My first *real* palm tree experience was in 2001 when we took our very first flight which lasted around 2.5 hrs. We went to Ibiza as a test flight to see if we could fly so to speak! Needless to say we loved it, especially me, and as a consequence, next time we flew just that little bit further to see my rellies in Australia.... and I have been hooked ever since, on palm trees, flying and also on Australia!! On seeing lots of various types of palms on the island it fired my enthusiasm to try to grow some as well as other non-native stuff and I am having good results with several things such as Desert Roses, B o PÂs, Plumerias, Dracaena Dracos and many others. Gill.

Thanks for sharing too! Our Bosch oven is similar on the timer and it is taking me a while to get the hang of that. Our Bosch 36" induction cooktop is also larger than a standard 36" cabinet and we had to upgrade on that as well. One of the quirky things about induction is that you keep turning it up because it doesn't seem to be heating visually than end up turning it way down for the simmer. Still getting used to ours after 6 months.

James Roosevelt Quotes American - Politician December 23, 1907 - August 13, 1991 Its success lies in the fact that it's an insurance plan, not an investment plan or a welfare plan. James Roosevelt Small changes done now would preserve Social Security at full benefit. James Roosevelt Even the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security trustees appointed by the president say that Social Security is financially sound, without any changes for the next 40 to 50 years. James Roosevelt Social Security should have a self-sustaining portion that was funded by contributions from both employers and employees. That's what we know and have known for 70 successful years. James Roosevelt It is really quite amazing that all of the folks supporting privatization, from the president on down, keep invoking the name of my grandfather, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. James Roosevelt It has to have a payroll tax that's dedicated to Social Security. The Social Security tax has been very successful over the years in raising almost all of our elderly citizens out of poverty. James Roosevelt Yousuf Karsh Quotes Canadian - Photographer December 23, 1908 - July 13, 2002 Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera. Yousuf Karsh Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness. Yousuf Karsh Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. Yousuf Karsh I've also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create. Yousuf Karsh The trouble with photographing beautiful women is that you never get into the dark room until after they've gone. Yousuf Karsh If there is a single quality that is shared by all great men, it is vanity. Yousuf Karsh There is a brief moment when all there is in a man's mind and soul and spirit is reflected through his eyes, his hands, his attitude. This is the moment to record. Yousuf Karsh Helmut Schmidt Quotes German - Statesman December 23, 1918 - November 10, 2015 The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. Helmut Schmidt Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take many small steps. Helmut Schmidt I remember the youth movement in 1968. It started on American university campuses as a protest against the Vietnam war, then came to Paris, Frankfurt and Berlin. Within a year, you had an uprising of youth against their elders. Helmut Schmidt Particularly since the computerization of the world, the impact of media has grown enormously. The printed books and the printed media have become less important. Why should somebody read Laozi or Confucius if he can Google? Helmut Schmidt Germany is one of the medium powers of the world. It is a non-nuclear power. It is in a lower class than the United States, the Soviet Union, France, the United Kingdom and others. Helmut Schmidt Americans tend to feel satisfied within the wide boundaries of that huge, big country. Helmut Schmidt People with visions should go to the doctor. Helmut Schmidt The critical thing about Western democracy is the fact that you usually have a transition of power without bloodshed. That is an enormous advantage. But still, democracy as we know it was only invented recently in the West, historical speaking. It did not really work in ancient Rome. It functioned for less than 200 years in ancient Athens. Helmut Schmidt When I became a soldier, I was drafted in 1937, and instead of being released two years later, I had to stay on because the war had started in the meantime. I was a soldier for more than eight years, as long a time as I was Chancellor. Helmut Schmidt Farmers are always conservative. They stick to what they have learned from their fathers and from their grandfathers. This is the same all over the globe. Helmut Schmidt I was in government for 13 years and in that time only once met the head of the German security services, and that was because he was an old friend. Otherwise, I carefully avoided having anything to do with these people. They are unavoidable but not really necessary. Helmut Schmidt My education has been pro-England. I have been an England-minded citizen of Hamburg, and I am still in a way English-minded, but I have been disappointed by the Brits over the years. Helmut Schmidt The British are very stubborn. The Queen, the Commonwealth, and the special relationship with the U.S. is much more important than Europe. Helmut Schmidt Britain is less European-minded than Greece. Helmut Schmidt The British claim to have a special relationship with the U.S., but if you mention this in