There you are, Kim! What a treat it was for me to see you all. Jan is hysterical with her dry humor and Kim is the queen of puns! Jan shared some of her talents, as she gave me a beautiful hand painted garden stone and knitted scarf AND a beautiful hand knitted shawl. (I'm wearing this next time I wave to all of you from the boardwalk cam. Perfect for the boardwalk next to the windy Atlantic.) I'm so glad everyone agreed to me picking them up as it gave us more time to chat it up. So thankful that Kim and her DH took precious time out of their short vacation to meet and have a visit. Jan drove quite a distance but graciously played it down. I've had such a busy week. How nice it was to take a break with some GPers. Jimmy got some teasing in as the girls got used to quickly. Kim's DH is a sweetie. The girls were nice enough to get eaten up by sqeeters as they kindly complimented me on my wilted gardens, lol. When I showed them my purple cone flower(that's white,lol) Jan gleefully pointed out a new bud so we all jumped for joy. Kim expression when I picked up a single strand of green that was fallen over and indicated it was a purple daylily was priceless. Poor woman is already scoping out her established garden for pickins' and is planning a rescue mission,lol! I'm still smiling from such a great day with them and I still feel warm from receiving "real" hugs. Thanks a million to you both,~di

What a grand trip, Saucy! Thanks for taking us along. I, too, can't hear "Berkshires" without thinking of James Taylor. The colors and textures in your pictures are fabulous, and that bee shot is by far the best I've seen. It looks so fuzzy and cute! The dahlia pictures are tempting me. I'm so terrible about getting them dug for storage in the fall. Lol, can't imagine why--what else could there possibly be to do on a farm in the fall?? Thanks for taking us along, it looks like you're having a wonderful time playing with that camera! Brenda

Hi Jen, It's good to see you online again. After 25 years on the same motorcycle (1980 BMW R100t) I've now had two in about two years. I loved the Honda ST1300, but on Christmas eve someone turned left in front of me at an intersection and totalled it in my first accident in 35 years. I'm now on a silver 2005 Honda Goldwing. So far this year I've been down to the southeast corner of SC twice. I may head down to Texas in May, and more definitely over to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in June. Both trips will be a mix of camping and motels. Over the last year, the main changes in equipment are a Sierra Designs Sirius 3 tent which is lighter and more compact than the Eureka Timberline 4, and a Dell Inspiron 700m laptop. The screen size is not ideal at 12 inches, but it is about half the packing size and weight of the old one, so a lot easier to carry with me on the motorcycle. Brian

Ah, so this story has progressed some since early Oct. "They" is the KD. That door was shipped twice and was lost at the regional distribution center. The second one was eventually found and delivered to the KD, so we did get to see it. It was beautiful, but we discovered that a stain would not be a good choice for this particular kitchen. luettaw - framed and frameless are equally durable depending on the quality of the original workmanship and materials, so I would expect framed and frameless Omega cabinets to be equal from that standpoint. Framed Omega vs cheap frameless overseas junk would be another story. Some people do mix framed and frameless in the same kitchen. Usually people who do that use frameless drawer lowers for the better use of space, paired with framed uppers. There are some discussions of that very thing here on GW. We did jump ship with this KD eventually. We liked her a lot and she was helpful in many ways, but it just wasn't working. We first spoke to her in early August and told her we weren't in a burning hurry because there was other major work that needed to be done in the house before we could install a new kitchen. We did want to be ready to go when the floors and windows were done though. So August, September, and then I wrote this letter in Oct. This KD, while proficient with pencil and paper (although s-l-o-w) couldn't use the CAD program at the store. The other guy was sort of proficient, so he translated her drawings. It took her 2 or more weeks for every small change and then some more time for the CAD drawing. We knew that their distribution center about 30 miles from here was problematic following the door incidents. After us expressing more angst through Oct., she finally had a complete plan for us around the first of Nov. The Omega cabinets, if ordered that day (but she only promised to order "that week"), would take around 8 weeks to arrive at the (problematic) distribution center and then a couple more weeks to be delivered. It would be the holidays, you know. If instead we went with a Canadian company, we might shave a week off that. That's when we said we'd make other arrangements. I admit to being fairly upset by then. We went up to Home Depot and sat down with the experienced person there. We'd had a previous good experience with HD in our other house using InnerMost, another frameless line. The HD person put our kitchen measurements in her computer, fiddled around with some minor design changes, and the majority of the work was done in 90 minutes. We came back in a few days, finished up with all the finished sides, trim, toekick covers, etc. and placed the order. BTW, it came out about $7K less than the KD and Omega with 2 more cabinets. The cabinets were promised in 6 weeks, and were delivered in 5. We may or may not have a kitchen by Christmas, but at least it's not Valentine's Day. At the moment, we're waiting for the electrician who was supposed to be here a couple of hours ago. We can't finish installing the cabs until he re-routes some wires. He was supposed to be here last week. The granite people are scheduled for tomorrow morning. Getting a little anxious here. Getting a lot anxious here.