Redesigned kitchen stove. I like it, it has a hutch look and I think great storage. Rather than using a real column that is 24" deep, and then having to bump out the depth of the cabinets to 24" deep and then having to shrink down my cabinets, or have odd looking cabinets on the wall, we have settled on this, which I like. Over the stove is a decorative valance, not exactly a 'hood'. This works for me because i can get a small vent with lights, I think. One the size that would be on the bottom of a microwave. If anyone knows of sources that would be great, otherwise I think I'll find something at lowes. So that shrunk I have added 2 cabinets 21" wide that drop all the way down and have 3 or 2 drawers at the bottom. Not sure which I'll choose yet. I will put my spices in them I think. So I get spice storage, and i get decent cabinet space, all at standard sizes so I will be able to use my cabinet storage. Then on the bottom, next to the range are 2 30" cabinets, one with 3 drawers and the other with a drawer and cabinet. it may be a little light on counter but I have a flat top range and I've lived with very little counter space next to my range now for 10 years...I think I can deal with it, that is why I've got my little island I'm liking the floor color! I am thinking I will have to find gold tile now. On the refrigerator wall, I've also decided to go down the full length of the wall with large cabinets, and at the bottom of what was in the middle above the microwave, I'm going to add a full length cabinet with an appliance garage. I'm leaning toward the one that continues to look like a cabinet door to keep the full wood look. That cabinet above will still be 24" deep. And for all of us designers out there, you can download a free version of this design software at http://www.chiefarchitect.com/ They have serious software for the true architect/designer/contractor and also home enthusiast software. I like using it. Its been great! You can use the free software but you can't print or save the kitchen design.

ole joyful here again ... whose life insurance matured at 80 and he collected it. He celebrated his 96th birthday last week. It was my turn to take sweets to the old guys' coffee hour at church ... and the minister brought a layer cake for my birthday (second oldest member). Renting what was my step-uncle's farnhouse about 6+ miles from nearby village and 12+ - 15 or so miles from city, my car was broken beyond being repairable over 3 years ago and lost licence 2 years ago. Hitchhike to village, bus to town. More than half of people giving rides are older females, some gave me numbers, offer to drive me. Friends said move to town, I like it here but soon health may require it, so am uncluttering house aiming for an apt. and hugely thankful that I can afford 2 - 3 times the rent - for 10 - 15 years or so, and starting from 96, that seems a reasonable timeframe. Good wishes to all of you for the year ahead - hope we can add a bit to helping our world become a better place for coming generations - says he, with a male and female offspring, but lacking ggrgragrangrandgrandkgrandkigrandkidgrandkids grandkids. ole joyful p.s. trying to make amendmeamendments here can be a pain in the butt, when the editors get their additions put in! o j

KK, you know how I feel (it's basically how you feel) but I'm just going to reiterate my $.02 on this subject for the newer posters. Here's my summary of how I feel about this, as to what is fairest: -No one should get thrown out on the street. Surviving spouse should have house free and clear as long as s/he lives there. If s/he decides to move, it then becomes a question of whether parent wants to write will to provide share in profits from sale to children also. If house is the ONLY asset, then no remainder should go to kids since most or all will presumably be needed to purchase comparable new house. If house is one asset among many, there is option for parent to decide that kids should share in all assets, ensuring, of course, that there is enough to provide for spouse remaining in comparable house. -In blended families with more than adequate means, there are enough assets where there is no reason it HAS to be an "all-or-nothing" scenario. In these cases, it's just inviting discontent and trouble to insist that one party has to get ALL of the estate and other parties have to get NONE. -yes, there is a difference between families with means and families without means. In families without means, splitting sale of house may very well mean that spouse is rendered homeless. In families with means, leaving everything to spouse may very well mean plastic surgery, trips to Europe and designer clothes & bathrooms for footloose & fancy-free spouse and decades of bills, dead-end drudgery and debt for hard-working children (and their children). NOT FAIR, I don't care how anyone wants to couch it, and not comparable to a situation with actual hardships. ESPECIALLY if this scenario is not what Dad would have wanted or envisioned when he trusted his spouse to be a fair and reasonable 'steward' of his hard-won assets. -If supposedly it's "all about what Dad wants", then LISTEN to him and ACCEPT it. If he says (when he's in sound body/mind, and especially if he says it numerous times over several years) that he wants everything to go to to wife, kids have to accept that. If he says he wants everything to go to kids, wife has to accept it. -No one should try to change "what Dad wants". Neither kids nor wife have right to TRY to do so. Sometimes wives and/or kids feel like by virtue of their particular place in his life, they are more entitled to try and influence not only his decisions but even his FEELINGS and thus even what he WANTS. This is wrong, not to mention daunting. -But the subject should not be completely taboo. The key difference is *discussion* vs. *demands*. Wife and kids may raise their concerns and hope Dad takes these into consideration. Hopefully one conversation will suffice to lay the concerns on the table (but when another party is relentlessly and repeatedly manipulating the situation from the other side this becomes more challenging). Pushing the issue repeatedly and forcefully becomes manipulation, coersion and soemtimes abuse. It is wrong, no matter who it's coming from: ex-wife, lawyer, kid, current wife. Wrong, wrong, wrong. -Simply put: SM is not Mom. Second marriages, in estate planning, have to be considered differently than first marriages. In first marriage, wife is *MOM*. Mom (if she's like most, good and caring) protects and secures her childrens' future. SM may or may not and most often doesn't after Dad dies. It's a fact. Ask estate lawyers, or go looking up other forums on the internet discussing stepfamilies and inheritance. They're generally not discussing ways to ensure the step-kids get their due. If anyone on here can find me ONE example of a step-parent discussing how they can better ensure their stepchildren's future inheritance, I will send you 20 bucks. -In my opinion, in blended family situations where there are above-adequate means, fairest is to split everything between wife & kids. Perhaps provide proportionately more to spouse, relative to how many years older they are than oldest kid since they will likely have more medical issues and become decreasingly employable after a certain age. First make sure that no one is rendered homeless and that none of the survivors have to pay each other's debts. -if Dad leaves all to wife, hoping wife will leave remainder to kids, it won't happen. (Same might be true if everything is left to kids to distribute to wife.) Could be passed down to surviving wife's existing family, or her new family, or spent on drugs, clothes, QVC, stuff for new babies, plastic surgery, or mismanaged or otherwise G-O-N-E by the time she passes and children (age 70+) need it for their own medical bills, retirement, etc. -Too often kids of divorce get screwed over by the cruel irony of exactly this sort of situation, and here's how: Dad's new wife claims she should get *everything* because in first marriages, that is often how it goes: all to surviving spouse. But fails to remember the next step of that traditional pattern: when surviving PARENT passes, remainder goes to children. The parent's OWN children, that is. Step-parents also often argue that their step-children shouldn't be in their spouse's will because ---PRESUMABLY--- kids will inherit from the other parent. (Or even their grandparents, as some arguments go.) All the while, in the same breath, voicing the mantra of "one shouldn't presume anything" or expect anything from parents as a way to justify THIS parent cutting the kid out. Incidentally, many of these same step-parents can and do expect to receive an inheritance from their own parents, and much sooner than their stepchildren will receive anything from anyone. -If Dad leaves ALL to anybody, he better want it all to stay with that individual forever. In an ideal world, we can trust people with this sort of thing. In the real world, we often can't. There are ways to make it so he doesn't have to CHOOSE one party or the other. In my heart, I feel that unless he hates his wife or kids, if he has to choose in this matter he will be just as torn and not-at-peace as he may have been all his life with other matters he may have been unnaturally and unnecessarily coerced into choosing one-or-the-other about.

