If you think the roots are badly congested, pot up slightly now, without disturbing roots other than to make a few vertical slits in the root mass and cutting an 'X' on the bottom of the root mass. If roots aren't badly congested, just wait. Get the plant outdoors and acclimated to full sun asap in May - as early as you can, as long as you're conscientious about moving the plant indoors when temps under 50-55* are predicted. The plant will respond extremely well to outdoor conditions. I would repot just after Father's Day. Let the plant recover until after the 4th of July, then cut it back as hard as you want to. The plant will back-bud vigorously, and you'll have up to around mid-Oct outdoors for the plant to recover .... again, if you watch temps. It's best not to cut back hard AND repot at the same time. If a plant needs both, I prefer to repot first, which leaves all the photosynthesizing machinery intact. After roots have recovered and have a good amount of stored energy, THEN you can pretty much cut back at will. Attempting stressful operations like a full repot or hard pruning are best avoided in winter and early spring for houseplants. Planning your repots so they take place between Father's Day and July 4th pretty much ensures a plant with good energy reserves that is better able to withstand stress than at any other period in the growth cycle. This, combined with maximum photo-period and photo-intensity, makes for the fastest recovery time and lowest vulnerability to insects, disease, or other complications related to low energy or slow recoveries. Al

shee, just mixing CS in a spray bottle with water makes a pretty good stain remover. I mix a single green scoop in either a small (hair size) or large (household size) spray bottle. I use really hot water so it will dissolve readily. And shake it really well, too. It's a good pre-treatment for laundry. Denims that are particularly grubby I've sprayed it on and let it sit overnight, then wash in CS as normal. It also does wonders if boots have dripped on car upholstery in winter and left dark stains from slush. I could never get that stuff out, no matter what I tried. I just spray it on upholstery stains (but stop short of saturating it), gently rub with a damp towel, maybe let it sit for a couple minutes and blot with a clean, damp towel. Sometimes it takes a repeat, but it does a really good job on car upholstery and carpet or rug stains. I've added white vinegar to the rinse cycle in the past. My mom used to use it sometimes, I sort of followed her lead. It's supposed to cut soap & fabric softener residue build-up in clothes. I don't do it nearly as often since switching to Charlie's soap. Mostly towels, and this reminds me it wouldn't hurt to do them again. I would watch the machine, and when it was going into the rinse cycle I would add maybe a 1/2 cup or so. I would just put my hand in the tub & swish it around so it got evenly distributed in the water. Then close the lid and let the machine finish. If I was doing a load that had to have fabric softener, I'd do two rinses. First one with fabric softener like normal, then the second with just the vinegar and water.

Just a few highlights.... Our guild is called Quiltessence Quilters. They meet the 3rd Saturday morning monthly, we are located in Shillington, PA (Lancaster and Reading areas is close to our members)The cost is $24.00 per year. The club is limited to 50 members. Our guild has a variety of speakers and programs, we do charity quilts for a womans center. In addition we have a summer picnic, holiday dinner, a variety of swaps, show and tell, raffels, and as many of the things mentioned above. To raise funds for speakers and other programs we make and raffel off a queen/king size quilt by selling tickets at various quilt shows. This year we will attend the NQA show in Columblus, Ohio. (A four day trip) - There is also a retreat in the winter months. As with other guilds there are smaller groups that meet as suited by those groups. I have learn so much from such a fun bunch of women in the guild. I would recommend this experience to everyone. Barbara

If no one minds that I hijack mtn's thread... we got back Monday night, actually 3 am Tuesday, from our Seattle/Vancouver trip. We had delays in Phoenix, so it took us a total of 21 hours to get from Vancouver to Boston! Ugh. We started in Seattle. Needless to say, meeting Mtn and Mr. Mtn was the best part. :) The funniest was seeing how quickly the DH's hit it off. Mtn and I could have wandered off and they wouldn't have noticed. Second best was the Chihuly museum and gardens. Really didn't expect to like it THAT much, but we were all so impressed. DH and sons really loved the EMP Museum. DD and I were more "meh" about it. Really just liked Seattle Center in general. Space Needle was cool. We had lunch at the Collections Café at Chihuly, which we also liked a lot. Also in Seattle, we did the Underground tour, which everyone enjoyed for the Seattle history lesson. We all loved Fremont! Shops, Sunday Market, lunch at the Cantina (not sure it that's the exact name). Even though it was chilly, we also enjoyed the Argosy Locks boat tour and later went back to Ballard to see the Locks and the salmon ladders, and browsed some shops. We walked thru part of the Olympic Sculpture Park but it was at the end of a long day, so I don't think we appreciated it as much as we should have. Went for a ride on the Great Wheel. Drove to Snowqualmie Falls and Gasworks Park (so cool!). Took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and had lunch there and poked in some shops. Oh! Of course we went to Pike Place Market several times. We had great meals everywhere, and the weather was perfect while we were there. Vancouver...rained almost the whole time. Gah. Still loved it, but would have loved it more if the weather were better. We carried on and did everything we'd planned to do. We stayed in the same floating home Mtn mentioned, and she kindly left us a pretty bouquet on the dining table! (Thanks, Mtn!) I asked for chocolates, but whatevs. We walked around downtown Vancouver a lot. (In both cities, we had 15,000-20,000 steps on the fitbit on most days.) We went to Capilano Suspension Bridge, which scared the --- out of me, especially in the rain because it seemed like it should be slippery, even though it actually wasn't. Such a neat place, and wish we could have seen it in better weather. DH and kids went white water rafting in Squamish, which was more hair-raising than their experience in Iceland, but they loved it. I stayed safely behind and shopped in Vancouver. Loved a store called Poppy & Rye for clothing and bought a couple of things there. We went on a whale watch, which was very different from the whale watch we did off Cape Cod many years ago. I was nervous when we had to get suited up in similar suits we wore for white water rafting in Iceland, and when the guide talked about procedures for when someone goes overboard...but it was all good! We saw many bald eagles and seals, but just one whale, and it was a humpback, not an orca. And we were out for 7 hours. So, while it was still enjoyable, it felt like a long day to see just one whale that we could have seen closer to home. On our last day, the sun came out and we walked to Stanley Park... we didn't have enough time to find/rent bikes but would love to return and do that one day. Again, we had lots of good meals, and I am sure we all gained a few lbs. All in all, it was a great trip. I would go back, and would stay longer to explore some of the surrounding areas.