Chris, I would be interested in any tomato seeds that you may have extra of. My hubby and I were just talking about what to put in the veggie garden last night. My family likes canteloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, cumcumbers, and green beans. Would be interested in anything unusual, fun for the kids! But if you've got everything ready for Patty, or have it mailed, please don't worry about me!! I wasn't able to send to everyone either. I really wanted to though!! Patty, I'm going to have my daughter mail off my seeds today. I'll post when they've made it to the P.O. Have a good day everyone! Karen

Wow! Some of you are ready to mail already? I am not even close yet!:) To those of you that are having issues with your updates not taking,jaynine,Janine,posted that if you completely close GW after updating and sign back in it takes. I am going to be sure all of mine took also,just in case!;) Angela,it is so nice of you to offer,Thank you! For now, I sort of have my own plan,I haven't started yet,but if I think mine may be a no go,I may just take you up on it!:) I have everyones name,and link to their trade page in a file,as I find seeds I have on their wants I am going to copy and paste those I have into the file under their name,print it out and sit down with my seeds and pack them up...that is the plan,hopefully it goes as smoothly as I have imagined!;) Please, if you update, post so we know! Many people may not be checking lists twice considering the update deadline has past,but there are those of us that will be checking them up to the mailing deadline. So if you make changes,let us know!:) Karen & Nancy,I would email Patty and ask her opinion,just in case she misses your post!I am curious of what she has to say,because I already know I am well past the 200 limit myself...lol...:) I have mentioned this before,in case any of you missed it. Last year someone suggested that we all send Patty an extra stamp or two with our postage to help with any overages she may have at the PO on the big mailing day. This was not something Patty suggested,just something I thought was a nice thing we could possibly carry over to this year!:) Tina,I was thinking of doing the same thing,like you,am going to get my final total and take out the general ones,unless of course, I have some awesome plant I want share that fits into a general category!;) stage rat,it was dirtdiggin that said she has an excel spreadsheet made up of the players for the swap.I totally agree,having the original on a notepad of some kind is always best!:) Well,I will be off the computer,until after Christmas! Lots to do here and the kids were off school today because of some really cold weather,wind chills at -10 to -20,so not much got done,tomorrow I will catch up on the house...again... and than we are going to bake and start preparing for Christmas dinner before going to MIL's for Christmas Eve dinner!:) I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!:)

Went to a friend's house for a barbecue 4th - wasn't sure what to expect because they're vegetarians (but not vegans, thank goodness - I have a hard time cooking for vegans). But they did barbecue some hamburgers for meat-eaters like us. But mostly it was vegetarian, and quite delightful. Grilled radicchio, onions, zuchini, red peppers, mushrooms, and potatoes. Someone made a rice salad with corn and hard-boiled egg. One person (the household is French, with many friends gained through the local French-American school) made a wonderful tomato-nicoise olive tart, over a bed of sauteed onions, green peppers and celery. I made the spinach lasagne recipe from Cook's Illustrated May/June 2004 for the umpteenth time. It's always a winner with everyone, carnivore or vegetarian! Despite their insistence upon the "proper" cheeses, I cut down a bit of the fat by using skim-milk mozzarella. I also use McCormick's lemon pepper: less sodium and more taste. Then I riffed off a printed recipe for a rice-garbanzo bean salad by changing it to a rotini pasta-white bean salad. I added cooked carrots for color in addition to the green beans called for, and adjusted the seasonings in the mustard-lemon vinaigrette to taste. This one the vegans could eat! Then I added some lemon cheesecake bar cookies, which turned out to be totally unnecessary as several people just stopped by bakeries to buy something to bring along. We ended up with ten desserts for 25 people! Never even made it to the peach pie....

I did look up Drawn Butter, and it's awfully cute. A small golden with good texture. Then I looked for a hosta named lobster or langostino or Alaskan King Crab, just to see if I could make a yummy pairing. (I must have been hungry ;). No luck on those. If someone gets a seedling with really red petioles maybe they would consider those names.