LOL Cathy, that's funny. Hey, the guys should understand how much cheaper it is, even if they don't quite believe how much better it is too. Apparently I've been paying this thread a bit too much attention too. Last night I had a visit from a dear old friend/classmate I hadn't seen in...well.. about 40 yrs. When he called he said he had a bottle of vodka and should he bring it. I said sure... I was just thinking I need to get another bottle for my vanilla. I was seriously chuckling at myself when he brought the vodka, some tonic and a lime. LOL.. He had 2 light vodka tonics and I had a cape cod. Boy I sure can't drink anymore. LOL. Anyway, he graciously left the rest of his stash and wished me luck with my vanilla. LOL. I'm sure he didn't want to head home to KY via DC with an open bottle anyway. Grins. I did read in that tutorial about drying the pods before using them in sugar. I think I'll try that next time I make some vanilla sugar. Might try chopping this next batch of pods for the extract too. Experimenting is fun.

With commercial products, liberties are taken with the word "compost". I wouldn't go near bagged compost unless I knew exactly what was in it, and especially that there was no sewage sludge (aka biosolids) mixed in. Here's a basic article dealing with that issue: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/04/your-organic-compost-really-sewage-sludge-rosario-dawson-kellogg-amend Then there's the matter of pesticides, how do you find compost that isn't full of them. As Ohiofem mentioned, municipal composts can contain pesticides, especially when using material from lawns (that are often heavily sprayed). One way around that is to only use municipal composts during the time of year when lawns are dormant and not being mowed. It's usually free and they often sell compost bins at discounted prices.You can also make your own compost bin with metal poles and chicken wire. About an hour's drive from my home there's a facility that makes compost from horse manure (66%) and ground up wood pallets (34%), composts it for 30 days at 160F in 15 ft high steaming mounds. I filled up the back of my pickup for $30 a few years ago. But then I started thinking about the medicine given to horses on a regular basis (deworming, etc...) and the fly control spraying that must be done at large horse farms. That's when I started my own compost piles. Weeds are plentiful and easy to pull in early spring. Trees drop copious amounts of leaves, and I have some large oak and pine trees. I found a coffee shop that uses only organic coffee, so plenty of coffee grounds. And I found an organic vegetarian/fruitarian on the Freecycle who was looking for someone to recycle his scraps...every two or three weeks I get 3 5-gal buckets full. This may sound like overkill for someone with 3 tomato plants, but if you want to garden organically it's not hard to make your own compost. I also added red worms to my bin/piles and let them thrive so I also have lots of the above mentioned EWC. BTW, I also use Miracle Gro...it's cheap and easy to use. I'm beginning to mix my own potting soil (I have many 5/15 gal containers for vegetables and fruit trees)... I'm adding about 1/3 compost, 1/3 bark fines, 1/3 old container potting mix(which is mostly peat) or SuperSoil, some gypsum, and pumice when I can get it cheaply. BTW, you can buy 1 gal of fish emulsion at Home Depot for $13.50. A gal of water weighs 8.34 lbs, a gal of fish emulsion weighs a little more than that. So the cost is around $1.62 per pound.

I like the comment about a better house, not bigger. We downsized last year and, although it's half the size of our previous home, I truly believe it lives bigger. We did end up buying property and building, and we drew up our own plan, taking it to an architect to tweak a little. (DH had designed our previous home, including all the construction blueprints; but this time he just wanted to get the layout done and then let the architect take over.) I think the reason it lives so well is the fact that we sat down together and discussed our daily activities and what we wanted in each room to make it work for us. We also considered the flow through the house and how it fit OUR preferences. This is our fourth house (3rd build), and I'm happy to say it's the best fit we've ever had---which is a good thing, since this is the house we will be retiring in and plan to age in place here. I don't have the breadth of experience to say whether developer or design/build your own will be more cost effective for you. I can say we definitely came out ahead with building our own (utilizing an architect and general contractor). Our builder was an acquaintance of ours who came highly recommended by friends for whom he had built a home about 5 years earlier. He stayed on schedule and finished right on time and within our budget. Of course, we stayed on top of the budget throughout the process and decided where we wanted to spend more money and where we could save money. We sourced a lot of items on our own, which also saved. We also found property in our desired area that had just been put on the market, which proved to be ideal for us and much better than any of the areas being developed in our area. It's very hard to find property in our desired area that wasn't already snatched up by a developer. If you're trying to stick to a budget, you do need to be able to discipline yourself not to splurge on everything when you're building---and, if there is something you want to upgrade, then you need to figure out how you're going to pay for it now (not over the next 10-15-20-or-30 years), such as by cutting back on something else. And, of course, allow a contingency for the unexpected. We did this by estimating line-item costs higher than we expected, thus building in a cushion . Of course, we were highly motivated because we wanted to own the house outright, with no mortgage, at the end of the build. Most of this would apply to a developer's house, as well. If you choose one before it's finished, then you could end up with the option of choosing some very expensive upgrades that could quickly put the house over budget. Hope you have success in your search for a new home. This site has some wonderful, knowledgeable contributors that can help you along the way. There are also a lot of beautiful homes with features that will inspire you to create a lovely home but also tempt you to start seeing a luxury as a necessity. : )

As in the great racehorse Seattle Slew, but that always makes me think of the quantity, "a slew of" something, and it's usually not nice. And if you slough off something, you "sluff" it off, right? Anyway, I just call that park "the one behind where Dominick's used to be" to avoid pronouncing it at all. And edenchild, we spell plough "plow". Another difference! Vive la difference? :)