We have invisible freezing rain/sleet here. What I mean by invisible is that it is barely there. If you stand under a tree that still has leaves, you hear it hit the leaves but none of it makes it down to the ground or to you. I was wearing a black jacket and never found a bit of sleet on it, for example. Leslie, Probably the smartest decision but...a whole year? Next year's Christmas party better be twice as nice then. Carol, We've been in a similar doughnut hole all day too. Tim and Chris keep looking at the radar in Dallas and thinking something is falling here, but it isn't falling or, if it is falling, it isn't reaching the ground. That happened last time....what little stuff fell mostly evaporated before reaching the ground. Mia, It never fails...when I say 'nothing is falling here' then stuff immediately begins to fall. It is like it is a curse to say that nothing is falling. Dorothy, I wondered what y'all were getting because The Weather Channel keeps talking about what is falling in Fort Smith so I wondered if it was on your side of the Ar-OK state line too. All day long I have felt like a sitting duck....just sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting. If it is going to fall, y'all, (and obviously it is falling already in many places), I just wish it would go ahead and fall, freeze up our roads, knock out our power lines, make a big mess and just get it over with. I've already cooked, cleaned and done laundry so I am running out of things to do to stay busy indoors. It is too chilly to be outdoors, except we did prune back more of the red oak by the power line this morning. I feel better about it now because we cut it back pretty far. I want some snow like Leslie is getting. I want big, pretty snowflakes. Instead, I'm expecting icky old freezing rain. I am hearing a little thunder occasionally. Maybe we'll get thundersnow! Dawn

I was to visit a friend on Thursday afternoon who often buys coffee at Timmy's when we travel ... ... and when I was with him, forgot to take him to a local shop (there are 23 in London, a city of about 275,000, according to his info - he says that he knows the location of every one). Anyway, on the way home, I remembered and visited a Timmy's to get my fix. I visited him again on Sunday and told him of my forgetter being in such good shape on Thursday ... so he told me that he had got three of them on Thursday afternoon, not far from his downtown apt. He made one for each of us, that he claimed was better than the ones at Tim's ... and I think that he may be right! "All's well that ends well", it seems. I hope that you all have a happy, memorable week ... whether or not it includes iced coffee. ole joyful

"malt is a by product of roasting grains of all types. Coffee is roasted. " Sorry but I am not buying this ;-) Coffee is NOT a grain!! It is a seed and to the best of my knowledge you cannot get malt from a seed, only from sprouted, roasted or fermented cereal grains. Wheat, rye, barley, etc. I can find no literature that addresses anything about coffee "malt" beyond adding grain malt to coffee as you might with anything desiring a malt flavor. And I see nothing about the evaluation of roasted coffee that includes testing for malt. If you could provide some documentation that supports this contention, that would be helpful. I could find nothing.

Saija..you're right..free hostas are nice..thanks!..how are your coleus doing? 56steps..I agree..the location is great!..I have curtains just on the lower half of my kitchen window..when they're open I have a great view of those tall hostas..even now with missing stems they're impressive..thanks for the compliment!.. peren..thanks!..I love them already..I was admiring them this morning while I was making coffee lol..DH is my perfect helper..he thinks I'm too slow (I am) but he tolerates it..I'm a thinker he's a worker..and in the end we do a good job..