I heard the "ping" and you're right, they're awesome!! That was fun ... stressful but fun. And I think I'll be much more relaxed next time when I know what I'm doing much better. Thanks so much for all the help and advice. I was worried about this but it all seemed to go pretty well. I might even take some pictures tomorrow of my efforts, once the jars have cooled for their 12-24 hours. 1 more question. If you're making a recipe, like Annie's Salsa or a cooked one like that and you add too much of something that is important to the pH, like an extra tomato, or too much of a fresh herb because you read the directions wrong, by mistake ... can you just add a little extra acid (vinegar) to the mix and let it go, or is it a major problem and you have to toss the batch and start again? Can adding a little extra acid compensate for small measuring mistakes? I do want to find a rack, the towels worked but were cumbersome and difficult to work with. I thought maybe next time I could use one of those racks that you put pies on to cool after cooking ... I have one that fits perfectly in the canner and it seems to be able to handle the heat. Perhaps that would be better. I also used towels between the jars so they didn't bang into each other. I did use the grape leaves, I didn't see your post in time. I guess if they taste bitter or odd, we'll know why and I won't use it again next time. Everyone seems to be a fan of pickle crisp, I'd never seen or heard of it but clearly I'll have to look and see if our grocery store carries it for next time! Again, thank you all so much for your help. I'm so glad I canned my first vegetables from the garden and I'm also glad I'm done for the night, lol. My feet hurt from standing so long! Thank you!!

Thanks for the update. I look forward to Saturday. Just to make sure I have everything squared away, here is the list of hostas to trade so far. Let me know if I forgot anything/anyone, or if I made a mistake. Annie - You just wanted something different. I will take a gander, but I am thinking that I have a Montana Aureomarginata that I love the look of. Do you have room for a large (27"70") hosta? I will also grab a couple extra for you. Dave - Golden Tiara, Janet, Blue Wedgewood Tina - You wnated Blues and mini's. I have Blue Wedgewood, Halcyon, Feather Boa, and Emerald Tiara. Does that list sound OK? Two mini's and two blues. Gata - You said just pot some up, so check my list below. These are some that I will bring incase people might want them. Here are the additional Hostas I'll bring in case people wnat them: Emeral Tiara Golden Tiara Feather Boa Blue Wedgewood Halcyon Janet Feather Boa Stiletto Ginco Craig and some open pollinated seedlings. Did I forget anything? Any changes?

I also have the Bright Ribbons pattern (probably the Lollipop too). Many years ago, I created the Basic Pattern, but joined it without the whipstitch. It turned out so beautifully. Now I have twin grandsons due in May and I have begun the strips for two baby blankets. However, when I joined the strips I found another Mile-a-Minute pattern (don't know where) that had a beautful, lacy joining and adapted that to my Basic Pattern. My DDL still has the blanket I crocheted for her "baby" and I don't have the intructions for joining. Am looking for any patterns that have a lacy join. Thanks so much.

Well, the party was a lot of fun, and although the freeways were empty, Kevin wanted to take La Brea, which was also almost empty. We only had traffic near Hollywood & Highland. Kevin got confused on Cahuenga because he didn't realize that we were supposed to be on E. Cahuenga, but I finally convinced him. He's only been to the John Anson Ford Theater once (I've been quite a few times), and he's never been to the Hollywood Bowl OR Universal, and so he's not as familiar with the streets and neighborhood as I am. It took us 20 minutes on city streets, and so that wasn't bad. Paul is kind of between gigs right now, but he was able to buy his condo last year. His last job was video editing for a new reality dating show, which will premier on Bravo the first week of December. Here's his imdb profile, which oddly does not mention that he did the video editing for Blind Date, even though I have seen his name on the credits at the end of some of the early episodes. That's where he met my friend Secha and subsequently how I met him. Also in attendance, doing most of the cooking, was a friend of his named Sean, who books talent for several talk show - I don't remember which ones, but he was interesting to talk with. There was also a friend of Paul's from Boston and his wife (from Seattle), who were pleasant but live in Orange County and were a bit dull. They thought Venice was full of crazy people and didn't like. Also, Vince Ly was there, whom I met when we were making Attention Span, As for the food - Paul admits to not knowing how to cook anything (He has a copy of the book How To Boil Water, but he was in charge of starting the turkey before everyone else arrived. For some reason, the turkey was cooked with a rum glaze that contained nutmeg, and I found the nutmeg to give the turkey a very off flavor, and so I only ate a small portion of the thigh, which, however, was very moist. The breast was dry. Paul loved the mushroom gravy that I made, and the entire quart that I took got consumed, even though there was also some plain gravy that someone else made. Vincent brought a ham and a cake, and Paul gave me some of the ham to take home and Kevin took some of the turkey, which I was not interested in eating. Most of my stuffing was left over because there was another stuffing that was on the table (Mine was left on the pass-through and therefore not easily accessible) made using a boxed stuffing mix. I didn't eat any of that, but I did have mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Paul made the mistake of buying Ralphs' brand instead of Ocean Spray, and the other Paul was not letting him live that down, telling him that Cape Cod economy depended on everyone buying O.S.! My friend Paul lived in Boston before moving to L.A., although he lived in Poland until he was ten (speaking only Polish and German) and then in Austria with his grandmother for two years after that. Paul was cracking jokes constantly during the party, and he has a very dry, quick wit. His accent is more like The Bronx than Boston, and so he comes off like a NY personality. At one point he found an abandoned half consumed bottle of beer and demanded to know whose it was. Then he exclaimed, "This is alcohol abuse! Don't you know that there are sober children in India?" Toward the end of the party we started talking about the next party, and I told Paul that I would like to host it, since we live about half way between the two Pauls. Paul's birthday is exactly one week before mine, and so we decided to have a joint birthday party - or two parties one week apart. There's no telling what his schedule will be like by then, however, since his work is very sporadic. I hope it will work out because he's great at parties! BTW, I didn't make the ice cream because I forgot that the recipe calls for milk, which is something I never have on hand (except after guest leave and leave it in my fridge), and so I just took some strawberry ice cream that I had made a month or so ago. It was still good, but no one at the party was interested in ice cream, since we had cake and pecan pie. If it has been chocolate ice cream, however, it would have been good on the cake (which was chocolate), but then I guess strawberry would have been good on the cake as well, although I didn't think of it at the time. Oh, I had the idea of making Caesar Salad, but I had forgotten to ask Kevin to buy the lettuce. I should have made the salad dressing and croûtons anyway because Paul had bought the Romaine lettuce and forgot to get the dressing. I wish he had told me because there was not a single green vegetable at the meal! In fact, it was rather sparse, but still enough food and lots left over. Kevin and I were very happy that we didn't have to go to a restaurant, and I was especially happy to renew contact with Paul and hope we will see more of each other in the near future. Lars