Washington, no one knows what you are talking about. Helmut Schmidt I had a Jewish grandfather. We managed to hide this fact from the authorities by falsifying documents, my father and I. His father was Jewish, but because my father was an illegitimate child, it was rather easy to pretend that his father was unknown. Helmut Schmidt Democracy is not the end point of mankind. There may be developments in many different directions in the coming centuries. Democracy has only existed for about 200 years. It started out with the American Declaration of Independence. The Americans got their ideas from the Europeans, in the main from the French, the Dutch and the British. Helmut Schmidt If I ever had to emigrate, I would probably go to America. Helmut Schmidt The German public knows me quite well. I have been in their kitchens and living rooms for years. Helmut Schmidt In a mass television democracy - which all of us nowadays have - it is impossible to take basic political decisions with long-term consequences without the public knowing it, without the public understanding at least some of it, without the public forming its judgment, heterogeneous as it may be. Helmut Schmidt I will not be remembered in history. I have not been shot. I have not launched any great tragedy or victory. I have not borne any great defeat. It was a very normal - it still is a very normal - human life of a political leader. Helmut Schmidt Since I came an adult - for more than 45 years - Marcus Aurelius has been my great idol. Helmut Schmidt The concept of multiculturalism is difficult to make fit with a democratic society. Helmut Schmidt James Stockdale Quotes American - Soldier December 23, 1923 - July 5, 2005 There was nothing there but black water and American fire power. James Stockdale Yeah. I mean, it just seemed to me that it was - I felt so helpless to this business of not having any papers. That seems like a throwback to a schoolboy. James Stockdale They can shout down the head of the physics department at Cal Tech. James Stockdale In order to do something you must be something. James Stockdale And so, I mean, he declared war right there and then in so many words and Alex says later in the book, nobody in the White House from that point on had any doubt that we were going to bomb the mainland of Asia. James Stockdale And we had our own laws. I mean, I wrote them. And we had our own customs, and traditions, and proprieties. James Stockdale But there were highs as well as lows, it was as though they said everybody was picking on the man who had more practical real life experiences than the whole batch of them put together. James Stockdale Half the issues they - are so polished they're talking about - are dead by the time they get into the office, and into the midst of their tour where they're really productive. James Stockdale He's a novice, but he's had these - he's experienced in leadership in tight circumstances. He started - he dropped the first bomb, led the first air strike into North Vietnam. James Stockdale I mean, I didn't - I should have demanded attention of the boss maybe, or something like that that might have backfired. This I would just take as it came. James Stockdale I never had a single conversation about politics with Ross Perot in my life; still haven't. James Stockdale I think character is permanent, and issues are transient. James Stockdale I'm a grown man. You know, I've been in a lot of scrapes, but I never felt like I got so - there are probably a lot of things I should have done that I didn't do. James Stockdale So the first thing that went on was to decide... trying to find a time when we could get reprisal raids out. James Stockdale Sybil's my wife, and on the first day of October, that's the first time I knew Ross was going to run. James Stockdale The guy that just arranges things so that the stock market holds up is nobody in my - in my estimation. James Stockdale They were heading out to the middle of the bay - the Gulf - that's another thing that became kind of standard practice, we didn't hurry the destroyers around the beach any more, when it got dark, we'd take 'em out thirty or forty miles out in the middle of the Tonkin Gulf. James Stockdale This idea, as you know, that I have firm convictions that the idea of issues being a big deal where our mutual friend went back and he felt so strongly that the determining factor in electoral success should be a proven character. James Stockdale Well, first of all, I was asked by Ross Perot on a telephone call in March of 1992 if, since he had committed on the Larry King Show to becoming a candidate for president, to get on all 50 ballots. James Stockdale I was commanding officer of a supersonic fighter squadron, F-8 Crusaders. James Stockdale I was tortured fifteen times, that's total submission. They did that with shutting off your blood circulation with ropes, giving you claustrophobia and pain at the same time, bending you double. James Stockdale On the eighteenth of December 1972, when we thought we were getting another of the hundreds of little tactical air raids, we heard the bombs going in out there in the railroad yards and this went on for about thirty minutes. James Stockdale We couldn't generalize on the people. Some of them were known to be tough guys and they didn't say much, but some of them were kind of soft-headed, but they did that. That was an East German film. James Stockdale Avi Quotes American - Author Born: December 23, 1937 Listen and watch the world around you. Don't be satisfied with answers others give you. Avi I want my readers to feel, to think, sometimes to laugh. But