If it makes you feel any better Alisande, I too was going to take a year off buying and improve what I had. That was before the 15 miniatures, 2 climbers and 3 bushes that I just got !!!! The 2 climbers and 3 shrubs were a mother's day gift but the miniatures were a result of my lack of will power where roses are concerned. :o)

I've got SASEs down to an organized science. I prepack seeds--I don't do twenty packs, I'll do a hundred and twenty packs of a variety. I have multiple varieties packed and ready to share. Sharing is easy--I've got toms in trays and non-toms in a clear vinyl CD holder tacked to a door closet in my office. Opposite the door is a table where I fill the SASEs...which I lay out in rows and do en masse. Currently I am doing three SASEs of which the Your Choice Tomato SASE I do one envelope at a time so I don't get confused. I don't ask for bubble-mailers, I have people send me long #10 envies, but I still have to pad those seeds. I buy huge rolls of bubble-wrap and cut them to size. The bubble-wrap pieces I keep in a tray on the table I fill the SASEs, along with address labels, various stickers, etc that I need for the SASEs, including a really nice tape gun for taping over the back flap--I stuff the envies well and the envie flap glue just doesn't do it. Today I sent off a very big box of seeds to a community garden project in Milwaukee. I had the seeds on hand and ready to go--all I had to do was bundle them and list them on a letter which went inside the box with the seeds. The key to doing SASEs is to remember that you are in charge...I want to share seeds but I am not going nuts by doing it, so if someone wants seeds they have to accept what I send to them, but as I do send a large variety there's never been a complaint. I rarely ever take requests because that means waiting for a list of requests to arrive. Nada. NADA! I chose the format of Six Packs of my choice some years back and it's been very successful. I do yearly offer a six pack choice list of tomatoes but even then I do ask for a list of four defaults, so again by having that default list I lower my stress level significantly. Sharing seeds is not done casually, it's an organized process that runs smoothly because I keep large amounts of pre-packed seeds ready to go. The seeds and mailing supplies are organized and at hand. When you promise to send seeds its up to you to fulfill that promise--when the envelope or mailer arrives you fill it ASAP and send it back on its way. I fill within 24 hours because I don't know how many are coming in the next mail. I've had the PO guy stagger up the walk with mail buckets of SASEs and then it dries up to a trickle a couple of weeks later, then a month later it's another hundred on a Monday. I never know how many are coming. Sometimes SASE senders will drive me bonkers by asking if I ever got their SASE, but only give me their online name or forum, so next I have to ask for them for an address and a real name so I can begin looking through the stack of outer envies that I hold onto. When I find their envie I let them know that their seeds are on their way and I also let them know that as they sent it to me LAST WEEK it's a bit much to ask where their seeds are. Harummmph! But that doesn't happen too often. The joys far outweigh the work that goes into it. Last week I got an email from a nice lady who wants to send her butterfly bush seeds to me so that I can share them through SASEs, that's wonderful--even better is that she learned how to save those seeds with info she read on WinterSown.Org. It just doesn't get any better than that!

No I don't know them, and my comments were harsh. Mainly because of that innocent little girl, now she will surely know that finances were part of the reason her Daddy hanged himself, and if it does not occur to her this year, within a few years and certainly when she's older, she'll most likely think back to her extravagant birthday party and blame herself. That is why I said what I did about her mother. That kid could have had a $15 cake from the grocery store, 8 friends and pin the tail on the donkey and been just as happy. That party was to indulge her mother's ego. But you know how I am about people not being personally responsible--and yes, it was his fault for not putting his foot down, but regardless as to how much she knew about their finances, her spending was over the top and vulgar. In fact, her life seemed vapid and vulgar, to me. As to many of them. Just what I deduce from what I'm shown, and what they agreed to be a part of. I don't know why I tune in when I do (haven't watched all the franchises, or any complete season) but it's like watching a train wreck.

1Kgrace345, I kept going back and forth pondering over getting a Presto canner or the All American...I really could have gotten the Presto many years earlier, but I wanted to save my money and just wait. I have two mirro canners that I have had since I was married in 1970 that my grandmother gave to me that she used and they were literally falling apart. The handles were gone, and they no longer had handles to replace them, so I was having to lift the pot by the hot metal...last year I burned my hand really bad...but I kept on canning. I just bought those new gloves made out of well, what ever that is...my brain just backfired...I hate when that happens...darn it. My husband (behind my back) took them both to the dump...that made me really MAD because they were my grandmothers, and I would have like to have kept them for old times sake, anyways. But, he bought me this new one today..and I just about had a flying flip when he said we were going to town to get one...I got ready faster than lighting! I understand how you would still feel like you were a proud parent of your All American, lkgrace!! LOL If my husband wasn't looking at me on the way home I would have petted mine...LOL!!!