For a couple of years I had a garden spot away from my house, with no water supply available so if I wanted to supplement rainfall I had to haul gallon jugs of water. To make my watering efficient, when I planted my peppers & tomatoes in the spring, I dug down and buried empty gallon plastic jugs, one between each plant. I had poked 4-5 holes in the bottom of each, of course, and left the caps on until later in the summer. Once the weather warmed, and after a good soaking rain, I mulched the beds 4-6" deep with chopped leaves, being sure to cover the tops of the (so far empty and still capped) bottles to protect them from the sun since I had found that the plastic degrades and becomes brittle when exposed to the sun. (In previous years, just cultivating around the bottles inevitably resulted in my breaking the tops off by midsummer.) When the weather reached a point where I actually needed to water, I cleared the mulch away for the moment and poured a gallon of water into each buried bottle. I set the cap loosely back atop each bottle to keep the leaf debris from falling in and clogging the exit holes in the bottom, then pulled the mulch back up to protect the plastic. I did not care about how long it took for the bottle to empty-- it seemed like a gallon or two a week per plant was sufficient, and the best part is that by burying the bottles the water went right down to the root zone where it was most effective. As for using wall-o-waters, since I had gotten some free from a friend, I tried them last year with 3 really early tomato plants I started specifically to experiment with. While they survived a good bit of frosty weather, in the end the plants I had started weeks later and planted out a month after the first ones when the weather had warmed quickly caught up to the wall-o-water ones and all the tomatoes pretty much bloomed & set fruit at the same time & rate. So my conclusion is that it was satisfying to my eager gardener's soul to be out planting early, but it really made no difference in overall plant performance. I have found the same to be true with early plantings of such things as peas and salad crops, too. Early plantings may survive, but later plantings quickly catch up and may even surpass earlier ones that have been stressed by the weather.

Oh my gosh, you guys are cracking me up! I never heard of the "while we're at it" syndrome, but yes, we have caught it too! Though that's not really the hold up here. And we've begun quietly keeping a "while we're at it list" until the kitchen is done - we don't want the contractor to get distracted!!! I'm not angry. Even though some personal issues caused the contractor to be away, that is not entirely unexpected when it's 2 guys doing all the work. They do beautiful work. and even though they are quite behind and know it, they are not taking any short cuts to get caught up. I appreciate that integrity and artistic sentiment. The penalty clause we included is quite stiff, but it's more of a scare tactic to keep them on track (how's that working out?!). We certainly won't enforce it at the earliest possible date, if at all. We like the guy, we love his work, and honestly, it's in a part of the house that doesn't interfere with our day to day lives, and I have a fully functioning kitchen in the meantime. Clearly, not much to complain about. Just tired. And impatient. Glad to see I'm not alone here. We can cheer each other on. Since all of my major decisions are made, I haven't been on here as much and don't have a lot of time just to peruse (though I do when I can). I'm afraid if and when it's time for the reveal, nobody will care! :D

my MIL has psych problems, she lived in a small garage apartment on our property..she is a hoarder.. even her car was piled with stuff..trash, papers, magazines. broken dishes,art supplies, baskets, plastic containers, receipts, tax business papers from 10 years ago, old clothes, bags of recycling bottles and cans and filthy old smelly musty and moth ball smelling stuff.. helping her clean i once found a ketchup bottle in a plastic bag under an easy chair. it was so old it was dark brown.. she remarried, has moved 800 miles away and i am still finding her crap in the garage. this is after she had 2 dumpsters filled within 12 months.. i have not been to the new place.. i can only wonder.. i do not mind clutter..if the house is clean, floors, windows, sinks and counters, porch, patio, outside of appliances, bathroom, etc.. but that kind of trash and hoarding is really sad. she never taught her son how to clean or be organized and guess who is stuck holding the (garbage) bag? hahahaha i love my man and he is smart and organized at work, when he comes home it is a whole other story.. i am getting ready for winter and cleaning closets and cabinets and putting summer things away and getting out he winter stuff..ugh,,we have literally 2 closets..so things have to go to the garage and shed.. and when i get the place back together i have to put my foot down and set some rules.. EVERYTHING has a home and it's place....especially bad when the kids were living at home, small house, before they flew the coop, what is so hard about putting it back after you use it? and if you drop a potato chip or some food or paper or twist tie or something on the floor why can't some people pick it up? they leave it and will walk by it 10 times!!!! i just tell myself to forgive, they know not what they do...

I have a friend in physical rehab (since December) and when I was visiting before Easter I decided I wanted to get each patient on her hallway a little something. Food was not acceptable so I found little flowerpots with silk flowers at the dollar store. They were so pretty- - sure didn't look like dollar store items. I packaged each one (25) in a little gift bag also from the dollar store and made little tags decorated with flower and butterfly stickers and wrote a few words on each. They were a hit and when I go to visit now I see many of the patients have put them on their window sills. It sure was fun.