Actually, I should clarify that, 99.9% of the time, I also use my check card and don't spend money unless I have it but am finding more and more reasons to keep a small balance on a prepaid card, just for this reason. Safer to have paypal and eBay tied to a prepaid card with little extra funds on it. I also have most things automatically withdrawn to pay bills. Stacy you aren't the only one who forgets to pay. Has nothing to do with having the money or not, the month just slips by so fast. But for an example of getting phished, I guess that's what you'd call this: I use FireFox, Gmail, AVG, Spybot etc., all the supposedly geeky software to keep one safe online. A couple of months ago I followed a link via the forum to another forum that I've visited in the past, but have never contributed to, and never went farther than the home page, so never clicked any links even on the other site, within 2 minutes I had a bounced email show up in my email box from a commercial orchid grower. Now, I followed no links on the site, use a different email address on GW rather than my private one and my email address was somehow phished. Last I looked, my router had all unnecessary ports locked down. What got through? For the record, I've never had any spam come through the email account I use for GW. It could be a coincidence, but it certainly looks like just visiting that site, somehow my email was compromised. I'm pretty savvy about this stuff, so trust me when I say this was scary. I don't, however, store my bank username and password, it's the only one I don't save. You just can't be too careful anymore. I conduct just about all business, other than grocery shopping, online but sometimes even I'm tempted to become a luddite. Scott, still sorry to hear about this and your mother. I'm a BC survivor, but by the grace of god, go I. There are a few of us here that have battled that devil, very young too.

Yeah, this HP I'm using right now is going back to Sam's, anyway, as soon as the new Dell I just ordered comes... HP has BURNED ITS BRIDGES with me... after 35 months as a customer with first one, then two computers registered in their database and me ALMOST ordering a replacement for this defective piece of DISPLAYWARE I unfortunately walked out of Sam's Club with, I flaked out of the sale in the middle of the "Checkout" process the other night because I had a couple "issues" I couldn't resolve online (primarily a LONG buildtime I couldn't understand) -- at which point their system popped up a little window asking if I was having a problem I couldn't resolve online and would like someone to call me, and if so, to leave my first and last name, and a phone number and click continue, which I did... then I made sure my "cart" was saved so I wouldn't lose the configuration I had set up, as it takes a few minutes to get one like you want it if you don't just want a stock system (and if I wanted that I'd buy the cheap junk they sell pre-built, like what I'm taking back, lol)... and then I closed the HP window and went about my business... When I hadn't had a call from HP by Monday night (that was Sunday night), I logged on last night to see what was going on, and it showed my cart was EMPTY (of course NAV ran in the interim, so my cookies probably got cleaned, but I DID have an account using my email address and a password, for like 3 years now), so I tried logging on, and my password didn't work... Well I have a few different ones, so I figured maybe I FORGOT which one I was using with HP, so I clicked the "forgot my password" link and plugged in my email address and they HAVE NO RECORD of my email address... So I called them up and talked to one of their sales people, and he searched the computer, and they have NO RECORD OF MY EMAIL ADDRESS, NAME, OR PHONE NUMBER (the primary ways they would have me referenced), which means they likely don't even have my current computer and monitor (the ones that are going back to Sam's and still have 10 months fo warranty left -- supposedly) in their database with my name on them any more. Well, THAT DID IT -- Dell got the sale... But now it's been more than 24 hours since I closed THAT sale, and although I immediately got an automatic email from THEM "acknowledging" the order, I've yet to get the "order confirmation" email, with the "order number" and my "customer number," etc. I just KNOW you folks didn't care about all this jazz, but I'm just SO freakin' frazzled and frustrated with these #$%^&* computer companies right now I could EAT A BULLFROG!!! :-P Somebody PLEASE "pass me a Coke and a smile" or SOMETHING! :) At any rate, with this HP Media Center that's going back to Sam's (not ONE, but TWO defective CD drives, and a cordless mouse that eats batteries like CHEESE), the FIRST THING I did when I got it was create the System Restore disks and Restore it to factory condition (considering it had been a display model for like 8 months, I thought that was QUITE PRUDENT, huh?)... So that's happening AGAIN before it goes back to Sam's, so they don't get anything I paid for, lol, and in the case I.E. 7 DID cause any problems, they'll all go bye-bye... And I'm guessing if this new Dell system EVER DOES "confirm" and ship, it'll COME with I.E. 7, so I really won't have to worry about it, since I really won't have a choice, lol. Ummmmmmmmm, anyone wanna give me a ride to the funny farm so I don't have to leave the car there? :-P

Update: the dresser/buffet was finally sold tonight! (a/k/a chest, credenza, flat screen TV stand, LOL!) Thanks for all the suggestions. I appreciate the time people took to be of assistance. I learned a lot, and will save these ideas for the future. Thanks especially to dilly_dally for her many good ideas. It really helped. It took almost 3 weeks to sell the dresser. Im not sure if thats typical or not. It sold after I re-titled it as a campaign chest. (Yes!) From my first to third posting I lowered the price from $425 to $275. But I was happy with what I got in the end. I had overpriced it originally figuring I would be bargained down. With both that and the table that sold a little faster, they paid the reduced price listed in the second (or third) ad and did not ask for a further reduction. Each was sold to the one and only person who came to look at it. Not sure if thats typical either. I had sent pictures to the local consignment shop as a backup, she said she would price it at $450, but I would have gotten half of that, and would have had to pay $50 to have it moved there. I sold the dresser/buffet just in time; I have just enough time to get the carpets shampooed before I go Saturday to pick up the CL dining room set that I paid a deposit on in December! I couldnt see bringing that in until I moved out my old stuff. Thanks again!

Been working my way through a pile of books that I just have to get back to their rightful owner, plus one of them would make good fodder for my monthly book review column that I do for a local rag. The Perfect Storm is a YA epistolary novel based on the real-life Galveston hurricane that happened in September 1900. This was actually a really good read, and in fact, the descriptions of the "I was there" POV of the lashing of the rain and the winds and the utter destruction that was the result was really powerful, as when I put down the book to let the cat out, I opened the door fully expecting it to be rainy and windy, instead of 100 degrees that it was. (Sigh. This might also have been linked with the fact that we haven't had any measurable rain in the area since last October. Wishful thinking.) The other book was called Breathing, In Dust by Tim Z. Hernandez, which is really a series of short stories (more vignettes, really) of life in a poor urban Hispanic neighborhood of LA. Each story/vignette can stand on its own, but when read as a group, you can see threads of various stories and characters throughout the book. Although I didn't enter the book with very high expectations, it was still a good book and it's likely that the author made it pretty autobiographical. Like I said, I enjoyed it but it did seem rather as though it was a thesis or dissertation from a graduate writing program. So, as a complete change of pace (and being heavy with guilt from having too many books on the real-life TBR pile), I pulled out a Ruth Rendell book of short stories which I have had in my possession for absolutely ages. Titled Piranha to Scurfy, it is a really good collection of short stories that cover a wide range of topics. Not a murder in them (so far), but more of the unexpected twisty tales of Saki or perhaps The Twilight Zone... Thoroughly enjoying this one. And in the spirit of cleaning up the TBR pile, I pulled out the NF Stuff:Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and gail Steketee. Starting off with famous Collyer brothers in NYC, the book has started really well, and I am looking forward to reading it with gratitude that I am not a hoarder (nor is any of my family). I think it would be tough to handle. So - that's my weekend ahead of me. Reading, reading, reading. (I hope. I do have the MIL in town, so there may not quite as much time reading as I hope...)