2LittleFishies, your wood top is SMASHING! I love the color and lines in it! We have a mahogany top on our island and have had it for 13 months. All in all I like it, we get a lot of compliments on it, but it isn't a bulletproof material. It will leave hairline scratches if you drag something across it that has a rough bottom so I try to be mindful of that or not serve the kids food in dishes that I know will scratch the surface. It is our island, so I do a lot of work on it. Kids eat at it every morning, do homework on it every day, etc. I don't cut directly on it because it has a shiny surface on it. But it gets used daily and lived in very well :) Honestly, my biggest regret is that we had it stained a few shades from its natural color because I was concerned the mahogany would read too red. I regret that. When the natural sunlight hits it, it's noticeable to me, looks sort of cloudy or not pure...can't really describe it. Maybe its just because I know its been stained?! I cannot tell you what finish is on it, the woodworker did it for me, all I can say is he recommended it over Waterlox and said it is what they use all the time. The thing that is nice about wood is that it gets that aged, lived in look, but can also be refinished if you ever want to.

I have to agree with Linda on this one. You arranged this nearly a month ahead of time, never even got a reply saying that he had received the email with the time and would be there, and never spoke at all in between? My friends and I generally think of long noncommunication as an implicit agreement that whatever was being discussed has fallen by the wayside. Less so if there's a definite date and time or it's a big-deal event, and it's certainly more polite of the guest to do the confirming himself, so as not to make you feel like the mother hen, but still, in the interest of not wasting my efforts, I would have called a few days before to confirm rather than just preparing a meal and hoping for the best. I think it was more than gracious that he apologized on the phone and then sent you a handwritten note after you chastised him twice. To be blunt, after that sequence of events, I would be wondering whether the host preferred being righteously angry to actually having brunch with me. You may find that everyone has more fun if you open yourself to some slightly less rigid social occasions.

First of all, if someone is young and healthy and doesn't want health insurance (maybe they get sick once a year and it doesn't benefit them to pay for a policy), why should they HAVE to buy it? The answer is that those young and healthy people spending $X,XXX a year on health insurance, but only using a very small amount of it, will be paying for the people who use more than their $X,XXX of health insurance. How is that democratic? Let me put it this way...say you take great care of yourself. Don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, workout, take vitamins, get plenty of rest, go to your wellness exams, blah, blah, blah. Your neighbor, on the other hand, stays up late, parties all night, smokes like 2 packs of ciggarettes a day, drinks like a fish, never works out, smokes something out of a pipe, and has already had a heart attack or two. It's his right to treat his body however he wants.....right, but still pay the same amount of insurance premiums you do? I believe our health insurance industry needs reform. How about starting with taking the government's hands out of it? The government isn't a business. Businesses create jobs and produce something, whether it be a product or a service. The government creates jobs, sure, but doesn't produce a single product or service. Yet they suck the money out of the businesses that DO produce a product or service in the form of regulations, taxes, and CAFE standards. Here's my other major problem with this whole 'health care' reform: I know a girl who is 29, married and has 3 kids. Her last 2 kids were very pre-term due to her hereditary high blood pressure (which she knew about after the 1st one). She doesn't plan to take any precautions to not get pregnant again, even though she would be risking her life and the baby's if she did. Not my problem. I love her and I would never want anything to happen to her or a baby of her's, but ultimately it's her decision. Also, she is receiving Medicaid for herself and her 3 kids and lying to get it. She sent an e-mail out about how she can't wait for universal healthcare (but aren't we really talking about health 'insurance' and not 'care'; let's face it...we can get health 'care' in any emergency room in the US). Her point is that her family can't afford $200/month for insurance, and she asked "how are we supposed to afford health insurance?" I answered her back and said "It's all about priorities...you have 2 vehicles, a motorcycle (that has been wrecked and repaired), 2 laptops, and 2 flat-screen TVs. If health insurance was a priority for you, you would give anything to have it, and maybe forgoe things that aren't essential to living." She is representative of SOOOOOO many people! Cell phones, fake nails, expensive hair-dos, cars, computers, iPods and what-not are a bigger priority to them than health insurance. And these are the people that are screaming for universal health insurance when they already have it! See, they have this misconception that it will bring their standard of care up. But in reality, it will bring everyone else's down to their level. My parents, my sister and her family and my brother all have Tricare (military insurance). You can't find a doctor, dentist or pharmacy within 20 miles of my house that accepts it. Why? Beacause they never pay what they say they will, and payments are 6 months behind.

II think you are misunderstanding me misabelle. All I have ever said is that the European forum has been in use for a number of years and all it takes is a little time to read through and see which trades are offered from the UK and exchange with them only is that is what you wish to do. I fully understand the implications of trading plants and seeds for that matter from outside the UK, as I trained as a botanist and now run a thriving rare plant business, so you see I may actually know a little more about this than you seem to give me credit for. Even exchanging plants within the UK can pose a risk, this is one reason why I will never exchange plants with people I don't know and can trust to have very good plant knowledge. I find your last sentence a little 'harsh', perhaps a slighty more friendly approach would have been nicer rather than being so dismissive of an alternative point of view?