post but deleted it when he came b/c I was also writing that he hadn't shown up today as promised. There was about $180 for leveling the joists (he said he could tell before he ripped the old vinyl off but I thought it was just the vinyl), and after he pointed out that there *was* such a thing as inside corner and the builder used J channel instead, I checked out the back corner of the garage under the downspout, found the builder used his only piece there, so bought material and CIL spent a couple of hours pulling vinyl off the house and installing that, reinstalling vinyl, when he had only planned on pulling top couple feet of the garage to put the beam in. $20 here and there adds up, but there seemed to be a lot of "wasted" time too on his cell phone, getting ready each day, cleaning up (would have gone quicker if he had just worked 6-8 hr days instead of 3-5 hrs) and we did have a couple of cases of "measure once, cut twice" where at least the first cut was something he could recover from. Also a lot of "adjusting" after he got sections up, even after leveling the joists the carrying beam was sagging in the middle of the porch (he said due to sonotubes sinking) so to avoid the bowed appearance he had to lower the ends and not go strictly off measurements from the wooden beam. That was necessary, I wouldn't want to accentuate the problem, he's really trying to do a good job but he doesn't always think things out ahead of time, measure *everything* and draw it out like John does. John will even make prototypes or cardboard templates, etc (on the clock of course). But even with all the unforseen things (he was telling me the other day why remodels start at $180/sf compared to $125 for new construction) I we really are running short on $ and patience, I just want to finish this up. I only mentioned the project overruns in the first post b/c while the "nominal" $100 damage "retainer" might seem like a big thing to them, he's also making more than twice what he expected off this project so maybe it wouldn't have been such a big deal? I was torn b/t wanting to make him take the consequences of his actions (esp. since I specially told him not to do what he did, to stop) and wanting to cut him a break b/c things are tough for them right now. Not to mention we have haying to do ;-) Moot point now, since there is a lot more going on with that branch of the family than I knew, this is piddly stuff.

Thanks again....yes Connie it is like having twins! Everyday about 10:00 they both start their meltdown and I have to hold them both in the rocker until they fall asleep. You should see me trying to get up with 2 sleeping babies! I have to have my son, which luckily wakes up by then to take Ricky to preschool, help me get them into the beds. This all started a few weeks ago when Austin started walking. At first it was a jealousy thing I think, now it has become the "norm"! I keep telling myself how blessed I am to have them both at the same time everyday...it helps get through that part of the day LOL! After the naps they are nothing but FUN! They keep me lauging for sure. Ricky is starting Kindergarten in Sept. He wants to stay in preschool though...he hates change! Loves his friends he's made and doesn't want to leave them. We found out that 2 of them will go to the same school as him, so he's coming around to the idea! Hopefully a girl will be next! I do enjoy my boys though!

Great photo! I really do believe that traits like creativity and artistic ability are genetic. Also, personality traits. My first wife, Mary, and present wife, Sue (or Bigbaby) as she's known here have, have totally different personalites. My son, Ryan, was 8 when Mary died. Yet, 90% of his personality is so much like Marys. It's downright eerie at times. Ron