Larry, I'd like to schedule your traveling road show to come here to southern OK regularly in 2015 and bring us rain once a week every single week next year in June, July and August. I'll feed you all the tomatoes you can eat and can carry back home to Arkansas. Bon, Breezy sounds nice. We're actually 3 degrees cooler and much cloudier now than we were earlier this morning, so even if the rain misses us, maybe at least it will be cooler and more comfortable than yesterday. The temperature yesterday only hit 94 degrees at our house but the heat index hit 100 and it was just so icky and sticky and humid out there. There's a reason that April and October are my favorite weather months. Both generally are cool (at least below 90 degrees most days) and sometimes rainy. We're still a couple of weeks away from October, but for the next few days I think the persistent rain pattern might keep our high temperatures in the 80s. I am so ready for that. I'm not really ready for cold nights yet though. Dawn

Susan, Our biggest adventure is just getting out of the driveway. For the last four nights, including last night, our overnight lows have dropped to 16, 14, 16 and 16 degrees. So, all afternoon long the snow and ice melt and form huge puddles in the driveway and then at night they refreeze into what is essentially a 300-foot long skating rink. It takes that refrozen ice/snowmelt half a day to start melting again and then it forms huge puddles that refreeze again. Once you start driving down our driveway, you can't use the brakes or you'll slide and it is nerve-wracking. We have it good compared to many though, and I am not complaining, just saying that snow falling is pretty and after it falls it then is an unwelcome guest that just won't leave! Last night while we were eating dinner, our firefighters got paged out to a housefire...the 2nd one here in the last 5 or 6 days, the third one in the last month and the 4th one since November 1st. That's a lot of housefires for a county as thinly populated as ours, and I feel for the families who have had their homes damaged or destroyed. Their situation reminds me that a little ice on the ground is just an inconvenience, and not a tragedy, in the overall scheme of things. I'm going to make suet this afternoon. I hope y'all have fun on your shopping experience and be careful on the ice.....you don't want to hurt your back! Next year if I start hoping for a white Christmas, I want y'all to slap me upside the head and remind me "been there, done that, and it was a mess". OK? Dawn

Can you get them out of the sun for part of the day? Move the containers under a tree (or wherever), or build a temporary canopy to give them a bit of shade.

I never used to make so many desserts, either -- I hardly ever make dessert all year, so why do it when they aren't even very good? But I could do the candy and frozen bonbons before I went to Israel, so I did them just for fun. Also, my kidz will be home for a few days, and when my daughter is home, the house fills up with her friends, so it's good to have some stuff around. lovestocookfor6, I don't have much experience with the frozen gefilte fish. My friend recently made a terrific dish with two frozen gefilte fishes, one salmon and one "regular," spread in layers in a spring form pan. She said it was really easy. I liked it so much I took home half the leftovers! I thought about it, but I have too many people for that. Anyway, I happen to like the stuff in the jar. My friend and I are not giving up on our quest to learn to make really good homemade gefilte fish. We need a lesson from someone with experience; recipes are fine, but we need to know the correct pre-cooking textures and tastes. The frozen strawberry mousse is really fun to make. I made it this morning. Be sure to use your very biggest bowl -- it is amazing how much this small amount of ingredients grows. The recipe perfectly fills my big glass trifle bowl. 2 egg whites 3/4 c sugar 1 pint (small basket) strawberries, hulled, sliced, and lightly sprinkled with sugar 1 T lemon juice pinch of salt 3 T "square wine" (kosher concord grape wine) Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Add sugar and beat again to stiff peaks (that's what the recipe says, but think more like "marshmallow fluff"). With mixer on low, add the remaining ingredients and start beating slowly, then bring up speed. Beat for 15 (yes, 15) minutes. Cover and freeze overnight. It doesn't freeze very hard, and it melts pretty fast, but it refreezes pretty well. Garnish with strawberries or nuts. (Chocolate curls would probably look spectacular, but I can't stand chocolate with fruit.) Enjoy! I hope you find the afikomen --