The snow didnt stay around long so none of the palms got damaged by the weight (once the storm stopped last night the snow immediately started to melt off of the trees). We reached 58F today with a LOT of sun so all that's left of the snow are a few small patches here and there which should be gone by tomorrow. Gotta love march snow storms! Hopefully this is the last of them! -Alex

"Progress". Years ago, our area was the same. This development was built in the late 60's on the outskirts of town and even though it basically still is, the landscape is changing all the time. There was nothing but fields and forest around here years ago. Now there's one development further out than us and more going up here and there all over the place. In the process more land was taken on top of the land used to expand roads and highways. It's not so bad where we've lost some of our typical nature sounds like our robins, owls, cardinals, cicadas and so on, but the feel is different. They tore down an old factory by the river 8 or so years ago that was supposed to remain as a park area where we used to see plenty of ducks, gulls and geese but it didn't take long for them to commercialize it with a restaurant, some shops, the obligatory CVS and leave us not forget the primo riverfront townhouses and condos. What I can't get over are the bloody drugstores. I grew up in a town that had a Rexall downtown on the corner. (Must be getting old. Spell check told me Rexall is spelled wrong.) Now, it's like some huge pharmacy giant just walks through the country, squats, and drops a CVS or Walgreen's here, there or wherever. The other thing that gets me about that is, whenever one builds the other is sure to build somewhere nearby.

I have no problem with people dismissing my feedback if that is what you mean by your post. At the same time, there are no absolutes here. And people have different standards. We are all here to share our experiences. I am not here to sell you a Chinese cookbook, telling you that you can duplicate what you eat at a commercial establishment at home. Nor do I have the credentials of Grace Young. So use the feedback for what it is worth taking into account that you are getting free advice so it may just be worth that much :). We are however, are avid cooks and we are going through our second remodel (for a different house). The first upgrade to 15K BTU was a huge boost over the contractor grade gas cooktop. So let there be no doubt about that. And yes, we can smoke the wok and do OK creating "wok hay" on small amount of ingredients -- maybe. But for day in, day out cooking, 15K is merely adequate at best. The kind of wok hay I experience at my favorite Asian restaurants is in an entirely different class than what we can recreate at home. As I post before, a 15K BTU cooktop is not even in the same planet as what is used in a commercial setting. Yes, they like speed in that environment. But when it comes to Chinese cooking, speed is recipe item #1. You canÂt let the ingredients stew in the sauce and expect to have the same thing come out as flash cooking on a high power cooktop. Remember, it is easy to justify what you own. It is much harder to be critical of it :).

I'm a HUGE fan of that show! I wish they traveled the country like Trading Spaces - I have a brother and SIL that could REALLY use their services - LOL! I like the fact that they help people analyze why they are hanging on to things. But I get so frustrated when people want to hang onto things. I also wonder how on earth people live in the filth you see on some of those episodes! I'm not 100% crazy over their garage sale process - especially that contest they do where they pit the hubby and wife against each other - I think that's pretty unnecessary.