thank you all for the thoughts and prayers. I'm a little more hopeful today since she has defied what the Dr's predicted (that she wouldn't survive the first night). No one from work has called so I'm thinking no news is good news. Please keep her in your prayers. She deserves to see her new grandson and her daughter getting married. Diane

LOL If I am stuck in the past it's the past where bookcases actually held only books! :D Now some people don't even have books but use them to hold decorative objects only. I do know tho, that change can be difficult so be easy on yourself as it may take awhile to think of this room as having a different purpose. If you could move your DD's belongings to her new room and use items from other rooms in your home on the bookshelves it might be easier. I strongly advise using a fair number of books as IMO otherwise it's difficult to have a good looking set of shelves unless one has a collection of, for example, McCoy pottery. If there are too many disparate items and few books it can IMO tend to look cluttered. Also too many small items lead to a cluttered look. You can group a few related smaller items for more impact. To answer your question about the distance between shelves - IMO that depends on the size of items in the bookcase. Arranging items nicely on shelves is all about balance and one needs to take into consideration not only size/mass but also color and shape. I would arrange books of like subject together for ease of finding a book. I'd place them on the shelves with the largest books on or near the bottom shelves, then smaller books further up. Some books can be stacked horizontally. This stack can be used as a riser to hold a decorative object. Fill in spaces between the books with decorative items. It's more personal if you have things that relate to your interests/hobbies. Pictures, either photos of people or framed/unframed art, can be placed on easels or leaned. Plants also give texture and life. Play around with it for awhile and even take pictures to really see. Somehow a picture will show more how something looks than merely looking at it. The term 'merchandising' bookshelves has become a valid decorating term whether we like it or not. :D Used all over the 'net especially on blogs.

You don't just want a 'reduced price' you want to buy it at the lowest price they can give you. You have to guess what it cost the store wholesale, which includes knowing if it's imported from China or not! LOL You have to research what you would pay elsewhere for the same thing or something similar. I'd hesitate to pay cash on a large purchase because you have no protection if it proves faulty -- or if they gouge your wall when they deliver it. Getting a price comp is much easier on branded products. Years ago I priced a Sony video recorder online from a NYC 'wholesaler'. Then I went to a nearby store (Abt) and asked for the same price. They came very close to the online price, and I bought from them. (These days Abt sells online!) I am interested in paying a fair price, and I want to see local retailers stay in business. I detest the whole concept of Direct Buy, which is to USE local retailers to display goods FOR D.B. 'members'. Some years ago a friend who sold cars said the whole focus at the dealership is to 'move the product'. He made the same few hundred on any car, regardless of price. The manager needed to make *something*. The dealership had to make enough to cover their cost of financing the car from the manufacturer. As in real estate...no sale, no commission and nobody makes a dime. So, when the car salesman tells you he has to talk to his manager, he is actually arguing for you to get the car! Some years ago we wanted to buy a specific model car in red. It was the previous year's model. Our local dealer refused to bargain on price and said he couldn't find the car in red. I went online and found three cars, one in a dealership in northern Michigan. They gave me a good price and offered a manufacturer's rebate the local dealer had failed to mention. I went back to the local dealer, offering to buy the car from them at a reduced price. They refused. We bought the car from Michigan and paid a driver to go fetch it. When we brought the car in for its first servicing the local dealer was livid. They refused to service it. I called the manufacturer, who reminded the dealer they HAD to service the product. (If they had not, there was another dealer not far away and we would have taken it there.) I don't think it's wrong to shop and bargain if you intend to buy where you are looking. I do think it's mean to use a local retailer -- to copy down a model number and fabric number knowing you'll buy elsewhere.

The little girl next door discovered "Let It Go" a few weeks ago and has been singing it outside. All. The. Time. Unlike many of you, I actually like (or at least liked) the song, but heavens to pete is it overexposed. My daughter has been receiving musical instruction in school including reading music. She had vocal music in K-3 and strings (she plays violin) in 4 and 5. She's signed up for orchestra as an elective in middle school. I think the music program was primarily funded (possibly entirely funded) by PTA fundraising and by grants but it's been great. I sing in a church choir and until last year was also part of a small women's ensemble that sang monthly at retirement homes (we went on hiatus when my director fell and suffered a head injury--I'm afraid now that we're never going to resume. I learned to read music with piano lessons as a kid, but it was also taught in elementary school music class. And then I was in choir all through junior high and high school (and a bit in college). I went on a road trip with my daughter earlier this summer, and when we first got on the road I thought she was going to want to listen to nothing but top 40 the whole trip. I made a case for listening to country in the areas where that was 90% of what was on the airwaves (there aren't many country stations where we are from). We also listened to some classical, some religious choral music, some 80s power ballads, and a bit of metal. One of the things that drives me crazy about many young people is their rigid conviction in the superiority of whatever narrow set of music happens to be on trend at the moment (this bugged me even when I was a teen). I'm happy to have a kid with eclectic tastes (for now, anyway; she's not a teen yet).