As a lot of you summer campers out there might know, that being prepared for everything out there is very important. Being a mother of 3 children means that being fully prepared takes up a lot of space. About a week agoi was advised by another forum member to try a new product called gardeners armor to help protect against poison ivy and insect bites. It sounded interesting so i put an order in for it and it arrived just before a family camping trip so i decided to try and give it a shot and it turned out to work great. And it was an added bonus that it was SPF 20 as well. I just wanted to post a praise and thanks to connyguest for introducing me to this great product and that it gets my approval Here is a link that might be useful: Gardeners Armor

Here's a fruit flan that I've made before. Not hard at all. I used the sponge flan that you buy ready made. Fruit Flan 1 baked pie or flan shell (9 inch) or ready-made sponge flan 2 cups pastry cream filling (recipe follows) 4 cups strawberries, washed, hulled and sliced (you can use raspberries, blueberries, kiwi or a combination of these fruits) Glaze: 1 pouch Knox Unflavoured Gelatine ¼ cup cold water ¼ cup boiling water 1 tbsp. lemon juice 1 tbsp. honey Fill flan shell with pastry cream filling. Arrange strawberries over custard layer and chill. Prepare glaze: in a small bowl, sprinkle gelatine over cold water; allow to stand until gelatine is softened. Add boiling water; stir constantly until completely dissolved. Stir in juice and honey. Chill, stirring occasionally, until mixture is consistency of unbeaten egg white. Using a pastry brush, brush with warm glaze over strawberries. Chill until set. Pastry cream filling: ½ c. granulated sugar 3 tbsp. cornstarch 1/8 tsp. salt 1 ¾ c. milk 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten 1 tsp. vanilla (See Note below) In a medium saucepan combine sugar, cornstarch and salt. Add milk and egg yolks. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil and thickens. Remove from heat; add vanilla, and cool. *Note: Sometimes, I like to add or substitute some lemon extract or orange extract to add a little more flavour to the pastry cream.

When we were buying a house in Minnesota a number of years ago, at one corner of the property there was a large pile of pieces of metal. It was an un-assembled artwork made by a friend of the owner -- a 20 foot tall steel tyrannosaurs skeleton. The artist had made it under commission for a park in St. Paul, but when he finished he decided he wanted the city to pay more than the agreed upon price. The city said no thanks. The artist asked his friend to ask us whether we'd be interested in buying it for a mere $50.000. Hah. As if. Our response was "No thanks", and if it wasn't gone by the end of the day of closing we would considered it abandoned property, and would have it hauled away as scrap and would bill the artist for the disposal fee.

chicagoans - I've seen those corner drawers and they are so cool. I actually got the idea to put the bank of regular drawers on the diagonal instead from an article that discussed how expensive they are. Ooops - I guess there's a reason that option is cheaper. bmorepanic - How did you know?!?! I re-measured the architect's floor-plan (scale) and it looks like the range wall to island (counter to counter) is 48" and the sink wall to island (counter to counter) is 39". I'm really happy about the 48", but surprised about the 39". I will discuss with the architect because I distinctly remember her saying 42" for minimum aisle width. Hopefully we can bump it three inches without too much issue. And, I will definitely do the furniture trick. We already swapped the LR and DR furniture to see if we'd like it (love it!!!), so this is just the next logical step. rhome - I remembered why we can't move the fridge there! The architect said it will be too deep and it will obscure the site line when coming up the stairs. I suppose we could opt for a CD fridge, but I'm not really sold on them (especially with two growing boys!). Re: OVENS... So, I think I really confused everyone with my oven question. I don't actually want wall ovens - we can't spare the counter space. I was think a separate cooktop and oven, but installing the oven at regular range height. That's why I was thinking fridge / oven / cooktop. The reason for doing this is that I like the seamless flow of the counter around the cooktop and I feel like lots of crud could get stuck around the edges of a range. Thoughts? Is this crazy?