Brian, I knew you must be getting it worse than we did because a High Wind Warning popped up for your part of the state. Oddly, it moved from county to county here, but not in a necessarily logical sequence--just whenever the pressure gradient got really out of whack in a particular area, the wind surged for a while in that county. My husband called me here an hour or more after it arrived here and said it arrived at Dallas the same time he did and was blowing so hard he could hardly get the car door open. It was just an odd little phenomenon. I didn't look at the wind gust map late last night or early this morning, but at one point I saw gusts of at least the 50s and maybe the 60s in some places. That poor kiwi--what has it done to deserve the abuse? The tomato plants at both ends of the row are really beat up and may have to be replaced (of course I have back-ups for each plant that is in the ground), but the ones in the middle of the row are fine. Dawn

Hello Everyone... I just love the Smith's Candy Stripe!! The color difference is so dramatic...i cant believe its the same tree!!!! The heat really does play a huge role in the color variation and the overall beauty of the blooms... My only blooms right now are E. Thornton Lemon Drop...its smells wonderful...the inflos that will open soon are. ..Pu'u Kahea...Lavender, J-105, Elsie, DIvine,Psycho and a few others...i cant remember... Andrew...thanks!! This is what keeps me sane!!! LOL.. Lots going on here in VB...but all is well...Thanks!!! I really enjoy coming here and seeing all of these beauties....makes me want to go outside right now with a flashlight and check on the progress of the inflos... Pretty bad huh? LOL I have been Plumeiaized.....dont laugh...i know a few of you all that are just as bad!!! LMAO!!! Take care... Have a great weekend... Laura in VB

Ok, deep breath. Remember you're spending a lot of money and taking some time to research is part of the process. If I catch myself getting rattled, indecisive or feeling a lot of pressure, sometimes its good to remember that its not a life or death decision. If its not clear, do some more research or just take a week off from doing anything about the kitchen. First point, your carpenter can assemble and install any of them. Don't worry about that. I have Scherrs and they are rock solid. They are better much constructed than ikea. You can get any size of anything and not pay more for it. You order sample doors to see colors. There are a couple of things I wish ikea would improve in their cabinets, but they are likely better than jsi (more below). The cabinet size selection is poor. Their cam locks aren't the greatest, neither is the particle board. If put together and installed well, they should last a long time. Their drawers are fine. You can do something blended by getting scherrs to make the odd cabinets and your drawer fronts, trim pieces and doors for ikea cabinets. They know how. You can have ikea-cherry. From the published information on jsi's site, its impossible to tell how the cabinet is built. So I have just two bits of info to go on. I've seen the insides of a couple of brands of chinese cabinets and they were pretty crappy. The outsides looked nice, but the drawers and cabinet were constructed poorly. These remind me of those, but I could be wrong. You'd lose a lot of potential storage space in drawers because of the frames. Click the picture with the drawer extended and you'll see what I mean - the usable height of the drawer is a little more than half of the height of the drawer front. Also, the "dovetail" drawer only has three pretty chunky dovetails and visible sanding defects. The surrounding doors have stain blotches. This is what they photographed to show you how wonderful they are... Diamond is a problem - they are very pretty and have a large selection of sizes and types. The way the cabinets are made - the dimensions of the pieces and the way they are assembled - isn't very good. So, as an every day quality measure and completely unfair I might add, I've never seen a diamond display intact and I've not seen an ikea built-in cabinet display falling apart. YMMV. hth

We have one cat that went camping with us, but it wasn't on purpose. We were on our way to go camping, and stopped at a convenience store to buy drinks. I was putting the drinks in the ice chest, with the front door and the side door open to our car. I started hearing what I thought was surely meowing. I asked DH, "Do I hear what I think I hear?" Yes. I looked around and down just as a little gray long-haired kitten jumped into our car. I picked him up and sat down on the seat. He immediately cuddled up to my face and licked me on my nose. Oh, dear, I thought. He was just a little thing, maybe 10 weeks old. I looked around, but there were no houses around, just traffic and businesses. I took the kitten inside the store and asked if the clerk knew who's cat this was, but he claimed he'd never seen it before. A customer piped up that it was "your' cat now. What were we to do, with cars coming in and out of the parking lot and no houses in site? He went camping with us. We bought him some food and some litter, and headed out. He rode in the car like a pro, stretched out on the back of the seat sometimes, curled up in one of our laps sometimes. We did keep careful watch over him, but he did get to run around a bit. He stayed very close to us the whole time. He even went bird watching with me, perched up on my shoulder while I looked through binoculars at birds. The rangers came by, and were a little concerned, but very amused. They just cautioned us about the dangers facing the kitten, and the dangers the kitten posed to the wildlife, but understood the predicament we were in. That was almost 3 years ago. He has not gone camping with us any more, but then, we haven't been camping since, either, unfortunately. His name became traveler, and we meant to continue to train him to ride in the car, but didn't end up doing so, and he now hates the car. Oh, well. All that being said, I agree with the others that it really isn't a good idea. When we just went on an extended trip, we hired a pet sitter recommended to us by a local rescue group. You might check with the rescue groups in your area. I figure if a rescue group trusts someone, they ought to be good. Sally