I have found, real world experience, that in many cases older appliances are just better made and last way beyond. Think of all the latest greatest E- stuff we somehow all of a sudden don't seem to be able to live without; it just adds more layers of parts to malfunction and go haywire. I submit to you my ~mid 80's era Maytag dryer. Stopped heating, had to replace thermostat. Did some due diligence online research and once I figured out the little details on how and what I was absolutely amazed at the simplicity and overall quality of design and manufacturing. Took about 30 minutes start to finish, $35 part, and voila. All done. If parts remain available this dryer will run literally forever at very little repair/ maint. cost. Curren t appliances with all their additions of whistles and bells and E-tronics (vs solid state) that create an Achilles heel - they are designed to fail, NOT to be repaired. This would be acceptable, somewhat.....if only they are cheap. But they are NOT. Like...$1500 for a new fridge not cheap....Ermagawd....you have to be kidding me! Relevance to this thread? I own a 1991 Kenmore Sears GE made in USA fridge. Always cold. Never fails. And just overall awesome (has the front 'convenience entrance-door or whateveryacallit - its just awesome and why i got it. Best feature EVER!. Sure its getting a bit long in the tooth, but as this one found its spot as 'backup' I've purchased and replaced 2 other newer fridges alongside it, both more fancy. So yeah...back up already.... From here on if it breaks it gets replaced with the absolute most basic least parts to malfunction cheapest model. Just sayin.

buzzoo, you've got good eyes. :-) We're actually going to redo the trim around the door to dress it up a bit, so the casings are coming out. Just didn't manage to do that before the Ditra laying. I didn't see your note before we dove back into the tiling, so we took an alternate route (see below), but I'll keep in mind your two tricks if we do this next time. The pennies would probably be a bit pricey with the size of our mosaic border, but the screeding might work. Late afternoon we snapped some chalk lines did a couple dry layouts to determine the exact size of the inside portion, and started tiling. DH and I have a good system wherein he mixes thinset and cuts tiles, while I lay the tiles and mark them for cutting. Three hours later we had this: The inside is all done, and for the border we ended up laying a 4" second layer of Ditra under the mosaics. In laying the mosaics, the last tile ended up about 3/8" too long for the short edge, so we trimmed 3/16" from the tiles on either end and you can hardly tell. However, we did encounter another geometric difficulty I need some ideas on. The rest of the floor is going to be 16" tiles laid straight around the "rug" part. The problem is that the "rug" with border is 75" wide and 125.5" long. That's not a nice full-tile arrangement. Any rules or ideas to approach this? The outside area to fill is about 22" wide all around.

I remember them really well. I am 60 years old. I grew up on a farm and only got off the farm to go to a one room country school or toe church or catechism for church. Maybe once a year before school started we got to go along to Bismarck. But even then it was just sitting in the car a lot while day bought machinery parts and things for the farm. THey would buy a package of weiners or cold cuts and a loaf of bread and that was our dinner. I just told my husband that I never went to a restarant until I was about 14 years old I think. That was because some of us kids had helped the homemakers club my mother belonged to and they took us out for supper. Times sure have changed. Anyhow now for the picture. SO what I am saying I led a very sheltered life. After I met my husband to be we went to a lot of movies. I had never been to a drive-in before. I was really excited and when we got in there I said "what are these HItching Posts" He still likes to tell peoople about it and how naive I was. I don't remember what I had meant to say anymore but he sure got a laugh our of it. I remember goint to the DUSK TO DAWN nights. I don't think I ever stayed awake for all 4 of the movies though. At one of themO remember my DH sister had fallen asleep and she sat up and said "Just put it down" It was funny because they were having a sword fight and right after she said that he dropped his sword. It was like he listened to her/ Yes those were the good old days.

I had lunch over the weekend with friends, and we discussed this topic. One is a nurse at a local hospital and is increasingly frustrated with the model of care for the elderly. She made a great statement: "Doctors don't treat death." Our healthcare system is based on keeping people alive as long as possible and profiting from that. But to go along with this, the system sure is failing at the assisted living and nursing home options, IMO. I was fortunate in that my father could afford any facility, but even the "good ones" were dismal at best. My sister and I did unannounced walk-thru's of about 6 or 8, and I left each one with a heavy heart. They were depressing places... of course, I was emotional to begin with, but I couldn't believe this is all we can offer our elderly. The primary hands-on care of elderly residents in many of these places falls on CNAs and LPNs, who I believe are grossly underpaid. But that's another issue. Patriceny, your dad's place sounds ideal to me. I'm also hearing more about alternatives where people pool their money to stay in a converted home of sorts, hire help, and rely on one another for their day-to-day needs. I love this idea... I hope it spreads. A lot of logistics would need to be covered in terms of contractual agreements and levels of care needed. But I can't imagine paying long-term care insurance for years and ending up in one of the facilities I toured for my dad. I know many of our parents who claim they "don't want to be a burden" are, in fact, great burdens. I hope each of you who are there for them are rewarded when your time comes with better options. We desperately need better options.