While I do agree with the idea (really, it's a fact, and sometimes a very cold hard one for some folks) that no one should *expect* an inheritance from anyone and an individual can and does do what s/he wants with their own estate, I too often see this used in a hypocritical way, and/or in a way that ignores the realities of a situation. I agree that if the parent had not said anything to the child, then a child expecting an inheritance makes for an unwarranted expectation and an assumption out of thin air. (Although in many states, including where my Dad lives, the law ---default intestate--- does NOT presume spouse gets all but assumes spouse gets half, so it's not necessarily a totally outrageous idea that one's wife OR kids might "expect" something.) It becomes more thorny when one takes the *assumption of assumption* factor out of it and when one looks at what everyone's actual expectations are and compares those expectations for validity and reasonableness. How would you view this same situation if instead of *assuming* that the kids are *assuming* or *expecting* an inheritance based on thin air, deplorable greed, a sense of 'entitlement' or general spoiled-ness, it became known that for many years ---WITH CURRENT WIFE LONG IN THE PICTURE--- Dad has made his wishes very clear numerous times regarding how he wants to split his estate, and it's NOT ALL for wife but roughly split wife/kids? How would you then see it if wife decides to start a years-long, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners campaign to get him to change things to being ALL HER FAVOR because she *EXPECTS* and feels *ENTITLED* to every last dime, even if she basically has to take out his whole family and most of his friends to get it? This is what has happened in my Dad's case. My SM is the one who expects it ALL, against everything she's been told for years, who resorts to low & petulant tactics to strongarm him in various ways into changing what he has said many many times over many years about what he wants in terms of dividing his estate between she and I. She EXPECTS him to pay off all of HER debts, she EXPECTS him to pay all of her household bills, she EXPECTS him to pay for all kinds of house & garden improvements, she EXPECTS him to pay for her 60-year-old sister's vet bill for her Yorkie when said sister has a second house, a boat, a husband and a bad QVC habit (but heaven help my Dad if he tosses me a few bucks to help me with the costs of visiting him in his dying days), she EXPECTS that she will be given ALL after he dies, and she gets REAL PISSED OFF when he doesn't meet her EXPECTATIONS. Some may view this pathetic situation as she somehow has a right to do this, or has MORE of a right, or it's LESS awful, simply because she has a piece of paper saying she's his wife. Sorry, but I don't agree. Call me a cynic, a blasphemer or just a child of divorce, but I don't share the opinion that "wife" bestows magical power or carte blanche to muscle demanding inflated "expectations" which selfsame wife would condemn in stepkid: the one whose "expectations" have remained in line with actual conversations, reality, state law, and Dad's actual wishes. The last time my SM uttered (with much inflection, always) what has become her favorite and mindblowingly hypocritical line "you're only disappointed by your own EXPECTATIONS" ---never addressing the Elephant Issue of Money directly, always couching it behind these random & vaguely-relevant platitudes--- I promptly responded "I agree, ESPECIALLY when your expectations are against the grain, based on nothing, and outrageous".