most of all I want them to enjoy a good read. Avi I don't like the idea of a book being a test or being used for a test. The way - in my opinion - to make good readers is to let kids choose their own books and not test them. Avi Don't assume that because everyone believes a thing, that it is right or wrong. Reason things out for yourself. Work to get answers on your own. Understand why you believe things. Avi Work, Believe, Yourself I was born in New York City, along with a twin sister. I am five minutes older than Emily. It was Emily, for reasons no one knows - she certainly doesn't - who called me Avi. It stuck. It's the only name I use now. Avi In elementary school, I did well in science, but I was a poor writer. When I got to high school, I failed all my courses. Avi I definitely have an affection for detective fiction, and when I first read Dashiell Hammett's 'The Maltese Falcon,' that book and its author made an enormous impression on me as a reader and a writer, and led me to other hard-boiled American writers like Raymond Chandler and Ross McDonald, among many. Avi A lot of people think inspiration means magic. But really, inspiration means to put life into something. Avi In my books I try to tell a good story, not give messages. Avi The truth is I don't watch TV at all. It bores me. Avi Writing takes a lot of patience. It usually takes me a year to write a book. One time, it took me 14 years to write a book, not that I worked on it every day. Avi I think you become a writer when you stop writing for yourself or your teachers and start thinking about readers. Avi My mind has become somewhat like a book. What I mean by that is that when I look at the world, I see it as a story. Avi Every night, I was read to. Every Friday, we were taken to the library. I always received at least one book for my birthday. I have a few of them yet. Early on, I had my own collection of books. I loved to read. Still do. Avi For some 25 years, I worked as a librarian, first at the New York Public Library, then at Trenton State College in New Jersey. My life has always been with, around, and for books. Avi Writing is my profession. Photography is my hobby. Avi To become a novelist, the most crucial thing one must do is read, read and read again - gradually you begin to think like a writer. Ideas are not found - they are shaped. Avi Writers don't write writing, they write reading. When I was a kid, I read four or five books a week. And that is how I became a writer. Avi Everybody has ideas. The vital question is, what do you do with them? My rock musician sons shape their ideas into music. My sister takes her ideas and fashions them into poems. My brother uses his ideas to help him understand science. I take my ideas and turn them into stories. Avi It makes it harder to write if I watch a lot of television, because television is not like a written story. Avi

Nancy, Y'all have had quite a bit of cool weather already, and I think that helps the rosemary because the cooler weather has hardened off the rosemary to gradually cooler weather (or, at least, this is how it is supposed to work). The years in which I've lost rosemary were ones where the autumn stayed flat out hot forever, and then the first cold spell hit hard in December like a tornado flying across the plains, and the rosemary could not take the sudden change from very warm weather to intensely cold weather....like, 70 degrees one day and then 18 degrees the next night, with worse temperatures following after the 18 degree night. The only other time I've lost rosemary was in a winter that was very cold/very wet and the soil just stayed too wet for the rosemary for months. That's why I now have one rosemary plant in a bed raised 18" above grade level and the other one in a large urn that's a couple of feet tall---if the rosemary is not in well-drained soil now (the urn has a cactus soil blend to which I added extra decomposed granite), then I'll never have anything in well-drained soil because I don't think I can make anything drain better than that tall bed and that urn. I hope you have fun painting the furniture and making decorating decisions. I enjoy doing things like that so much. I don't know if 4 cold days will faze the bugs at all. It is so complicated. Some insects have anti-freeze type substance in them that helps them survive winter, so I think it just depends on what insect you're talking about. Time will tell. This morning Tim removed a very, very large leaf-footed bug from his car that we assume got into the car trunk at the police station. It was hideous-looking. I told him to not bring home ugly bugs like that. It was a good 50% bigger than any leaf-footed bug I've ever seen here, and maybe even more than 50% bigger. It possibly wasn't a leaf-footed bug (I didn't go over and observe it that closely) and might have been a kissing bug, which I don't think normally could take our cold weather up here. Regardless, except for that hideous thing, I haven't seen many insects lately and take that as a good sign. Possibly they all are just hibernating, as they tend to do, in mulch, beneath leaves, etc. We need a really cold, prolonged spell that lasts weeks to knock back the insect population significantly and I doubt we'll get that, but constant recurring cold spells, with warm days in between, could help kill insects. One thing to do is to rototill the garden soil in cold weather, so you stir up bugs underground and expose them to colder air surfaces at the ground level. That exposure helps them freeze to death. Rebecca, While they may prefer well-drained soil, I grew calendula in the ground