I guess I should provide a lil update. I tried it, it worked great as a phone. A lot of features and VERY simple to install. Sounded good to me. I returned it because I have a fax machine which I use every once in a while and also some gadget that records pgms thats needs to dial out nitely to get the latest schedules. THESE devices DID NOT work on the Magic Jack, but phone calls in and out worked excellent. I returned the device within the 30 day free trial and they acknowledged that they had received it back and there were no charges to my credit card at all. Maybe I am one of the lucky ones, maybe there are MANY lucky ones out there and we only hear about the losers? If someone needed inexpensive unlimited fone service, MagicJack may be for them, yet, I would hesitate to hesitate to suggest it because I am not sure they could /would follow the guidelines in the magic jack offer and feel they got screwed by them when in fact they actually screwed themselves. Too bad I couldnt have used it, it is definitely a money saver.

Kats, that is some real chutzpah. I feel for you. We've been in our home for a little more than a month after a 13-month build (that was only supposed to take 9 months) - the delays were excruciating because they would have been avoidable by someone with even a modicum or organizational ability, which our GC does not have. He's a lovely guy on a personal level but not nearly as good a contractor as he thinks, and we sorely need a break from the unrelenting pressure. He still has not finished one major item - two sets of steel stairs that go from our rear porches to our rear terrace, as well as several small punchlist items. There's always an excuse. He's disorganized, but resents it when we step in to organize, or take any kind of action to impose a deadline - this from a guy who is routinely hours late to scheduled meetings and never met any deadline in the construction process, even ones he imposed himself. Our new theory this week is to give him whatever time he needs (within reason) but to limit his intrusions into our home life to one day a week, arranged in advance, with a "one hour" rule - if he's not here within an hour of when he is supposed to be he has to wait until the next week. Apparently that is being just as "mean" and "difficult" as complaining about unmet deadlines - he thinks we should be there 24/7 for him to do what he wants, or we should just give him a key and trust him, in any event on his schedule. No way - he has needed watching every step of the way. We've done way more than our share of work that he should have done - I feel for you there too. He's been inches away from being fired more than once on this job, and we've talked to a construction lawyer several times about really contentious issues. In the end, even though we have the cash leverage (we still owe him more than our 10% retention, primarily because he's too lazy to do a requisition), it just hasn't been worth it to fire him. Assuming that you don't need clean title for a takeout of your construction loan, it sounds like you have little to worry about. I don't have huge faith in the court system, but even then I find it hard to believe that a judge would buy his argument that his subs are not under his control. Also, if he's not done, how in the world could he be owed a completion bonus? The courts are always a risk, but in this case it seems to me a pretty small one. If you do have to close any new financing that requires title work, you may need to think about it a bit more strategically. Do everything you can to get your loan closed without a lien being recorded. Otherwise, my advice to you is the advice I have a hard time taking myself. It's only as big a deal as you make it. So hire a lawyer and instruct him or her to deal with it in as cost-effective a manner as possible. Then let it go and enjoy your new house.

Kat, yes, in fact I talked to and played Scrabble with Maria earlier today. We have an on-going couple of games going on Facebook, just whenever we have time to take our turn. She's planning to come back to visit this summer or in the fall if she gets accepted to a college here. She still hasn't heard from them. She's still engaged to her boyfriend she met here last year. I invited him to spend yesterday with us celebrating Sola's birthday because he sent me a message Friday about the tornado warnings and said he wanted to hang out with us sometime. The last I heard from Johanna was when Luther died, she posted on my facebook page. She doesn't keep in contact with any of us, including Maria, which kind of makes me sad. And, no, not at my goal weight. I gained a few pounds over the Winter, I think from eating too many carbs that I wasn't supposed to eat. I added bread back into my diet and am cutting it back out again so I'm back down to what I was before now. I'd like to lose another 25 pounds even though everyone tells me I'm too skinny now. We did try a college student, not one that lives with us just to spend time with the family and do things with. The one we started with was a graduate student from China who was always too busy. We finally had dinner together and she barely spoke to us and when I invited her to have Thanksgiving dinner with us she said she was going to the university's dinner. So, I took that as she didn't really want to spend time with us. She was older, around 27 so that may have been part of the problem. The program called me about a month ago to see if I wanted another student so I said ok. This one is an undergraduate student, same age as Alex, from China again. Our first outing didn't happen because she got drunk with her boyfriend the night before and didn't answer my text messages or calls when we went to pick her up because she was asleep. LOL! That's kind of sad, Ellendi, that's the whole point of the exchange programs to get to know the host family and their culture. Maybe that's why they don't pay us. Maybe they think people who aren't paid will be doing it for the right reasons, not just the money.

Thanks Glenda. Patti, yes we're having two again this year. Liza is really sweet. She and Lauren are at Lauren's girl scout troup leader's house having a pudding-balloon fight of all things. Or at least that was the plan before the big storm came through. Not sure if they actually did it or not. Sola, is coming late, at the end of the month. Something about them messing up a bunch of their Visas. I feel bad for her because she will be starting school ten days later than everyone else.