I guess I am a plunker. I keep buying things that remind me of something when I was a kid or is just pretty then before you know it I have 20 or 30 things in pots and have to make a new bed for them. Then I put in stuff and still don't have room for it all so what do I do? Put it in bigger pots to hold them over til I get another bed made and then go buy more, lol. My patio looks like a jungle. Oh yeah did I mention I need more beds. I am trying to talk my hubby into making me one the entire length of the back of the house and clear out the shrubs on each side. Then I want to yank out all the ugly shrubs across the whole front and make those flower beds too. Poor thing he agreed to buy this house out of all the ones we looked at because he thought he wouldn't have to plant anything since it had mature trees and shrubs already. I just said thats right and let him dream til we actually got it. Now I am slowly filling him in on the real plans I have for it all. I love my trees but hate the shrubs. Especially since he doesn't like to trim them. I would much rather have pretty plants there. This is my first house and I have been waiting a long time to have a place to plant things so I am really enjoying it. I had neck and shoulder surgery recently so I can't do my own digging or I would be done already. Sorry for the rambling post.

I quit in 1993 pretty much just like nod702. Cold turkey but I chewed on toothpicks instead of sucking on peppermints. It took at least a year to get to the point I wasn't reaching for a cigarette 40 times a day. It took several years before I quit dreaming about having one. It was THE hardest thing I've ever done. I cannot believe drug addiction could be any harder. But, then, I've never taken drugs. I distanced myself from all contacts and activities I associated with smoking. No going to happy hour with the office crew on payday friday, no spending time with friends who smoked, no going dancing in smokefilled places, no coffee. I can do all those things now but not in the beginnng. I visited with friends by phone and those who cared about me understood. The ones who didn't weren't real friends. Nowadays, there is texting and email and facebook to keep in touch. Back then not. Your true friends will help you through this. They will not smoke around you or they will understand that you can't be around them for the time being. Just remember, this is well worth the effort. Don't give up.

A few years ago, DH asked for a giant flat screen tv for Father's Day ~ so sweetly and pitifully, that I couldn't say no . . . although I wanted to! The problem was that our family room has only one (semi)unbroken wall to it and anything on that wall competes with our hand-painted kiva fireplace in the corner right next to it. AND, to complicate matters even more, that wall (pretty much the entire house, actually) is made of real adobe bricks, which look awesome but are a bear to try and hang anything even kind of heavy on. Too heavy or put a nail in at the wrong angle and you can end up with a 3" wide and deep hole, where adobe dirt and hay fell out of the brick . . . and you can forget ever hanging anything on that brick again, even once it's patched! I really wanted an EC like Goldie's that had a wood back to hang the tv on, but it would have totally overwhelmed the room :~( A great credenza, like Haley's or Bepeace's, would have been nice but I was afraid to hang the tv on the adobe wall and I couldn't find one to hold ~AND HIDE~ all of our DVDs, tapes, and components. I wasn't so concerned with hiding the tv, but thought that the components and DVDs would clutter up the area too much. And then we found a tv lift console that solved all our problems- it hides lots of stuff inside of it and the tv sits down in it, as well, when we aren't watching it. When it's down, it doesn't compete with our fireplace, which is a huge bonus in our small family room! I do have to tell you, though, that it was a huge PIA to actually get that tv hung on the console's hanging bars! But now that it's done, we love it. The motor is quiet and smooth and the remote easy to use. Another downside, for anyone contemplating buying one, is that you can't put anything on the top of the console, decoration-wise, as the back two-thirds of the top section opens up as the tv slides up. We bought a narrow tower to sit next to it and I have a lamp on that. We also have a set of three framed Indian artifacts that we've hung over the console. They were a huge PIA to center, but they work with the kiva instead of competing with it. So, that's one more solution to consider, not so much to hide your tv, as ours seems to be up more than it's down like most people, I guess, but it is a tv hanging/storage place. I do want to make it VERY clear that I'm not criticizing leaving a tv out on display all the time. I think it's a perfectly ok thing to do. I just wanted to show you another option for any flat screen tv and explain why we went with this option. Lynn Our flat screen up, before we hung our art over it: And with the tv down:

bpathome, the Instant Pot does release steam out the top. Mine never makes a mess, though--it's just steam that goes upward, there is no water or residue on my counter that I've ever noticed. terriks, the IP is a pressure cooker that can also be used as a slow cooker and a rice cooker. I've had one for a year now and I use it multiple times per week. It is great for soups, cooking dried beans without presoaking, making mashed potatoes and hardboiling eggs so they are very easy to peel. I love that I can make soup really fast after I come home from work and I can steam a whole sweet potato for the baby in under 15 minutes. I feel like the IP does save time but for me the primary advantage is that it takes no supervision. I put the soup ingredients in and close the lid, set it for 15 minutes and walk away. Since I am often multi-tasking while I cook, it has saved me time in not having to go back to check if the soup is simmering, adjust the temps, adjust the lid, stir, etc. I've also made mac and cheese in it but did not feel it was any easier or tastier than the traditional way--it was the same and took the same amount of time. We do not cook meat but I can only assume that it comes in very handy for meat dishes, too. Here are the down sides: 1) the steam does vent straight up. If you don't have an island, I think the steam frequently venting under/in front of your cabinets might not be the best thing for them. If you are standing there when it vents you can divert it, but that negates the "no supervision" benefit. 2) It is big-ish and heavy-ish; unless you leave it on the countertop, you will be lifting it. My favorite large soup pot is a Le Creuset, so it's not a lightweight option, either, but if you have carpal tunnel or something, you might want to consider the weight and where you will store your IP.