I haven't watched them all. It's very sad. However, the small amount that I did watch, one of the people interviewed said, where are the parents demanding better playgrounds.....o.k. they should have better playgrounds. But honestly, where are the parents....period. I think the schools should be responsible for healthy, balanced meals, recess time, and bring back gym class! Physical education. Where you have to wear a gym suit, uniform, whatever, run, jump, kick, play ball, get some cardio, build some stamina. Phys. Ed. is a thing of the past, or at most, you take it one day a week, for one 9 week marking period. Get rid of all junk in school, I'm o.k. with that. But that won't fix anything if it's not in conjunction with better eating, healthier living habits outside of school. The schools need to teach personal responsibility, early. Have a program in the most impoverished areas that teach family's how to cook healthy on a very low income. Until eating healthy is as cheap, and as easy as McDonald's, mac and cheese and hot dogs, nothing is going to change. Someone posted quite some time ago saying that it's amazing how many people don't know how to cook/make homemade food. So have programs that teach that. It is a joint effort. The schools, the federal government, the doctors can't do it alone. People have to be responsible for themselves also.

Well, I found this post from 2015 where they valued a similar Berlin Design Vermeer copy blue plate (Girl w/ Pearl Earring) at $55-$95 depending on condition and box, etc.: Blue plate Girl w/ Pearl Earring JMO, but I would value Vermeer's GwPE as his most desirable work.

I think I can at least help with the chimney question. I'm assuming there is a fireplace facing the LR on the other side and you want to vacate it, yes? Possibly the FP is in the basement and this is just the chimney portion? It should work pretty much the same either way. We had a mid-house FP like that that needed to come out for structural reasons (wasn't footed correctly when built and was causing problems). Here's the original:Here's after they removed the FP and the chimney exposing the DR behind it. Notice the holes above and below. Not a problem. All of this only took one day of work.: And here's how it looks after everything was patched up and the sunken floor raised, but before finishing touches including furniture:This is a very doable project.

update met with the student who could help with the heavy stuff in my alottment, he was in time, in a nice and reassuring way average, friendly, interested, dug in an impressive speed and after like 2-3h I asked when he could come next week... the woman I share an office with asked about him (mentioned my plans before at a coffee break), and sounded enviouse because her DH refuses to hire help and promises to "do all that stuff", since 2 years she is waiting for a small paved path to be re-built... men, at least, some of them...;-) (my DH gave me a hand when I asked and moved some stone slabs to another corner, almost threw his back out, and I promised myself then not to ask him again for really heavy lifting, yep, it`s been a while since we were twenty-something....) It is amazing, the whole weekend I was in an extremly good mood and noticed then what a load had been lifted off my shoulders- I am calmly optimistic now that this season all those "extra projects" and nasty corners will be cleared, I even allow myself to fantasize about a batch of Eremurus which I considered for the edited perennial border since, ahm, 2 years... do you know those penny-drop-moments' WHY haven`t I done that last season? apart from that I`m determined to streamline the garden for low maintenance, no foufou-plants, paved paths and some paved lawn edging, and with the aditional help, I hope to get all the slow but persistant weeds like creeping buttercup before they flower... have a nice week everyone, bye, Lin and here a pic for all the snow dwellers or frost ridden among you - the Darwin hybrid tulips popped open on the weekend