My husband was in michigan this week and that was one of the flights he thought about taking on thursday night. He flies a lot and it just hit close to home. Clarence is not far from where we live. We are a little more out in the country. Big sigh of relief. When the news came on at 10pm they announced at the end of the broadcast that a plane had crashed by the airport, but they didn't know anything yet. By the time the 11pm news came on, it was not until after the weather that their news crews made it to the neighborhood and they announced it was a commercial plane. WIVB broadcast without commercial break until I went to bed at 2am. When my husband called to say he was alright i was so grateful. (wipes tears and sniffles) Fran, Could i have the blanket flower, please? BTW, DS#3 watered my keyboard once, its still a little iffy. We set it in from of the blower on the woodstove for a week. Just FYI those of you sowing in the keys LOL! Thank all of you for the prayers. Families here are esp. close knit and things like this are difficult for anyone. Praying for your FIL, too Nichol. Fleethart

Jasmine - What a great deal you got on those pots! WooHoo! Also, thanks for the compliment on the seed packets. You have no idea the countless hours that went in to me folding paper until I found the perfect design! LOL! Here's how you do it: 1. Cut a piece of notebook paper in fourths. Each piece of ruled paper will become the seed packets. I normally just crease it it half both directions and tear along the creased line. 2. Use the short side of the paper as the top. (There are two short sides and two long sides, like any rectangle would have.) I also like to use the red line that goes down the page to the inside of the packet, so that would be facing you right now. Bring the top left corner and top right corner down and in to the top middle part of the paper where both points meet. Where they meet, is where you'll crease the top left and top right side of the paper. It should look like a point at the top that forms a triangular shape at the top of the paper, like the point on an arrow. 3. Bring the bottom of the paper up until it meets the bottom of the triangular shape and crease it there. 4. Bring the left side in to the center of the paper and crease it there. (The center is easily visible by the line that was made in the middle of the top triangle shape you already made. 5. Do the same thing to the right side bringing it also into the center and creasing it. 6. Bring the bottom up to where the the left side and right side straight lines end. 7. Fold the top flap down inside the bottom flap you just brought up to "seal" the envelope. It really is an amazingly simple mini seed packet that used lightweight, ordinary notebook paper. All I do is open up the right side (because I'm right-handed), pour the seeds in and fold it right back up. One thing I would highly recommend is writing on the ruled lines on the front of the packet BEFORE filling with seeds. It's that simple. I've seen a lot of origami packets that had to use the heavier, bulkier paper to stay firm and like a good packet, but this isn't one of them. I've also seen that if even one little line is not perfectly creased, the packets looks "off", but this isn't one of them, either. It's a very forgiving design that hardly shows a flaw even when my kids make them! I hope others will try to make them. If I can scan each image along the way, then I'll try to make another post with pictures. I blow these out while I'm watching TV without ever cutting or gluing paper. I can make over a hundred in no time at all. Just the first ones you make take a little longer as you get used to it, then you fly right through them! Blessings, Angela

Nice to see this string revived, for whatever reason. I don't care much for gag or tacky gifts, either. It's funny at the time, but in the end it feels to me like a waste of money. But I certainly understand not wanting everyone to have to spend a lot of time and money shopping. I liked it once when we had each adult randomly assigned the name of one other adult for whom to buy a gift, with a LOW maximum spending amount. It was great to see how everyone found something really good even at that level -- (I think it was $5, but that was probably 15 to 20 years ago). I even remember what I gave (a can of wrinkle-remover spray for someone who travels a lot) and what I got (an apron). Today I'd make the amount $10, or, if your crowd likes an additional challenge, make it some random amount like $12.38 and see who can come the closest without going over. That would be game enough for me. Another thing your group might like is to bring items to donate to a shelter or someplace instead of gifts to each other, or low-energy light bulbs to donate to your church, etc. Some people feel like this replaces merriment with earnestness, but others like it a lot; you have to know your group.

Mine's either done and ready to send out the day after Christmas, or half done and will hopefully be ready to send out the day after Christmas! HUHHH??? Well, I've made one and am in the process of making another. One's for the exchange and one's for my brother. Depends on when I see my brother and when I get the second one done, who gets which! But >I