Vent away! I'd have been livid! Though I doubt my dad wouldn't have dared such an intrusion... or had the time or desire to tackle extra yard work! My next door neighbor has a beautiful lawn and garden, and she has an entire bed of milkweed out back. It is a great and regular pleasure for us to go out back in the summer, accompanied or not by her children and their friends, and inspect the milkweed for Monarch caterpillars. We also grow extra herbs so that both we and the other caterpillars who like them (esp. the dill!) have all that we want. I had planned a rose garden in the moderately sunny spot near her kids' swing set, but images of them tangling with the thorns made me re-consider and go with a butterfly garden instead. The butterflies make me happier than the roses would have... Perhaps you need a folksy hand-painted sign to tuck into your milkweed. Something like "Monarch Nursery: No weed whackers allowed!" or "Shhhhh! Baby Monarchs Sleeping!" or something similar to point out the fact that the plants are both intentional and cherished. Eighty peonies? Lopping off a hydrangea you'd nursed from a cutting? All your daylilies? Ladies, it's beyond me how you aren't all posting from prison after having murdered the whack-a-doodles! Steve and I have strict divisions of labor and he knows better than to "help" with my stuff. The price I pay is that the edging we bury to separate his turf from mine is inviolable... which means any flowers that grow outside the line (or just lean heavily) get whacked. Grrr. Although as time goes by, he's becoming less zealous about whacking errant blooms (and I'm becoming better about re-homing volunteers who come up too close to the line...)

Do you really need an excuse? Your meringue smells fungal to me. I'll pass on piece of that pie! The morning glory looks like one of my kids coming up to me and saying, "Look at my lips mom! Do I look like a fish?!" Did you see this photo over in the cottage garden forum of the husband mowing? (It was in the Favorite Photos 2010 post.) You should have taken a picture of Bob! Here is a link that might be useful:

This is a two way street. The people that get all ruffled at Miele when they suggest that there might be operator error are guilty of the same behavior they're accusing Miele of. They are not considering the possibility that they or a particular use might just using the appliance improperly ! I've had almost 20 years with these machines and Miele sometimes sends out or you receive a bum steer. I've personally seen ones arrive with seized pumps or non functioning heaters - you can count them on less than one hand, but they are out there. second, Miele designs and builds one of the most advanced and highest quality units in the industry today. Like any other company, they sometimes ship a defective unit or it gets broken in transit from Germany or they just get or specify a not so good batch of parts. This does not man that they are a bad or inferior company. It does mean that THAT particular user's experience is not so rosey and like a wrecked car you can't un-wreck it. Knowing that you design and produce one of the best machines in the market it's natural for a company to take the view that if there is an initial prob. that it is operator error, especially when the data actually bears this out. Now, what this doesn't take into account is that the product might just not be the correct choice or a particular individual. i.e I just like rinsing my dishes so they don't get crusty or I like using x brand of detergent which for whatever reason doesn't work in a particular unit. (asolo - I agree with you in principle, but some combos just don't work especially in the prior generation) Or - my dishes are wet AND I refuse to use rinse aid. The prob. is big corp. brother makes NO provision whatsoever for the fact that sometimes a product is not a good fit for or able to meet the needs of some customers. For those that take umbrage at all the try this or that. Take a breath - most of these are good suggestions that have worked for people that have had problems with these in the past - sure it'd be nice to take it out of the box and have it adapt to my habits without needing to read the manual, but that isn't the case with much these days. Again - all this hopping on one leg patting one's head while tugging the left earlobe may be more than a particular customer wants or feels (s)he should have to invest in getting a tool to work for them. But, refusing to do it once you're in the game AND THEN calling the product or co.'s stuff, junk isn't quite fair. I'd advise megg not to get a Bosch - or any other Euro washer and the results are very likely to be the same. I do hope (s)he will come back and tell us what they ended up replacing the miele with and how the new unit fairs.

I have such a limited taste, really, for fabric, so I always buy things that are much the same in concept, if not in color or design...so, no big prints in my stash!. However, I watched a Simply Quilts the other day, where the woman made VERY unorthodox Dresden plates, with very wild fabrics. She fussy cut all the blades, or sections of the plate, to be just the same....it made for a sort of kalidascope dresden plate....very unusual and very interesting and WILD. You cut a blade from template fabric, with the seam allowance added...then cut out the blade, leaving only the seam allowance...this makes the whole center of your template empty, and this enables you to move it around the fabric, to find the exact same repeat..when you find it, draw around the template and you'll soon be able to cut out all the 'sections' you need for a plate. It was an interesting technique and an interesting use of unusual fabrics.