A few years ago, there were some reporters in this county that would come into my office and I'd give them a press release or make a statement. A couple of them I could even give pieces of information and ask that they not be released for a period of time. I trusted them and they did not betray that trust. They are all gone, either fired or retired or moved. Now I have to watch the news to find out what I said, we've stopped talking to television stations and reporters entirely, we'll prepare a press release on paper and fax it, but make no other statements. Too many times I've seen myself "quoted" as making a statement that I never made, and even with the press release in writing the Grand Rapids television station will broadcast things that aren't true and aren't included in the release. I guess they just make things up because it makes a better story but they are not accurate, they are not reliable and they are not truthful. I'd as soon read the National Enquirer as watch the news on WZZM in Grand Rapids, and other surrounding media outlets are not much better. Part of my job here is to deal with the media on high profile cases and I've taken to saying that this office has no comment. Ever. They can check the court records if they want the facts but they seldom do, they just want to print a good story. I don't trust them, and for very good reason. And don't get me started on the weather reports that categorize 3 inches of snow in Michigan as an "emergency" and worthy of "weather advisories". And so, as evidenced by this entire thread, I think good, honest and reliable reporters are leaving the business for whatever reason and the news is being replaced by drama and conjecture in many cases. I've formed this opinion by 30+ years of personal contact with local news media, and not just the print types. The news is not what it was even 10 years ago. I am truly sorry the OP lost her job because it appears to me that the news industry in general needs more of her type of reporting and far less of the type of reporting we are currently getting. Annie

I am so glad that you piped up about your Frigidaire issue, Practigal. Thank you. I don't think it was a coincidence that you were participating in this thread. So..is it crumbs of rust dropping down from the burner...or, is it rust coming up through the paint...or is it oxidation of the gas itself, that maybe it is burning "dirty"? Good ideas, Mrsnyefnyef. I have an update, but I'll share it at the end of my post. ; ) I agree, Eurekachef. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the BS rangetop after test driving it (unless you don't like standing over a high heat cooker.) "my regrets comments was that I just didn't want you to finish your project and then turn back and say, well I should have..." Ah, I understood what you were getting at much better that time, Gooster. That makes a lot of sense. Here is the update: I found 2 incredibly good deals at Goedekers website this weekend for scratch and dent Miele's. The cooktop (yes, a cooktop, not a rangetop) is 42" wide and has 6 burners. They looked like they are configured *perfectly* for the way we cook. Originally I was looking for all the same BtU's on the burners, but these should work fine because of the configuration. Originally I was looking for sealed burners, which this has. The knobs are off to the side rather than on the front. I find this to be a nice feature since I tend to lean into whatever I'm cooking. This way I won't be lighting the stove with my belly! Also, little ones will have a harder time reaching the knobs. Finally, at about $1200 less than full price, it was too good a deal to pass up. They also had a set of 30" Miele Master Chef double ovens for almost half price (open box). I hemmed and hawed for a while on this one. It's definitely more high-tech than what I was originally looking for. In order to do the cooktop, we'd have to head into wall oven land. Wall oven land was full of techy gizmos. Given that, I might as well try one that is highly regarded by bakers and has the lowest repair rate in the industry (according to Yale Appliance's website, anyway.) Thank you all for helping me process this big decision! I really appreciate the input each of you gave me.

