Lynn, you are just being smart. We all know that it you don't buy things early, it will be all picked over or gone by Halloween. You've sure found some neat Halloween things. That cage is going to be a great home for your new raven! Boy, I learned something new from this post, did not even know about glitter paint! Jane, did you say it comes in a spray paint too? Yipee! So much easier than the "old fashioned" way. Your cobwebing and your big spiders look just like some I picked up at DT today. Gosh, I sure love the bargains at those stores! I'll post a few pics of my finds soon too. Have fun planning and shopping. ;o) Luvs

Wow - I’m not even sure where to start . . . I was going to try to stay above the fray but when accused of intentionally scamming or cheating a contractor - I can't resist commenting. For starters, can you just imagine what would have transpired if I’d asked the painter and the fabricator to come together to discuss who was responsible for the granite breaking? The painter, I’m certain, would have washed his hands of the whole thing the very minute it was even suggested that the granite wasn’t properly installed. And the fabricator would have insisted that he installed it properly and dare us to prove otherwise. And once both of those parties denied any culpability, we, the homeowners, would have been left with no recourse at all. The MIA standards are ambiguous at best. They provide a guideline for installation and suggest remedies in various situations, i.e. shims to mitigate cabinets that are unlevel, etc., based upon a fabricators assessment of what's needed - which is totally subjective. There are “tolerances” for everything so that a “range” of conditions is considered acceptable, which would make it nearly impossible to "prove" an improper installation based upon them. They also speak at length about “stones of lesser soundness” due to fissures, hardness of the mineral matrix (whatever that is), etc. Our friends just installed Cosmos granite and were told to NEVER stand or sit on it due to its large mineral deposits and overall fragility, although I assume it was properly installed. Someone here on Gardenweb even posted that her granite cracked because she used her crockpot on it - was that a result of improper installation? Given the nature of stone, you simply cannot say that a properly installed granite countertop cannot be damaged “except with a sledgehammer” and there’s also no way you can say, sight unseen, that our granite broke due to improper installation. We look at it as iroll said - the painter’s crew damaged it - nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t broken when they arrived and it was broken when they left so we simply cannot be made to feel guilty for holding them responsible. We also did everything we could to make sure our painter didn't have to pay any more than was necessary. When the original invoice the fabricator sent was for $2034 and included an $848 upcharge for the exotic stone, we spent half a day arguing that we'd already paid the upcharge for that slab when we originally purchased a small piece of it. They didn't agree and were adamant that the upcharge was valid, saying they'd only charged us a premium for the small piece we used, but we finally convinced them to remove it. So in essence, I guess you could say the fabricator and the painter are sharing the cost of replacing our granite - one paying $1186 and the other $848.

