I'm aliveeeeee. Finally got somewhere with internet access. Yes, El Yunque is magnificent. I'm here on the weekends so it gets pretty crowded but it is still fun. Remember the person I told you all about, the person who lived on the island Culebra (which means 'snake' though there are not any snakes on the island???),, well she eventually returned to the mainland and her identical twin sister moved down here with her husband - I am not making any of this up. Well, SHE worked for the wildlife department at the El Yunque rainforest so I got to see it everyday way back then when I came here on vacation. I've even seen Puerto Rican Parrots which are highly endangered. I haven't seen any this trip because their population crashed a few years ago and there are now only 5 pairs remaining in this forest. My fotos should turn out ok but I warn you, most of the flowers are not native to this island,, they're just your normal ol' tropical flowers. When I called my friend to tell her about my new found love of all things Mo-Fo she said that the BEST is the one made with ground up pork cracklins or pork rinds - NO WONDER I LOVE IT!!! Not sure where I'm gonna find fresh conch in NC but I'm still gonna try. The ice cream place was owned and operated by a Chinese couple (go figure). He said that the ice cream was made with the corn cobs cooked for a long time in water to get out all the sugars. You do use some corn kernels also but the sweetness comes from the boiled cobs. The sad part of this trip is that May is not the best month to be here. Not much is in season. Mango will be by the end of the month. Pineapples are available for have no flavor. All the fancy small or unusuall tropicals I was hoping to buy are not for sale - at least I haven't found them. I have so far been here for a week without getting a sunburn (record heat wave going on and a drought), thanks to some spf 70 junk I smear on religiously. Tomorrow will be another trip to the small islands and then prep for the big drive back to San Juan and hopefully a visit to the botanical garden. Hasta Luego

Such happy news, Fran! Congratulations! You sound so happy in your post. Good to hear you're getting back into quilting... it's hard to find time when so many changes are taking place. That special man might just need a special quilt just for him! Hope to have you more involved here, again! You were definitely missed!

yup the birdhouse is a lamp...(the hard part will be finding a shade to fit it perfect....and yes I painted the flowers on the tables and lamps to cover imperfections....to learn to paint ac moore has pricilla hausers roses...she is really good with deatils...or even look over at the other home forum I think it is painting and decoration...painting fool gave great detail on painting roses and leaves

socks, i guess i never posted about the pigs. i lost both of my females a couple of years ago. they got sick and no matter what the vet and i did, they kept going downhill. ended up having them put down as they were really suffering. vet did a necropsy on one of them and never really came to a definite cause of death. he thinks it was some sort of bacterial infection. last october, both of the boys started having the same symptoms. we did all of the blood work and diagnostics all over again and could find nothing definite. knowing what i was in for after dealing with this already, i opted to put both of the boys to sleep before their suffering got unmanageable. if i had it to do over again, i would have euthanized both girls before they got so very sick. they are all buried out in the big alfalfa field along with 2 horses and several goats. i will no longer have any outside animals. i had even thought about taking the fencing down but gary poured his heart into building it 20+ years ago and i can't bring myself to take it down.