in beds with barely amended clay for several years after we moved here and they did fine. Granted, it was one drought year after another, except for 2004, so they might have done better in the clay in dry weather than they would have in wet weather, but they also did well in 2004 when it was pretty wet in the spring. You can find southern peas dried, canned, frozen or (at some stores) freshly shelled and sold in plastic containers or bags in the fresh produce section, ready for cooking, usually with an expiration date of about 7 days. I don't know if you'll find any specifically labeled PEPH--but you might if your local stores carry one of the brands of vegetables produced in the south. Margaret Holmes' veggies include canned White Acre peas, but I'm pretty sure all their other southern peas are listed on the label as Field Peas or Blackeye Peas (either of which might/might not include PEPH types) and I think Glory Foods' peas also are only listed as Blackeyed Peas on the label. I'm pretty sure I've seen PEPH sold canned before, but don't remember where or which brand it was. Keep in mind that the average consumer calls all southern peas (whether they are PEPH, black eyed, green eyed, crowder, zipper, lady or cream peas) black-eyed peas and it generally is only gardeners or southern chefs who would refer to different kinds of southern peas, like PEPHs, with their proper name. If you want southern peas in what might be a more palatable dish, you can buy (or make) a traditional southern dish called Hoppin' John. Some Hoppin' John recipes are basically just peas, onions and peppers along with a few spices and others also include tomatoes or other ingredients. Here's one example: Margaret Holmes' Canned Hoppin' John When I make Hoppin' John, I usually use a lot of jalpenos so ours is pretty hot. Our PEPHs are shelled, frozen, and ready to cook along with our New Year's weekend ham, but when I want them fresh and have run out of frozen ones, Central Market has them freshly shelled, sold in plastic containers, for a very reasonable price almost year-round. I believe theirs generally are raised in far south Texas. Nancy, Canned southern peas are nowhere near as good as fresh or frozen, but they'll serve the purpose for observing the southern tradition of eating southern peas, preferably on New Year's Eve at midnight as the new year begins, for good luck. We just wait and have ours at noon and at dinner on New Year's Day since we aren't going to be awake and eating peas at midnight. Keep in mind I am anti-canned veggies because my taste buds prefer the flavor and texture of either fresh veggies or frozen veggies. That doesn't mean all canned veggies are bad, but just that I find the other forms preferable. They are people, I am sure, who hate the frozen version and prefer the canned one too. Kim, I'm sorry you're ill for the holiday weekend. Please stay put and take care of yourself and get well. Flu is running rampant right now. The linked map shows how widespread the flu is, as of last week: Weekly Flu Map for W/E 12/23/2017 It probably is wise to stay there in Denton until the weather settles down since all sorts of light winter precip are possible over the next few days. We're under a Winter Weather Advisory here through 6 a.m. tomorrow (and y'all are under one in Denton until midnight) but nothing really is happening here yet. I'm hoping nothing falls from the sky. We had drizzle before we reached freezing temperatures, but by the time the temperature dropped to freezing this afternoon, the drizzle had ended, so I think we're lucky so far. Jennifer, All southern peas count towards fulfilling the Good Luck requirement. I've lived in the south all my life, and it never has matter which southern peas you ate for good luck, as long as you ate southern peas. When we lived in Fort Worth, our next-door neighbor, a lovely woman in her 70s/80s got together with a bunch of people from her church every New Year's Eve and they ate southern peas right at midnight for good luck. They said if you weren't eating them at midnight to welcome the new year, you wouldn't have good luck. We've always just waited and had ours at noon on the 1st. It probably is a silly custom, but it doesn't hurt to eat the peas, so why not do it? Amy, Uggh. I wouldn't have been able to eat oyster stew again either after finding that big wad of hair...and I don't want to think about where the hair might have come from. Tim is outside making a shelter for a feral kitty who's been hanging around, and we've been feeding it this week and trying to tame it. Feral cats here usually will not survive all the predators wondering around in the winter, so I'd like to bring him or her indoors to stay safe from the predators and the cold weather, but most feral kitties won't let you pick them up and bring them in, so a big box with a fluffy old comforter on the covered patio will have to suffice. I might take a heated throw blanket out there, plug it into an outlet in the garage, and try to keep the kitty warmer on Sun and Mon nights if I cannot get it to come in tomorrow. (Most cats like me better, by far, but this one prefers Tim, so he might have better luck trying to pick it up and bring it in. We do always wear thick leather gloves when attempting a feral cat rescue.) It is cold and cloudy here, but otherwise quiet. Our VFD/PD/EMS GroupMe mermbers are giving us constant updates from all over the county and beyond (if they are traveling), and even though there's been drizzle and there's been freezing temperatures, there hasn't been freezing drizzle yet. We're keeping our fingers crossed. Dawn