Dan, you are right, those mug rugs from Melissa are fantastic! I took the short class on Cotton Theory today. I am always happy to learn something new, but I doubt I will get hooked on this technique. It's one of the quilt-as-you-go things and as you join sections of it, you get these little seams that are loose and need to fold them towards the center by doubling them over and then use a wide stitch to catch both sides. With the fabric and batting in there, it gets really thick and to me, it's easier to just quilt the regular way than to go through all that to attach the sections. I might try it one day with larger seams and less batting and see what I think of it that way. LOL Here's a short explanation that I found about it online in case anyone is interested in reading about it. http://www.quiltyard.com/whatiscottontheory.phtml My initial thought was it was cotton theory because you use cotton fabric, but it turns out Cotton is the last name of the quilter who teaches this method. Time for a swap update: sandlapper_rose will send to quiltingfox (received) quilting fox will send to bev2009 (received) bev2009 will send to sandlapper_rose (received) hazelnutbunny will send to dan_the_mailman (received) dan_the_mailman will send to lindaruzicka (received) lindaruzicka will send to gmom2-6boys ** gmom2-6 boys will send to hazelnutbunny (received) ** I believe this has been mailed. Can you confirm that, Linda? I think gmom is traveling, so it may also have been delivered. If I hear back from Linda that it has been mailed, that completes our swap. Great job getting these completed and mailed. They all turned out so great, too! Give yourselves a round of applause. Jeanne

I have had a few friends in my life with MS and I can't say that being super skinny was a major symptom....nor being dumb as a stump, but heck, I'm not a doctor so what do I know ;oP I love the SS said it can't happen...maybe they need to read or watch the news? LOL I would love to be on a HW show. I'm picturing my life as I sit now...I'm in a paint stained shirt with dirty jeans on (gardening and painting while DS was at school) but I do have on a lovely pair of ruby ear rings :oP DS is out in the center hall of (what they would picture as a fabulous mansion on a HW episode) our old victorian and has just had a major 3 car pile up....This means the mansion is full of torn up cardboard as his cars were all boxes... HE's wearing a paint stained pair of designer jeans, a bat man tee shirt (with paint...what do they do at kindergarten? Dip them in paint) and skull and heart boots while screaming at the top of his lungs for an amballance (spelled as he says it). The dog just barfed up the dinner he stole from the cat...the cat is whining about his lack of dinner (I'll refeed him) and there is a herd of deer in the back 40 pooping all over the yard (this housewife will soon be chasing them out with a hose). Ahhh the romance of the real world....it would be quite a show :oP Anyone else want to be on it? heh heh

