Honestly, I'd try to save it. I'm having trouble with a phal, which funnily enough, is in the same damn pot as you have pictured there! I recently saved 2 other phals (one of which had no root system left due to rot) that I rescued from a restaurant. They now have some nice new root growth! I'm fairly new to orchids (about 3 yrs growing now...), but they're expensive plants & so beautiful. I would check your root system again. If you see any more rot, or even if you don't, try sprinkling a bit of ground cinnamon on there before putting them back in the medium. Also, to avoid the dreaded rot-let this baby dry out almost all the way before watering again. *Always make sure your cutting tools are sterilized (fire works fine!) before cutting any roots or leaves away! Since this is generally a phal's "growing" season, fertilize weekly with a high acid fertilizer, just make sure the solution is weak. Theoretically, it could put out a new leaf this season. ....Just wanted to add that I just checked on one of my rescues & not only is root growth good, it's putting out a new leaf! Moral of the story, don't chuck the plant!! This post was edited by sgeneviva on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 11:11

I actually think it is very regional. I live in NY and attended many very elaborate weddings where I had to shell out a $300 gift ($600 for close family) for a gift. I think the idea is that you have to cover your plate and then some. My DH's friend is a wedding photographer and he charges a minimum of $12K for a wedding and he is booked solid. Around here, giving money is a norm. The registry is for the bridal shower and I have seen many registeries that include plasma's and $400 place settings. I have several girls at my job getting married and they are spending between $25-$40K. It's outrageous if you ask me and quite stressful because you want to attend these events but they become very unaffordable! In addition, for the amount of money you spend on a wedding, you can put a down payment on a house! When I got married 7 years ago, my parents offered m $20K to pay for the wedding. We looked at several places that cost $150/person and it just didn't feel right sending all that money on one day. We opted to have our wedding a restaurant instead of a reception hall and invited 75 people (much to the chagrin of my parents who wanted me to invite 200 people). My bouquet and cake were from Costco. I had one maid of honor and advertised at a local college to get cheap photographer/videographer. My dress was off the rack of a bridal store and I drove myself to the church. I ended up spending about $7K and the other 13K was part of the down payment for our home. I will admit that my friends and family were generous despite the simple nature of our wedding which I was extremely grateful for.

Hi - I'm in New Hope, probably not too far from you. I'll give a few ideas here, but I'll also refer you to my website. I'm an energy consultant and have worked with quite a few people this year making the exact decisions that you're trying to make now. As noted, the oil prices are super low now, so the equations have shifted considerably. For a place like yours, a high-end, properly sized heat pump, at PECO's discounted electric rates, cost about 1/2 the cost to operate than did the oil system, even at $2/gallon oil. At $4/gallon, it was a no-brainer. The critical considerations for effective heat pump operation in our climate: - I would only consider a high efficiency, two-stage heat pump, with variable speed air handler. This is a top-of-the-line system, but there are good reasons to go this route in our climate. - Make sure your house is well insulated and properly air sealed. The tighter the house, the more effective and comfortable the heat pump will be. - Make sure that the heat pump is sized properly for the heating load. Most HVAC companies size for the cooling load. In our climate, this vastly undersizes the heating system and it will switch to expensive electric backup heat. With a two-stage heat pump, the first stage will be used to satisfy the summer cooling needs properly, the second stage will come on below 40 and, if sized properly, will allow the heat pump to satisfy all the heating needs down to below freezing. I can't overstate how important this is! There are some subtlties to this too. I worked with one client who had huge electric bills even though he had a top of the line heat pump. It turned out that when they installed it, they didn't configure it properly, so, even though the heat pump was capable of supplying heat down below freezing, they had it set to run backup heat below 40F! In our climate, 80% of the heating hours are above 35F-40F. If you can run the heat pump down to 30F, then you satisfy 91% of the season's heating. The improves to 95% if you can get it down to 25F. This might not seem significant, but if your electric heat comes on for an extra 10% of the season, it will drive up operational costs much more than 10%. You also asked about single vs. multiple units. Since you've already got two zones, I'd keep it that way. Especially with heat pumps, the delivery temperature is relatively low, so they're much more sensitive to duct losses. It will cost you more to have two systems installed, but doing a properly zoned system, tying the two zones together, will cost you a few thousand $, so I don't think it's worth the savings to end up with a compromised system. An option, if you don't switch to heat pumps, is to get an Energy Kinetics System 2000 oil boiler with hot water coils in your air handlers. You could use a single boiler and run water lines to each air handler. It would also supply your hot water for domestic use. I don't like recommending oil systems these days, but this is an option, and if you stick with oil, it may be a very good option. Unfortunately, the terms of service of this group don't allow me to mention my website because they consider that advertising. So I'm not sure how I can let you contact me directly for more personal recommendations. I'll do what I can via the forums. You can find me by googling "Ted energy audit bucks county, pa" but I don't think I can say more than that without getting thrown off the forum. I'm not looking for more business. It's just that sometimes people's needs are best met with some direct face-time so that I can tell you about the best contractors etc. in the area. Best regards, Ted

That was fast service, youse guys! DH was doing errands yesterdays and brought back these breads. Thanks, https://www.gardenweb.com/user/wcjo @wcjo for this recommendation! And, I had this one for breakfast. For ”dinner” last night I had yogurt, fresh peach, cinnamon and some of the sunflower seeds we’d purchased for making seede bread. I will probably served the failed bread, a bit at a time, soaked in milk and yogurt to our opossums (thanks to plllog for serving suggestions!). The chia seeds will go to the birds as well. Someday when I have more time, I may try the seed bread again along the lines of Linda C’s and plllog’s techniques. I think I will print out the breadmaker manual and put it with the bread machine that I’ll donate to a thrift shop. Maybe with a caveat for the new owner to stick with simple white or whole wheat/white bread. I have a KA mixer and a very heavt duty Hobart-KA mixer for any future bread dough mixing ;) That seedful whole grain bread is delicious. I make good bran-raisin muffins, but prefer the toasted seed bread for breakfast. Thanks for all your helpful feedback.