OK so I just read all I could find on feijoa... sounds promising but I'm worried that they ripen so late even in zone 8...I'm in zone 7 and I wonder if I'll lose a bunch of fruit in the fall. Also, I'd really love to know what I'm planting (meaning...will I like them!)...and I've never seen one in the markets around here. I wonder if anyone has ever seen them shipped? I suppose it's possible, since I had wild paw paws shipped to me from Ohio before I planted those. (oh yeah, I have paw paws too.) What do you think about hardy kiwi? I tasted those ONCE from Trader Joes... Any other suggestions? THANKS! Ann

hollysprings- We all have different situations. I understand wht you are saying and we have thought this out clearly. Most important, our numbers do add up. We have had market evaluations done on our home and the going price for our home (today) as it stands, we most likely would go on the market for $710,000.00 (today). Comps in our neighborhood are current at 734k and 699k. It won't happen over night, but we feel it will sell (eventually)and would be thrilled to walk today for a 650K offer. We owe 350k, so yeah, we'd be in a better situation financially. We could reproduce pretty much the same house and have less than a 200k mortgage. Much more at our comfort level. I guess I should make myself more clear on using the word downsizing. I'm expecting to get all we want in this house we will still be around 3500+++. I do believe I have learned a lot as to where to put the bling and expensive upgrades this time around. We spent entirely too much money in our master bath. Some of our light fixtures are very, very expensive. We are so very fortunate that we GC'd successfully and have countless hours of sweatequity into our home. Our happiness, the way we live and our boys are such an incentive for this move. We really aren't that comfortable in our home or neighborhood. Basically we have upgraded, decked out, trimmed out to the hilt and back and it doesn't make us any the happier. We spend too much time cleaning and dusting chandeliers and worrying about dinks in the cherry woood. I have gone back to work part-time to make up the difference in the extra mortgage and we just rather not live like this. DH from the start wanted more land and less sub-division. Him and the boys can't race around on their "toys" quads and all. We figure if we can do this one more time, we'll have a much more enjoyable place for us, more casul, more woods for the boys to explore and less mortgage. Trust me, I have learned a good lesson on wants/needs and the cost of 4 different granites in my main floor alone. I agree that a smaller house can be much more expensive, after I didn't say "NO" to any extras this time around. Bottom line, just a simple family looking for a simpler forever home.

They are words. Perhaps he felt a revelation, a release. People on drugs or in coitus say similar things. We can't *know*. Given my interest in adoption, I was unsurprised to read how his adoptive status affected Jobs. The biggest fear of every little child is abandonment. At some point, many children wonder if they are adopted. Adoptees experience those realities. This awareness often comes around six or seven, towards the end of the 'magical thinking' of early childhood --"You were chosen." -- but before a child can fully reason why a mother could surrender her baby out of love for it. Male adoptees often have difficulty loving or trusting women. Anger at the birth *father* is common for both genders. An adoptee's life has been arbitrarily altered from the 'norm' he sees all around him. Insecurity cows some people; some develop an insensitivity to feelings (their own or those of others). Jobs' adoptive parents had to have struggled. They are described as 'ever-accommodating'. Adoptive parents can feel insecure and 'un-entitled'. This makes it difficult for them to parent well. Their role-insecurity often makes it impossible for an adoptee to discuss his honest feelings about adoption. (Big elephant inhibits family development.) The myth of 'matching' is illustrated here: The belief that a social worker or baby broker can or will place a child with adoptive parents who are similar to the child's natural parents. Who would 'match' Jobs, the child of two graduate students, to these adoptive parents? Love can't be burdened with everything. Human babies are not interchangeable. If they were, every mother departing the hospital could be routinely issued the baby nearest the door! Sue, adoptive mother and spouse of an adoptee, steps down off her soapbox...

Oh! That makes more sense. I have no idea, actually! If I was ever going to do this again, (which I NEVER EVER WILL, at least not while I live in it!) I'd focus more on the lighting than I did this go around. Honestly, ANYTHING would've been a huge improvement over our previous lighting situation, it was so dreary before.