Larry, That is a beautiful and awesomely tall example of variegated reed grass! Maybe yours is going to get head high to the Jolly Green Giant? Jacob, If I didn't have the 8' tall deer fence all around both garden plots, the deer and I would not be friends. I think Bambi lost her mother, perhaps to a hunter. We have tons and tons of fawns this year---it seems that most does had at least twins this year and one that comes regularly has triplets. I love seeing them. If only the fawns could stay little, cute and adorable forever. People who hunt the property due west of us (it is the buffer that sits between us and the river, so they get a ton of wildlife) are getting pretty large bucks every year....say they sit on their property and wait for the bucks to come off our property. I rarely see the bucks because they feed at night, but I know they are there because every now and then late at night when we are out late, we spot them as we are arriving home. I tried for the first 8 or 10 years to have nice landscaping around the house/yard, which my husband stubbornly refuses to fence off with an 8' fence. The deer ate every single thing I planted, so I finally gave up. Now we just have trees, shrubs, trumpet creeper vines (because apparently the deer don't eat those), grass and some four o'clocks. Everything else? Hostas, hydrangeas, roses, perennial salvias, any annual flowers I planted for color, day lilies, etc......all deer chow. They even would eat the tough, prickly leaves of the hollies in drought periods, but finally the hollies are so big and old and tough that they don't bother those any more. If I ever convince Tim to surround our house and yard with a big ugly fence to keep the deer out, I will plant everything I've ever wanted around the house. I think his desire to not have a fence is much stronger than my longing for one. Where he grew up in Pennsylvania surrounded by woodland, nobody had fences so you could look out and feel like you owned hundreds of acres of forest as all the back yards and farms just sort of flowed together. So, he remains anti-fencing based on fond childhood memories from the 1960s and 1970s.....even though, if you go back there to his childhood neighborhood now, everybody has fencing and the farms and woodlands mostly are housing subdivisions with lots of fencing. I still think that someday I'll at least have a fenced back yard I can landscape. We'll see! Nancy, I am so sorry about your mom's passing. I know I don't "have to" comment, but I want to. Tim and I send you and your family our deepest and most sincere condolences. What an incredible, long life she lived, and you did everything you could to move her to the place that was best for her to live out her final stage of her life. You were a great daughter and I suspect it is because you were reared by an amazing mom. When y'all do travel to Buffalo in a few weeks, I wish you a safe journey. I do think Tiny Dude needs to travel with you so he can enchant and delight your friends and family who see his photos on Facebook and undoubtedly want to meet him in real life. Many cats travel well in a cat crate. Do they microchip cats like they do dogs? If they do, I'd get him microchipped in case he escapes from the vehicle, or at least get him a collar with a tag so you could put your cell phone number on the tag. Being close to the interstate where wrecks are frequent, we get lots of requests to watch for/search for pets that escape from a vehicle (not necessarily a wrecked vehicle---pets can bolt from a broken down vehicle when someone gets out to check and see why the engine is acting up or to change a tire or just when their owners stop at a gas station or fast food place). Sometimes you can find the pet, even weeks later, but it is hard by then to figure out which traveler passing through was searching for that pet if they aren't tagged. In my meager 20 years of living here, an early winter almost always equates to a bad winter. Or, for snow-starved southern OK, a really good winter. But, we don't get the ice storms that folks further north get in bad winters so what a lot of you might view as a bad winter, I might think of as a delightfully cold and snowy winter....if we get snow. If we don't get snow, then who cares? All winter without snow means is that we are cold and wet. I don't like being cold and wet, but I love snow. Not that I've had much snow to love. Our county does sometimes get the ice storms that bring down trees and power lines, but so far, that sort of weather never has come as far south as our house---it has made it down to maybe 3 or 4 miles north of us though. The bad thing is that if we get cold enough for ice and snow, then we get cold enough to lose Zone 8 plants that I planted here in order to see if they would survive here. They will survive here for a few years until we get an extra cold winter and snow. So, I sort of hope for snow, and sort of don't. I rarely plant Zone 8 plants here any more, although I planted a couple this past year.....which pretty much guarantees a cold winter is coming so it can wipe them out. I haven't seen a hummingbird since a week ago Thursday, but left the feeders up in case any were going to ride down on the big cold fronts. I haven't seen any, but will leave the feeders up until Monday or Tuesday, just in case, and then take them down. We ended up with the oldest granddaughter coming to stay with us for the weekend after her plans to spend the weekend with her dad fell through at the absolute last minute. We are always excited to have her come visit for a weekend, even if it wasn't planned. So, we ate dinner out with her, her mom and Chris last night, and then they headed home to get sleep before the busy work weekend with long shifts scheduled at work. We went to Wal-mart after dinner and bought everything we needed to stay home indoors and out of the rain today. We're going to carve pumpkins, which she has been dying to do....but I wanted to wait for cooler weather so the heat wouldn't ruin the Jack-o-lanterns. I think the heat isn't an issue any more. We're going to decorate Halloween Jack-o-lantern cookies (pre-baked and sold with a decorating kit). She has a long list of Halloween crafts she wants to make, including the Halloween version of a gingerbread house (we'll see about that one), so we'll work out way through that list as much as we can. I awakened at six and saw on the radar that the rain was almost here so rushed to get the dogs outdoors ahead of the rain's arrival. Whew! That was close but we made it. We're supposed to have rain all morning. How deeply into the afternoon the rain lasts is the unknown. I wish it would blow through faster, but it might be a long, rainy day here. We're ready for it and aren't planning on going out in it. I have some amaranth in the garden with huge flowering seed heads I'd hoped to have harvested and drying by now, but the relentless rain has kept me from cutting them. I keep hoping for a warm, sunny, windy day without rain so they can dry out some and then I'll cut them. I think if I cut them while they are so wet, they'll just mildew and look awful. I want the flower heads for autumn flower arrangements, but the rain may ruin that idea. When I planted the amaranth seeds in July, I wasn't expecting record rainfall in September and October. Have a lovely Saturday everyone. I hope those of you that the rain keeps missing will get some of this moisture plume left over from Sergio. The unfortunate thing is that it seems largely to be traveling over areas that already have had too much rain recently, so flash flooding and flooding likely will occur in those areas. The Red River is up and running fast and looked ugly last night, so this rain will just make that worse. I am thinking the winter wheat crop here likely is ruined. Too, too much rain even for seeds to sprout and grow, so it is more likely that if the seeds sprout, then the young plants rot. That's so unfortunate, but that is how life goes here on the southern plains. Dawn

Debby, how is the week coming along? I'm on Day 3 of the great closet cleaning. DH's closet is blocked by my folding work table piled with clothes. I have 2 bags by the garage door to drop off at a church when I go to choir practice this afternoon, and I hope to have more by then. I can't go total KonMari because I would drown lol so I'm doing categories. Did dresses, pants, skirts, hanging shirts, jackets, and cardigans. Today is purses and shoes, then I will move on to pull-over shirts/sweaters and pajamas from the dresser drawers. I think I'll do the socks and underwear tomorrow, or maybe tonight while I watch a movie. I kind of follow FlyLady (well, I used to till I, um, got out of the habit) but one of her rules is "don't take out more than you can put away in an hour". That works sometimes, but this here is putting one of her SuperFlingBoogie on steroids lol. Last night I chanced on AGT on the little tv in the kitchen, so I cleaned out the spice cabinet while I watched. I get a lot done in little pockets of time like that. I figured 2018 expirations wouldn't kill us, just not be as flavorful, so they are back on the shelf, but I still am tossing over half the spices. I'm going to go where I can buy them by the teaspoon! Oh, and I was also in two text conversations with two very different friends about two very different subjects--one conversation was in fact about spice and pantry organization--so I was having a grand time! Well, my lunch break is over, back to the project. What are you up to today?