Hi Gardeng8, Signet here ......if you are handing out recipes, would you mind sending your "salsa without the corn in it " recipe my way too please. Also , many many thanks for the very many plants and the card and thoughts , I appreciate it . To all: I am literally in plant heaven . Thanks to you all . I cant believe how lucky I am to be given so many wonderful plants from everyone . I have put my babies underlights for a while ( interestingly out here in the country we are still having quite cold nights ) so for the next little while , the really tiny ones are under lights and in the house . And what a selection of plants I have !!!!!!!!! Now to find the right spots for them all . Blueiris: Cant thank you enough for the lilies and all the trades ! I am totally excited about adding these to my gardens ....I do have some (probably 2 dozen or more ) Poet's Narcissus left over that I dug up and didnt get potted up so If you still want to add more to your gardens let me know cuz they can just as easily get dropped off at your place rather than placed back in the ground here and it will give me a spot to put some of the items I got yesterday ( Please say yes!!!!!!!) I would have brought them yesterday but ran out of time to pot and room to transport. I was still potting at 10:30 yesterday and due to be at the swap for 11 a.m. Many many thanks for the tomato cages !!!!!!!! cant thank you enough ! Daldak, just so you know , I explain it this way , I am not responsible for what I leave with every year , everyone else is LOL ! All the garden webbers are plant enablers HA HA HA and yes I am a plantaholic . Thanks for the many trades we made . Just a note: I made it out to Bev's plant sale just before the swap and I would just like to say that if any of you get a chance to go visit her gardens you will enjoy them . She has many interesting and unusual plants and I enjoyed myself immensely wandering around lusting after many of the plants she has and her soil too . LOL ! Signet

Hello ladies and happy every Holiday I missed. To those of you who do know me, I am back and mentally back on track (I think). To those of you who don't, well I was I am a member, love everyone here. Went away to do some great mission work and had some very tragic things happen. Many hours of therapy later, and actually returning to the Dominican I think I have healed, I am not bitter, sad, or frightened to leave my house any more. I am able to talk about it and I feel that I can share with postive feelings now. But enough of that. Am I to late for April? Please tell me that I can play in April? Max is 4 and we just looked at Co-op preschool. HE is a mama's boy and didn't want to go to big boy school yet. Maryanne~ I have a box for you that I need to send, but um lost your address.. So Merry Christmas when it comes. Ahh. I just don't know what to say or who to say it to because I am scared I will leave someone out. I tried to read as many posts as my brain can handle, but I am sure that I will need some help. Babies and ornaments, tornados and ahhh.. I am not in Kansas anymore. Please feel free to email me with any personals that you'd love to share. I apologize for being gone so long. If there is anything that you want to know email me. If I need to re-join let me know if there is room. Mayanne_ my big sis.. I hope all is well, miss you and thanks for all your support thru this, even though I was a bad lil sis and became an introvert. But guess what? I am back and better. Missed you all Laura.... beans

Whew! I'm back! Got in late Monday night, and had to drive home from MEM to where we live in MS, adding another 3 hrs to the trip home. Now its back to crazy at work. I leave before daylight and get home after dark, so I haven't seen my plants or flowerbeds in the daylight since Nov. 17. Have to go out by flashlight to ask the plants what happened while we were gone. LOL It was a great visit with family and friends in AZ, as usual. Its always fun out there. Went to one of my favorite places to visit in Tucson: the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. If any of you ever make it out to Tucson, it is not to be missed! I suspect that Dianne's package was waiting for me when we got home Monday, but did not make it to the mailbox until Tuesday. She sent so much great stuff! I think we are 2 peas in a pod when it comes to reading material :) She sent: Country Living magazine - American Autumn issue from Nov. 1998 a vanilla scented bath fizzer - ahhhhhhhhhhhh! A whole pile of coupons - I'm a major coupon lover! So many recipes she clipped. These are so great! Crystal Light Mojito drink mix - looking forward to trying this. It's a new flavor for us. A lovely friendship card with an aster on it And WOW, Look at the seeds: Jackson Wonder lima beans Taylor cranberry bean Spaghetti squash Am. Persimmon Nasturtium Scarlet Gleam Nasturtium Cherry Rose (dwarf) Nasturtium Dwarf Alaska Sunflower Mammoth Russian Brown & Yellow sunflower Scuppernog (white) grape seeds Asclepias syriaca Rudbeckia mix bronze/orange/yellow Dianne, thank you so much for such a wonderful and generous package! And Jeanne, thanks so much for hosting. BTW, how is the horse search going? Both my husband and I grew up with horses in our lives. Both of our parents still have horses, although they have both had losses this year. Last month his parents lost one of their favorites, a 29 yr old, much loved and prized champion Morgan stallion. My father still has the QH mare I used to barrel race on. She is almost 33! Katie

Pork chops, apples and potatoes. Fry the pork chops (thick ones or thin ones as you like) in a frying pan according to recent cookbooks (they don't dry out with the fast fry used in Joy of Cooking and they are a little pink in the center when they are done.) In the other fry pan, melt two pats of butter and some cooking oil. Add as many thinly slice potatoes as desired, unpeeled for more nutrition. Brown slightly and then cover the pan as they finish cooking to near tender over low heat. About 10 minutes before the potatoes are done, thinly slice 2 to 4 cored apples, top the potatoes in that frying pan with the apples, and sprinkle with 1/4 or more teaspoon of cinnamon. Turn the apples and potatoes frequently till the potatoes are tender and the apples are as tender as you like them to be. You can add more cinnamon to the potatoes when you turn them into the apples if you like. If you want the apples real soft, put them in with the potatoes earlier. That's dinner. Sometimes I sprinkle the porkchops with a little cinnamon just after I turn them too.