I love growing different and unusual things. A lot of people know me for that. It seems that sometimes when you have different stuff it just takes a while for people to notice it sometimes. Like for example I had the most beautiful bunches of collards and Red Russian Kale all season long this year, but for the first half of the year no one seemed want to buy it. When I was looking back at my sales for the year I realized that for the first half of the year no one bought any and then all of a sudden it started selling for the second half. Once it started to sell they was not a week that I didn't sell any. It was kind of interesting, and should be even more interesting to see if people come back for it next year, and see how much I can sell then. You never know what will make people buy things. My peppers I can not sell by the quart for anything, but my eggplant sell best if I sell a few different kinds together in a quart. I don't understand it myself. I think samples can definitely help sometimes. We had a lot of people that were amazed by our mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes but just were not sure if they wanted to try them, and when we gave them a sample they bought right away, and usually ended up coming back for more. Maybe since it would be hard to sample zucchini you could give some of your good regular customers a free trial zucchini, if you think you will not be able to sell it anyhow it is better than having to throw it away. It is always nice to get something for free and if they like it chances are they would buy it again. Come to think of it, that would probably be a great thing to do for those customers that stick to the regular common things, and think that anything unusual is not worth trying. I could make up little sample bags of each kind of cherry tomato in my mix and give it to some of the people that just stick to the regular red ones. Maybe it would get them to branch out and try different things.

kgwlisa, that's exactly what I was worried about - all those cut edges. If Bill V were my tile guy, I wouldn't hesitate, but... Anyway, I think we could afford to use that tile as a field tile, but that's a LOT of green - not sure I want to use that much of such a vibrant color. As for the idea of going modern in the bath, I've thought about it, but the rest of the apartment is definitely pre-war looking and I have no plans to renovate it anytime soon, if ever. There's something I love about period-feeling baths anyway, so I think we're going to stick with that (even if BF doesn't like the English-telephone-looking tub filler/handheld, LOL!). BTW, does anyone know anything about Elements of Design fixtures? They have a ton of really beautiful period fixtures but I'm concerned about buying crap... Here's a snapshot of some tile that I taped to the bathroom wall to try to get an idea of what my original wood-look floor/white subways/glass accent might look like: I know it's a terrible picture, and unfortunately the colors aren't really true, but I really like the blue-green tiles on the right with the faux wood and white (they're much bluer in real life). They look great with chrome fixtures, too. I think I'm going to go ahead with this color combo - I just need to decide whether to use the glass tiles in mini-subway size or 1x1s. I'm also going to browse a bit more this weekend to see if I can find something similar in a ceramic tile. Wish me luck!

If people don't believe pets should be spayed and neutered then they should go to their local animal shelter and look at the number of homeless animals that are put down daily. If they don't want to leave their house to see, go to pet finders ..just type in any breed and see what pops up. As the economy gets worse, more and more pets are going to be turned loose to fend for themselves. I have worked with a local shelter and luckily we weren't a kill shelter but still so many... Litter after litter just dropped off at the shelter. We also worked a puppy mill, mothers that had been over bred..just horrible the things I saw, all conditions that could have been avoided if the mothers had been properly cared for. My neighbors dog came in heat a couple of weeks ago and he made the comment that if he saw any males around, he would just kill them. HIS dog better not come up preg. I told him that if HE put up his FEMALE dog then the males might not be able to get to her. I bet she will have a litter of pups..she always does...he needs to be MADE to have her spayed.. Here we don't have cheap s/n clinics a regular spay costs..over $180 and females have to stay overnight. Alot of people don't have that type of money to spend. I will be honest I have a female dog that I "adopted" off the streets. She has been to the vets, she is on heart worm meds, but she isn't spayed. I can't afford it right now. She is in the backyard fenced in and with a neutered Saint Bernard. Nothing bothers Winnie when she is in heat..as soon as I can afford it, she will be at the vets. Back in Dec, I won a cat spay in an auction. I took our inside kitten in to get her done..ended only costing me $55.

This one by Thomas is a little smaller (11.24 in) but only $45 at Lighting Direct This one is a little larger at 16" and $108 This one is 14" and $107. The ones I saw with detail that would make them more similar were similarly priced or even more. Keep in mind that lighting is generally something that is easy to replace or upgrade later, especially if you don't need to run new wiring. You can go plainer and change it out later if you find something worth the price difference or you are better able to spend more later. But you may find that you don't looko at a laundry room fixture often enough to care how it looks as much as how well it lights the room.