Well, I like this forum! I rarely post, consider myself a great cook but am far from fancy or traditional with my cooking. I've gotten great results from postings when needed and have not been insulted once. Hey, not bad! I enjoyed reading this topic especially since I have a great deal of trouble using packaged foods due to sodium content. I DO use packaged foods though! I've never made my own yoghurt--never even tried to. Same with butter, cream cheese, aged cheese (I have made paneer by heating milk and adding lime juice), pasta and that is all I can think of that I need packaged food for. I've made lots of things by just trying it out. Ketchup wasn't that hard, no-sodium tomato paste, vinegar, garlic and onion powder (actually, I like the dehydrated granules), black pepper, cumin, dash of lemon juice, dash of water. I just read the bottle to get an idea of what went in the stuff. And, yes, I buy the packaged no-salt ketchup quite often. So quick and easy! There is no way I'm going to pay for packaged dressing; I make my own even though I almost always just use straight balsamic. My guy makes a great vegan Caesar dressing using nutritional yeast, almond meal, lemon juice, vinegar, no-salt stone ground mustard and an unbelievable amount of fresh garlic. Think of all the oil we are avoiding this way! I do love olive oil though~ Canned soups are a no-go mainly because of the salt. I can't actually taste the can but sometimes I can taste the plastic when I buy things in plastic bottles. We made our own "power bars" for the first time a few weeks ago. We had made granola bars and similar things before but never with the intent to get protein, carbs and low calories all in one bar. They are great for hiking! Yesterday, my guy made bagels from scratch for the first time, just for me as they had no salt and almost zero sodium. Did you know that a regular sesame bagel has over 600mg sodium?! The ones he made were topped with black sesame seeds and tasted very good. They were missing that salty taste but, oh well. I think one of the biggest factors with packaged foods is that they are very inexpensive, especially mixes and things like rice a roni or hamburger helper. They can also make things go very quickly in the kitchen for those who have limited amounts of time to feed entire families. There are lots of things we make that cost more than buying pre-made but there are also lots of savings involved in making things ourselves. We may not be rich but we make the effort to allow a good food budget so we can eat as much natural and organic things as possible. We try to stay away from preservatives but that is hard to do with packaged foods. I'm pretty darned impressed by some of the things people make on the board. Pickled veggies and other home-canned items are the most intriguing to me. It was a good read. Thanks, Jennifer

Only thing I see is the lock comes with only one free re-lock. You might ask if they have a "float down rate lock" where you pay a little bit higher fee but the rate will automatically lock in at the best possible rate during the time between signing the loan and closing. Also the Flood fee is kind of unusual but since its only $19 and everything else is so well priced you might not want to quibble. The Fed just lowered rates by 0.75% yesterday - in effect, making money less expenisive, so its a pretty safe bet that mortgage rates will come down a little. Probably nowhere near the entire 0.75%, but I wouldn't be surprised if they drop 0.3% to 0.4% over the next month or two. Plus, they just allowed Fannie and Freddie to keep a lot less money in their reserves, which means that there's going to be an extra $200 billion flooding the market soon - that OUGHT to grease the wheels as far as liquidity issues are concerned. Can't say I care to hear that the taxpayers are going to be exposed to ever more market risk, but hey, may as well take advantage of it if you can.

Very sorry to hear about your experience aa1notary. I have no experience whatsoever with that product nor any bias one way or the other, but most often times water infiltration is due to installation issues as opposed to the product itself. The video has expired, but it sounds like perhaps you have horizontal sliders? Something as simple as caulked over or clogged weep holes could cause water to accumulate in the sill... Again, sorry to hear about your experience. I'd recommend having the installation company out to inspect, and possibly in conjunction with that manufacturer rep so that they cannot each blame each other when the other is not present.

Thanks, all! I'm doing three tests: a hip, a pelvic, a spine. Scheduled 9/21, 9/22, 9/24. Each is 45 minutes. The facility is only about 10 minutes away. I've emailed my primary MD, asking for anti-anxiety meds. I don't do 'confinement' well. Since scheduling, I've had two new 'events'. Saturday night my right kidney sent me a 'kidney stone' alert -- quelled with gallons of water. Sunday night something 'gave' in my right lower back; ice helped, but this morning I dug out my cane left over from hip replacement -- and DH is doing the vacuuming! (He says it's my anniversary present -- 52 years today.) Lurkiirish -- Only a few minutes ago I looked up Multiple Myeloma. I've had slightly elevated IgG levels: 2190 in 2015; 2070 this April. (Normal range is 700 - 1600.) When I looked into that, there was a link to MM. It's encouraging to hear that your DH is doing so well. I have an 'allergic' reaction to hearing 'Myeloma' because my late mother died of leukemia.