The issue of supermarkets leaving inner cities has less to do with a lack of customers and more to do with the difficulty of trying to run a supermarket in inner cities. I watched stores like Lucky, Safeway, and others move out of inner city Seattle. Issues like shoplifting, vandalism and other unusual expenses made it unprofitable to attempt to continue operating in the city. I don't think civic leaders have the insight to know how to respond to the issue. Decades of suburban development has created habits of thought and policy that create the problems they're now experiencing. Zoning restrictions prevent neighborhood food stores from setting up shop in the midst of their customers. Instead, commercial activity is limited to the major thoroughfares, farther away from customers. To my mind, convenience stores should be eliminated from neighborhoods and prevented from selling edible goods. We don't allow sexual pornography to exist in neighborhoods, why do we allow food porn?

You wouldn't need to send me 200 different varieties, just 200 total packets if possible. Duplication is fine. And feel free to put as much sweet basil as you like in my box. I will put it to good use by donating it to Need4Seed! :) How'd I wind up with 214 seed packets to send? It's a long story. But since I am a writer and I *enjoy* storytelling, here goes! I maintain a highly varied personal seed bank so that I may assist Need4Seed and other low-income gardening associations by supplying seeds. So, I tend to have lots of seeds around my house at any given time! And I also really enjoy keeping my seedbank varied by seed trading, and I trade often. :) When I get seeds in a trade the packet sent to me usually has 20 or more seeds in it. Well, with my teensy growing space I seldom need more than 5 to 10 seeds of a given plant. So by only using the seeds I actually needed, I discovered I accumulated 35 seed packets worth of 'extras' that I could contribute to the swap. Also, this swap allowed us to send in 5 packets of one type. So I sent in duplicates of all the garden edibles (herbs, veg., edible flowers) that I grew out in 2008 and saved oodles of seeds from. That right there got me another 65 easily- Just 13 varieties of edible seeds, 5 packets of each. And that (35 plus 65) accounts for the first 100 packets. :) Now then, I also accumulated excess ornamental seeds over the past year. Some were bonus packets from generous seed traders. Some were seeds I got by scavenging (more bluntly termed 'seed snatching' LOL.) All of these homeless seeds turned out to be roughly another 104 seed packets. There's 52 weeks per year, so if I get one bonus pack per week and also scavenge a pack per week it *would* yield 104 extra seed packs per year that I won't have the room or time to grow out... And now that puts my total at 204 seed packets...:) I don't grow many regular sized ornamentals due to small space, so I keep them till I get a chance to swap them out and request edibles or dwarf varieties. I figure, at least SOME of these normal-sized lovelies will be of interest to others in this swap!! :) And then finally, there were 10 or so seed packets that contained the leftovers from a few special, or rare commercial varieties that I bought on impulse, hoping to enhance my garden's sophistication level. I admit it, sometimes I DO buy seeds on impulse... don't we all at times?? And thus, the somewhat embarrassing grand total of 214 packets. *blush* Bit by bit, a seed collection hobby can really add up. BTW, I am by no means the only GardenWebber known to send in hundreds of seeds into a swap when the swap rules have no packet limit stated. There were several boxes and big, fat envies each holding hundreds of packets that various people sent in to ncgardengirl's Wow Thanks swap recently! So nope, I am not alone in my seed obsession. I hope I amused some of y'all by telling on myself. :)

I am here tonight for a favor. I am in need of quick prayers for my 24 year old daughter. She went to the emergency room yesterday because she first started having stabbing pains in her chest then her left side began tingling and she was dizzy and had difficulty concentrating. She was tested for stroke and bloodclot and when they could not find anything, sent her home. Her pain went away but not the tingling. I took her to the chiropractor and she didn't do any work on her because just simply looking at her and her reactions to certain tests made the chiro ask me to take her back to the er. I took her to a different hospital and they have admitted her. I know someone asked if MS was in the family and I do have a cousin. They are doing an MRI tomorrow and after reading the symptoms tonight, realize that Elizabeth has several of them and they even mentioned some patients had pains described as stabbing which is how this started. I am scared for my daughter and pray that MS is not the problem. Please keep her in your prayers and I will keep you posted. Thanks Margo

There are boxes in a number of our grocery stores asking for donations, and at a number of churches (including both that I attend regularly) and firehalls. The grocery managers are pleased to have me buy food at retail to contribute to them, as that purchase is for some goods that I would not have made otherwise, but I don't do that: the food would be of my choice plus that would cost me a retail dollar. Occasionally during the year, especially near Christmas, some grocers encourage us to ask the cashiers to add some to our bill to give to a local social service agency, to pay $2.57 to buy a meal for a poor person. I don't do that, for while that type of gift allows the service agency to buy the goods that they need the most and to get it at wholesale, say at 80 cents or slightly more ... ... the agency that gets the tax credit is the grocery. Why should I make a gift to them? When I visit the Food Bank or that social service agency or others and write them a cheque, they can buy what they really need the most and get it at wholesale price, same as above ... ... but they give me a receipt for the donation, which results in my out-of-pocket expense being in the neighbourhoood of 50 - 60 cents, instead of having paid a dollar to have bought my choice of goods at retail cost of a dollar. This Frugal Fella likes them apples better. I hope that all of you women have a really wonderful Mother's Day ... mine died 67 years ago (and step-mom, with whom I wasn't close, 23 years ago). And my ex-, with whom I hadn't lived for 38 years, left this section of life nearly five years ago. So my flowers on Mother's Day are white. ole joyful