Hi all,,, she is out... and alright......... it is now recovery.spoke just now with my brotherinlaw about anesthia implications and he assured me that it is not as it used to be and that now they are better than we are at our own breathing so it is just recovery .......will talk to Max in the am again......for now peace to all...charlotte

Thank you for all your responses and to anyone who checks back and reads further... I tried my best to make that brief but it was so long, and yet theres more I want to say after reading some responses! jakuvall...I appreciate your response, I too don't think the KD would suggest him if he was not trustworthy, she spoke really highly of him. And I assume, and its too early to tell, he had a plan for those soffits...do you mind telling me some solutions you have used? I know that all the plumbing for our 2 upstairs bathrooms is housed in those soffits. And a heating duct going into an upstairs bathroom runs through it too. However. As a KD Im sure your opinion of him might change if you hear that in my conversation with him, he was making it clear that even if I don't hire the KD who referred him to me, he'd still do the job, in fact he told me of another cabinet supplier who will be cheaper, pointing out she has a big markup on her cabinets to pay for her interior design expertise. So...is that a huge no no?! I would feel horrible hiring him if I don't use the KD. However, I was thinking about it because once I get some estimates, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to afford the luxury of a true KD/interior designer. I'm thinking I'm going to be relying on the wonderful GW and hopefully a decent cabinet place to come up with the best layout. Haha, as I write it, he sounds like a real jerk, but I swear I don't think he is. And, as for contractor "A", I cant help but wonder if he's being so thorough bc Im asking him to do stuff hes not sure how to do. I have this in my head, because when he first looked in those soffits he had a look like, ohhhhh crap. Afraid he was going to tell me we couldn't remove them, I instantly pulled up a picture I have showing my neighbors identical kitchen where they recently had them removed. He looked at the picture and then realized what they did was build the wall out a few inches to deal with all the pipes. So, now that became his solution. I cannot help it, I am overly cynical of people, but I wonder if I hadn't shown him that if he'd have even come up with a plan. I really didn't give him much of a chance to arrive at a solution but I watched his face as he "learned" what to do by looking at the picture. So, all his other careful investigating makes me wonder. Is he seeing all the duct work inside my load bearing walls that I want cut down and thinking to himself ohhhh crap?! Or is he just looking close because he knows more than most what to look for and what to be prepared for. Uggh, this is stupid, after writing it out I think its obvious I just need to get 3rd and 4th opinions. great, then I can scrutinize and obsess over every single thing they say too and find any reason I can find to not trust them too and then this project will never get started! OK, thanks for letting me ramble and vent. :-/

I finished The Dry yesterday. It was a good, fast-moving page-turner. I'm not sure how I expected it to end, but I guess, with the relatively small cast of characters, it couldn't have been too surprising. Maybe because the last couple of books I've read were told in the first-person, in one instance by more than one person, I had to keep reminding myself that Aaron Falk was not telling this story. It did use the device of telling parts of the story--the truth--by switching to italics and stepping completely out of the current narrative. I guess that's one way to let the reader into things that the present-time characters aren't planning to reveal or even know about. I did find that more than a couple of paragraphs were harder to read in italics. I give it a B.

Oh dear. I too have one of those ceramic trees, and I have the perfect spot for it. Alas it was made by my ex-SIL and I have such unpleasant feelings and memories of her, I can't put it out without being reminded. It's so odd...I get along with mostly everyone, but she just sets me on edge with such unpleasant feelings. I know the zen in me says to put it out and explore and be with those feelings, but I just can't...I want decorations to bring me joy. We'll be decorating this weekend and will do pretty much the same as every year. My old wreath on the front window needs replacing, which I've ordered but have yet to receive. Hopefully soon. The angel is a counted cross stitch done by my SIL who had the most incredible patience for tiny stitches. She also did incredible beading. Here are some close ups: Photo a neighbor took of our barn that made the cover of the local paper when we had one...