Karen - if I use the hose it currently takes 4.5 hours to water all of the flowers and veg plants. It's about 7 hours with the watering can but I usually split that up over two days. I'm really lucky that we've had spring rains after three years of drought and this year (now know as the year of the insane winter sowing) has been our best growing year in over 5 years. If there ever was a year for the big garden expansion this certainly was it. I expect to spend future years just happily enjoying my perennials and direct sowing my most cooperative annuals. I'll probably still WS a few things but not on anywhere near the scale as this year. It's not like we have any yard left for more plants anyway. :) Lynda

Thanks for all your kind thoughts. Although it's been another stressful couple of months, I can't complain as I'm not the one dealing personally with either of those terrible tragedies; I'm just there for my friends that are, and mourning with them both. As for my parents, like so many of you here have or are still, I'm now stressing about my parents needing care and family . . . but refusing to admit it. Both are in their early-80's and insist on keeping their winter home north of Tampa, which is where they are now. Up until last year, Mom was a little bundle of energy, looking and acting much younger than her age. But, recent knee problems have now caused back and hip problems, which in turn keeps her from exercising, which in turn has caused her to become much weaker and she's in pain a lot. She can't even get her own shoes and socks on anymore. And Dad is in no shape to help her much, having major heart and balance issues himself. They're a pair, all right! They've, thankfully got great doctors and they're well off financially, so money isn't a problem, but they don't want outside help coming to their house to help them and the closest family is my sister in Atlanta, I know they hate to lose their independence or feel like a burden to any of us but we, their children, know it's just a matter of time until one of them falls and hurts themselves badly. Their summer home is in Michigan, which is where 6 of my siblings and their families live . . . but it's 2 hours north of everyone on a lake! I was down in Florida with them a couple of weeks ago, helping them do some major cleaning, yard work, etc. and tried to talk them into moving near family, either to Michigan where my one sis is an RN, or near us, where DH can take care of their health issues and I can do the rest. But, they tell me "Thanks, Hon, but maybe in a couple of years"! My sis (the RN) flies down there tomorrow for a week and maybe she can talk them into it. My brother and his wife may fly down in April. If not, my parents will be back in Michigan in early June and perhaps the rest of the family there can convince them. In the mean time, we all just worry and fret ;^D Geezelouise, I hope that I don't do this to my kids someday! Anyhoo, thanks for letting me vent a bit. Lynn

Angie DIY - the pricing IS closer together and we could make it closer still by reusing the dishwasher. It was over $6000 difference. Now it's a little over $3200 difference (in part due to floor model hood) and if we resuse the dishwasher it's more like $2200. It's all about how the packaging pricing works. We can't reuse the dishwasher in the Thermador option as it's part of the package although we would get a new dishwasher for less than half the price of the one we would get with the Wolf/ SZ package price. We are not buying these items seperately. There are promotions and discounts based on which pieces you buy. We can't just mix and match as you suggest. youngdeb, thanks for your post! great to know you are happy with the Thermador. We are waiting to get a Thermador quote from the same appliance store today. If they come in significantly below our existing Thermador quote we will probably stick with Thermador - the question is at what price difference we would flip over to the Wolf/SZ? I guess at over $6000 difference in package pricing we were definitely ready to go with the Thermador package. At $2200 difference it is much less cut and dry. We have to decide what our cut off point is and that is tough!

Nhb, I don’t deal with change so great either. Here’s a funny password story to cheer you up- I had to log on to fix a production issue at 2am. I was awakened from dead sleep. I am very deep sleeper. Log in process made me change password. Go to log in next day , no recollection of entire incident. Husband reminds me I got call in middle of night. Call team member- “yes I called you .you logged in you looked at problem and told me how to fix, oh yeah you had to change your password to log in” crap. I have to have my entire machine redeployed or drive to physical office to have it fixed. Physical office is 325 miles away.