Talley, Enquiring minds want to know--how do you spend that down time? You know, the time you are sitting at the kid's lessons, those 10 min. while you are waiting for the pasta water to boil? We have a regular coffee klatch going while waiting for the kids to practice Irish Dance. Everyone brings some type of handywork and it creates ways to develop friendships. The mom who sits in the corner punching her PDA makes it pretty clear she's not interested in getting to know us. Her loss. I'm not there. I'm at work. And I don't have a PDA, cell phone, etc. If I *am* there, I just talk to people, or I watch the kids. I don't DO anything. I sit there an enjoy the down time, and listen, and talk. Believe me, nobody gets a message from me that says I don't care. I sometimes bring a book, but if there are people there, I don't read it. I'm not even the one waiting for the pasta water to boil, LOL! (If I am, I'm cutting up veggies while I wait.) I'm not anti-crafting. I just see so much of it as creating something that will turn into "clutter" quite rapidly. And so I have a huge caution about it. Scrapbooking in particular sets off my alarm bells--and really less because of the clutter factor, and more because I think there's a sublimation of the important stuff--the memories--to the unimportant stuff, the embellishments and creativity of the creator. And while I admire the skill of crocheters and knitters and embroiderers, etc., very few of them produce anything I would want in my home. It's mostly too ornamental, and not practical enough. Or it reflects THEIR tastes, and not mine. (The days of my grandma embroidering a book on a pillowcase because *I* like to read are over.) And sometimes it reflects what they *THINK* my tastes and interests are, which only makes me sad to realize how little they really know about me (yes, I collect penguins, but that doesnt mean I want a penguin pillowcase). Which is why I keep my fingers crossed that no one will give stuff like that to me. I'm also tired, I confess, of having my home NOT reflect me. I want stuff *I* picked out. I don't even want to have to display stuff my KIDS made me anymore. I want a streamlined life, that pleases MY eyes, and seven pieces of lumpy kid pottery are seven pieces more than I want in my living room. And an afghan that's wonderful to sleep under, but misshapen and pieced together isn't what I want on my bed, even if Nona Rosa DID make it. (I'm sad about that particular one, bcs if she hadn't pieced it together to get it the right size, I'd use it daily instead of keeping it for a spare, bcs it's so warm, and because she DID make it for me.) As Maura said: "I cherish the one-of-a-kind items given to me (luckily not too many)." I *do* crafty stuff. I just spent the last week 1) making a dragon piñata, complete w/ pipe cleaner/tissue paper wings, plus papier-mâché head & tail; 2) finding a dragon picture to reproduce on the top of a cake; 3) making shields for all the "young knights of the realm" to decorate; 4) figuring out how to have jousting in the church fellowship hall. I steer all my creative impulses into birthdays and holidays, so that I can use up the stuff I've created. I go way overboard for Halloween costumes, spending several lunch hours scouting fabric, and discussing how to recreate Link from the Zelda video game, etc., with my kids, and with my colleagues. Also, if the act of knitting, and the creative work of picking a yarn, and a pattern, make you happier, then your craft is NOT a waste of time. But *I* don't want to have to speak in hushed tones, and treat your end product as though somehow it must be more valuable to me simply because you made it. Somebody designed and made that Pottery Barn afghan too--and it's prettier, and more to my taste!

We use the dining room for most every meal. ''Nice'' dishes, glassware, and silver live in built-ins, glassware cabinets, and sideboard in the dining room. Along with everything else - souvenirs, trinkets, priceless ceramic blobs the kids made in preschool, random batteries, a microscope, various large Lego edifices laying siege to each other, and now a landing platform for Imperial troopships, ringed with laser cannon. Daily dishes, glassware, and silver live in the kitchen, which is a Lego-free zone. The theory is, for everyday meals we often plate in the kitchen, so might as well keep the everyday plates in the kitchen. Although, we often plate nice meals in the kitchen too. Salt and pepper mini-grinders live on the dining table, and napkins in the built-ins in the dining room. There are three sideboards in the dining room - two built-in and one free-standing - so there is plenty of plunking or buffet space. Too much, actually. Nature abhors a vacuum. Serving plates live on the plate rails around the dining room walls, and nicer serving utensils live in the dining room sideboard. Two thoughts about rushing around. First, the narrow doorway between the kitchen and the dining room is the most likely place for collisions, and all things considered, it is best if the breakage is of our daily dishes rather than the china. So we want to minimize how much the china gets carried around - in teetering stacks, by some distracted child skipping to his iPod tunes - the daily stuff can break all it wants, I'm not too bothered. Second, I find the rush is most frantic before the meal, and that's when the collisions and dropsies are most common. After the meal, the guests have left and the kids are somehow absent, so it is just SWMBO and me cleaning up - there's not too much bumping and dropping potential, presuming there's not been too much drinking. So we try to minimize the haulage ahead of the meal. I find the gallon jug of milk so irritating on the dining table, especially when some feeble-fingered child drops it and milk goes flooding. If I had more inner Martha, I'd serve milk into graceful glass decanters. In a perfect world, there would be a concealed pump and hard lines carrying milk to dispensers in the dining room. In a perfect world, I'd have a passthrough to set arranged plates, and a little bell to slap. Yes, my ''perfect world'' is quite a bit different from my real world. For one thing, there would be no space battles raging while we eat.