I love white. I've always loved white. It's my favorite color . . . and no comments about it actually being the absence of color; I know what it is technically, but it's still my favorite color. Because of that, we have some pretty white (well, warm cream) rooms in our home. And they work wonderfully . . . with some reservations ;^D First of all, we're not weird, uptight or O/C about cleaning. In fact, we're probably a bit more laid back than many people. We love putting our feet up on our sofas and coffee tables, read in bed on top of the comforters any time we feel like it (which is a lot, being a family of book lovers), and eat in pretty much every room except bathrooms (LOL). The reservations? Wall color: All walls are painted a warm cream color in a good quality, washable paint. Stark white, which has a blue cast to it, would be too cold and harsh IMO. The positive: our art work looks great and so do we in rooms that color. I think the right warm cream walls makes everybody look better. And, I like the sereneness it adds to the rooms. Plus, adobe walls look gorgeous painted a warm cream and most homes tend to paint them like that. here's the foyer to our MBR, as an example: The negative: our dobie leans up against the walls to catch the warm sun and leaves dirty areas on the walls. With very washable paint, though, I just wash it off but it does happen with great regularity. The reality is that it would happen even if the walls were any not-dark color. The furniture: I have two matching cream colored linen blend sofas in our living room and I LOVE them. We bought them in June 2003 and they still look great. I have them professionally cleaned every year, but we do use this room daily, to read, visit, listen to music and/or look at the views (which are killer from there). But, I would never have a white or light colored rug or floor anywhere! All our floors are brick. This is a real adobe home in the mountains of New Mexico. We track in a lot of dirt, but most stops at the mats by every door. We pretty much never take off our shoes when we come inside, though. I do have a rule of no shoes on the furniture or beds, but that's it. No big dogs on the furniture either, but this doesn't include our 11-pound Tibetan Spaniel who's an inside dog. She doesn't leave dirt, as we wash her frequently, but she does leave a LOT of dog hair. I'm not obsessive about it and vacuum it off once a week. Negatives: with white/cream sofas, you need a fabric that you can easily wash most spots off with water. Our is like that; without it, they would be a nightmare to keep clean! If you have dogs you allow to lie on sofas, white ones are not practical. If you have kids, you'd better have a family room with sturdy, dark colored furniture, as well. My two kids have always used our family room to watch TV and hang out with family and friends in. I was smart not to have a TV in the living room, but we all do head out there to read, etc. As for little kids and white, DD wrote all over my white sofas twice with a ballpoint pen when she was three and once with a stick of blue chalk. All three times required professionally cleaning, but it did come out . . . thankfully! Cabinets, etc. When we had this house built, all our custom cabs were white-washed pine (supposed to be ash, but that's another story). They looked great in the beginning, but yellowed after a while which wasn't pretty. I've since been told that the yellowing is pretty common, so take heed if you're thinking of going that route. They look dirty and /or worse quicker with fingerprints, chips and the like. They also look more casual than what we ultimately wanted. So, our family room has cream walls, but sturdy Western brown leather furniture, brick floors and a dark Oriental rug. After 14 years with the white-washed cabs in the kitchen, we had them torn out and new dark cherry ones installed. Still kept the cream walls, and brick floors and went with bright New Mexican accessories. The living room has cream colored walls and sofas, with dark tapestry throw pillows, brick floors, dark Oriental rug, and dark tables and chairs. All 3 bathrooms have cream walls, brick floors and white-washed cabs (that we still have to eventually replace). All the accents are dark colors in 2 and pastel in ours. BTW, in this pic (taken in the evening) everything looks more yellowish than it really is; it's all a warm cream with no strong yellow cast: Our MBR has the same walls and floors with cream comforter and drapes and dark furniture. I've replaced the comforter in this pic with a cream matelasse one, but it's still a white-on-white bedroom that we love. Living Room: Close-up of one of the sofas and Chloe the Profuse Shedder: So there you have an argument FOR white/cream rooms, but with reservations: washable walls and fabrics, darker wood furniture, cabinets, floors and rugs . . . and I guess, some good common sense as to if they'd work with you and your family. But, they've been working here for the past almost-18 years. Lynn

Rather than one person/household getting one generator on their own, it seems to me to make sense for half a dozen near neighbours to get a somewhat larger one together ... which would mean that it would be probable that at least one of the six would have a place to store it. Usually when there's a prolonged power outage, at least some of the people concerned would not be going to work and could haul it around from house to house to plug in for some power - four hours or so of the 24 (or, if four owners, six hours per household). If someone moves away or does not wish to continue to participate, either the others of the crew have a waiting list, or go looking for a replacement at the time ... or kick in enough cash each to buy out the departing person's share. A number of local farmers bought a generator that they drive from the tractor, and have a switch-over at their service pole, so that they can disengage the power from the line and plug it in to the generator hook-up. That would make sense, for when I went from house to house generating in a power outage in this area (ice storm() over 30 years ago, many wanted me to hook into the furnace ... but I dared not do that, for most are hooked directly into the main service box, and if we disengaged the furnace switch, then put clamps on the line to the furnace ... and for some reason the switch back to the line got engaged ... there's no way that I want to send power back out into a line that hydro service guys understand to be dead! People get killed, that way! But if the householders could disconnect from the line, and hook easily into the generator, they could use furnace, etc. as well ... and the larger generator that several could buy when working together would allow this (not blow out a smaller generator when they tried to overload it). More rain last evening - to cause more trouble for my already blighted tomatoes! ole joyful