I live in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ and like you was worried for a while about having problems with the neighbors. First I raised some quails which were supposed to be quieter. The males are pretty vocal, the females aren't bad, then I found out that my neighbors were thinking about having their own chickens as well, so I figured they're "chicken friendly" and went ahead and got 8 chickens for myself. I have 4 barred rocks and 4 Ameraucanas (Easter Eggers) So far they've been fantastic. They're getting close to egg laying age, and it is nice having those "kitchen scraps to compost" converting machines right in the backyard. They're not very noisy at all. I would however recommend against having a rooster. If noise is a broblem, a rooster is out of the question. You don't need roosters to get eggs. I had roosters at my previous house and ended up having problems with neighbors. I was also concerned about a "smell" problem, but have had no problems at all so far. I spread some DE (Diatomaceous earth) in their bedding (I keep them in a 12x6ft aviary most of the time) and that really seems to help. The eggs will be great, but the immediate benefit for me was the manure that makes excellent compost for my garden. Every time I mow the lawn, rake leaves, pick weeds or prune trees, I spread the stuff on the aviary floor. They go through it, break it down, eat what they want and scratch around mixing the manure in. After a month or two, I rake up the stuff and dump it in my compost tumblers. The finer stuff at the very bottom is usually already composted and goes straight to the garden. Silkies are great pets, very friendly, but they're not very good at egg production because they tend to be broody. As far as my personal experience with which variety is more tame/less noisy, whatever you do, don't get Leghorns. I don't handle mine that much, so they can be a little fussy if you try to touch them, but I'd have to say that the Barred Rocks seem to be a bit more mellow and they calm down faster when handled. I have family members that have Easter Eggers as well and theirs are extremely tame, so maybe it's just that mine don't quite get enough human interaction. I'd say go for it, chickens are awesome... see, I can't seem to stop writing about them.

Terri, I think you are right about my needing to get a loud horn - I'm just a bit afraid of over startling people - it's been known to happen. However, the life I save might be my own. Beanthere, I guess you might be right - I forget that some people cannot even find Paris (or maybe France) on a map or globe. But if someone works in a deli, they certainly should know that Parma is in Italy! Where do they think Parmesan cheese comes from? Rachel, we get great corned beef at the farmers' market on Fairfax. It's sliced very thickly, but it is very tender and is warm when I buy it. I would make it myself if DB would eat beef, but lately we have been buying turkey pastrami. Now DB is telling me that the black pepper on the turkey pastrami is upsetting his stomach, and so I might as well buy corned beef or beef pastrami to make my own Reuben sandwiches. I guess he will have to have bland Reubens. Lars

les917, I do like the Wisteria, but I have to consider that the room is so tight that the color is magnified. Perhaps it's bouncing off the walls at each other. I mean, just look at the criminal Constellation....looks so gentle and sweet in those photos. But put it on all 4 walls and Holy Cow, that room was radiating BLUE! So, I feared what would happen with that gentle spirit known as "Wisteria". I will be saving that paint chip and might use it down the road. There is one bedroom that still needs to be painted and you just never know, this could be the winner. I must say, that I feel so happy going forward. It was killing me not knowing how to proceed. The Nimbus is calming, not crazy. Now I'm excited to go get that floor and be ready to start the install asap. Thanks everybody for all the great advice.

Some things I want to keep but have no where to put them are the big Wilton novelty cake pans & cookie racks. If they're not too tall they could go into underbed boxes, either the kind on wheels or just the ordinary cardboard kind. I'm a big believer in using the wasted space under the bed! They also are unlikely to be harmed by attic heat. Otherwise, think really, REALLY hard about just how much are you going to use every one of these pans? Can you pare down your collection? Is making novelty cakes and cookies a frequent hobby or a small business, or are these the sorts of things you only do once in a while? I'm a cookery nut too and I found it hard as hell to weed down my collection of goodies and gadgets before our move last September but I'm not so good at bending the time-space continuum to create storage space where there isn't any. Trust me, it was a wrench to put those adorable heart-shaped miniature springform pans in the donation box because I remembered the expressions of delight when I produced miniature heart-shaped cheesecakes for someone, but we just didn't use them enough to justify the space they occupied. Do you use all three ice chests so often that you need to keep three of them on hand at all times, or is there someone you could give, say, two of them to who would let you borrow them back when you need them? The ironing board. Right now it is behind my bedroom door. We had another ironing board - one of those short over the door things in a closet. Slide it flat underneath a bed or hang it neatly behind the door on the wall on an ironing board rack, or move the over-the-door one to the back of a bedroom door. There are also attractive ironing board cabinets that mount onto or even recess into the wall between the studs, and some can even be electrified so you can plug the iron in right there. I am assuming you prefer to iron in the bedroom instead of in the laundry room (you couldn't FIT an ironing board in our laundry room anyway!). The upright vacuum. This is a necessary thing and I won't be putting it in the attic. I just don't have anywhere to put it except a closet shoved between the hanging clothes. A closet is fine but organize the closet floor (shoe storage, blah blah) so that you can slip it into a corner rather than just shoving it in the middle of the clothes. If you've got a spare $400 floating around (BWAHAHAHAHAHA - who does?) the Dyson DC24 upright vacuum does compact down quite small although in this house the jury's still out as to whether it really stands up to all the hype. The printer for my laptop. Right now it's in the kitchen next to the peninsula where I usually do my work. Is there a chance of a wireless connection between laptop and printer? There are SO many gadgets now that let you print without being physically connected to the printer, and then you can put the printer wherever you can conveniently tuck it away (say an end table with a door where you could drill a small hole in the back for the power cord) without worrying about having to be able to hitch up that printer cable. If you're not technologically adept, there are any number of "rent-a-geek" services to help you. Luggage. Right now in the floor of the closet, but I'd like to keep stuff off the floor so it's easier to vacuum and looks bigger. Attic. Get bags of cedar shavings from the pet department at Walmart or whatever, punch a bunch of holes in each bag, and put them into old pillowcases, then put THAT into each suitcase. The cedar shavings will keep bugs and critters from taking up residence in them, absorb any moisture to prevent mold, and keep them from smelling musty. Or under beds if they'll fit, in which case you can fill them with other things. Make the adult kids (if they're old enough for apartments, furnished or no, they're adults in my book) responsible for their belongings - you are not running a storage facility or dumping ground for their stuff, you have enough stuff of your own. Maybe they can pool their funds for a storage unit; I could see their weeding out their belongings, selling some on CL, eBay, or at a yard sale to raise the money to pay at least part of the storage fees on the things they absolutely cannot part with. I downsized by 40% last year and had to be absolutely brutal about what came along with us and what had to go. We took several station-wagon-loads to Goodwill, and then about six months after we moved we had another "WHY did we move this?" purge and took another two station-wagon-loads out. You have to be kind of heartless... most of what we got rid of was stuff that other people had given us and we - okay, I - had to get over a good bit of guilt about giving it the heave-ho.