A couple of things. First. Do Not use a utility/razor knife to try and hack thru hard plastics. It is simply too dangerous. Don't ask me how I know this. A small band saw would be perfect but a considerable expense. If you know someone with any kind of table saw you could use that by seting the blade very shallow (just a quarter inch or so above the table) and, placing the bottom of the bottle against the fence, rotate it around, over the blade, to make a clean cut. If you have any wood laying about you could make up a cradle like a miter box and simply use a common hand saw. A very safe method, if you can get a helper involved, to hold the bottles SOLIDLY in place would be to get a hold of a wire saw. It is simply a piece of strong wire with a couple of handles attached. Plumbers use them to cut through PVC pipe in tight locations and it works very well. PVC is pretty tough stuff and it cuts through like butter. The link below is to a YouTube video of one in action. You can find them at Depot/Lowes for about five bucks or even make one if you have some braided picture hanging wire and some dowels around. FYI wire saws (on a much larger scale) are what they use to cut through gigantic slabs of granite, stone, marble etc. to make countertops and such. A plastic bottle is no problem. Here is a link that might be useful: Wire Saw

I live near Tarpon Springs, FL, a largely Greek community. Using cuttings, I now have two brown fig trees, four black fig trees (from Greece) and two white fig trees (from Greece I am told). I grew them all from cuttings. No idea what varieties they are. I've been reading the forums about how to grow figs from clippings. My family in Louisiana always had figs, so allow me to share how we do it. I bring a jar of water out to the tree, and using simple shears, I cut a few foot-long limbs. I immediately put them in the jar, take it inside, and put it in the kitchen window. For three weeks, we keep the jar topped up as the water drops. After three weeks, the leaves have all fallen off, but down in the water, we find a lot of little white bumps on each cutting. Then we take potting soil or potting mix, and just pot them. In weeks, the buds begin to leaf. Oddly, one of my white fig cuttings produced a fig while still in the water. The leaves dropped but the fig remained. Now potted, the tiny fig tree is quite a sight with it's one growing fig. Anybody wanting to see this oddity may email me for a picture. You might then also tell me what varieties I have. I have no idea what i have here. budbackeast

Best squeegees are made by Ettore, Pulex, Sorbo, and Unger. They cost just a wee bit more and are well worth the money. Home-brew: 2 quarts water, 1/2 cup sudsy ammonia, 1 pint rubbing alcohol, 1 Tbsp Dawn dishwashing liquid, and 1/4 cup white vinegar. First, use a sponge that has a white scrubber on the other side (don't use the green ones; they are too coarse). Wet your window with the sponge side, then flip to the white scrub pad side and scrub the window. You'll be able to "feel" when it's clean. You'll feel rough patches, etc., when it's not clean. This is a step most people fail at. If the window simply isn't clean, it's going to look cloudy when done. Scrub well. You'll also need lots of clean cloths: diapers, cheesecloth, or microfiber all work well. Dry by hand a 1 inch strip at the top of the window. The trick for no streaks with a squeegee is to place the dry rubber blade on a dry window. Take the dry squeegee and place it at the top of the window in that 1 inch dry strip. Pull down smoothly. Wipe the blade of the squeegee with a damp cloth each time. A dry blade on dry glass will skip. Next place the squeegee horizontally in the dry area and pull down, lapping over the dry clean area each time. If needed, do one last sweep left to right at the bottom of the window. Take a dry, clean cloth and run your finger down each window side and across the bottom to clean and dry the edges. If you don't want to bother with making a home-brew, the October 2008 issue of Consumer Reports rates 10 glass cleaners: 1) Windex No Drip Streak Free Foaming Action - 95 points 2) Sprayway Ammonia Free - 88 3) Windex Crystal Rain Ammonia Free - 85 4) Glass Plus - 82 5) Streak Free with Ammonia (WalMart) - 79 6) Windex Original with Ammonia D - 75 7) Weiman Professional No Drip Streak Free - 74 8) Method Window Wash Blue Sky - 70 9) Earth Friendly Products Window Kleener - 68 Seventh Generation Natural Glass & Surface - 64 They cost between 10 and 16 cents per ounce, except the WalMart one at 3 cents per ounce. CR says their home brew costs about 1 cent per ounce and would rank below the Weiman. The home-brew I use is very similar to CR's recipe except that it's a bit more concentrated and adds white vinegar. Hope this helps. Good luck!

Anthem & txgal: I misspoke. The Icynene manufacturer and our local installers recommend--it's not a requirement-- 24" o.c. spacing for optimal performance. Here, it does get cold, but our bigger problem is heat. 24" spacing gets you less wood in the studs, therefore more space for insulation, even if you don't agree with the thermal bridging issue. It also saves you money if you can use 2x4s, rather than 2x6s. In a one-story ranch, slab on grade, no seismic or wind issues, we can. It's my understanding that this framing system is not used much in residential, partly because framers are reluctant to change their way of framing. But the research has been around for over 30 years, and it has been in use a good while. Fortunately for us, our architect, who does a lot of LEEDs commercial work, specs it all the time, along with Icynene or the similar, newer soy-based product. We'll soon be at the stage of developing the specs, the builder is already onboard, who is experienced with Icynene, so it'll be interesting to me to learn more about it and how they're going to handle the sheetrock. I have more research on the sheetrock issue but can't get my hands on it at the moment. For the OP, IF using a more typical 16" o.c. spacing, I can't imagine that going to 5/8" would pay off. Especially since she's looking to save money. I'm just putting the suggestion out there of another way to do that, which most people are unaware of, and build a more energy-efficient house at the same time, if anyone is interested in pursuing it.