Aaarrggghhh - I posted this to the wrong thread. I am braindead on Friday night. Anyway, I hope that I do not insult or annoy anyone, sincerely. I think that like a weed, you need to kill the root. Families need to be supported. They need to be educated in survival skills, something most of us learned from our parents - pinch pennies, eat good meals, save what you don't spend. Not that it's a lot better in Canada, but if I may suggest: Support school breakfast programs - a brain with a full belly learns much better. This is not everywhere in Canada. I wish it was, but where there are people who agitate for it, and actually get involved, it happens. Support universal health care. imho, it is the poorer of society that suffer from the above. I grew up 'working poor'. I have no idea how my parents did it, pre-health insurance. It kicked in when I was 11. So many good people struggle with health problems, and cannot cope with the bills. Twenty years ago, 2 friends of mine had hysterectomies. In Canada, one simply had the operation, covered by our provincial health insurance, which we all are required to pay into, in some way. In the US, the other had to re-mortgage the family home, and her marriage eventually failed. I'm not saying it was the extra debt, but debt is stressful. This may not be the most politically correct thing to say, but I am so glad that you now have an administration that wants to make universal health care happen. I wish I could remember where this came from, but to paraphrase, 'Societies are judged by the way they treat their most vulnerable members.' Something like that. Nancy, who is covering her head lest the brick-bats come.

Minnie, I didn't know that about the transfers. I bought it mainly so I could attach two clay pieces and rebake, using the LS as a glue. I wasn't sure I wanted to try it with plain old glue. Of course I want to try some more creative applications, too. Looks like I need to look over the insert that came with it again. I scanned over the Sculpey site but they don't seem to have many projects for it. I'll be looking for ideas with a more open mind now that I have some. (Oh, Rosie, thanks for asking; I had a nasty cold --well, aren't they all...? I couldn't do any paper crafts 'cause I would have huffed, and puffed, and sneezed the paper away. :-/ Glad to be on the mend!)

I am not up on current pricing. However, it sounds about right. Yes, it's rural, but the crowd tends to be upscale, designers, oil execs, etc., from Houston have weekend places and ranches there. Renovating/restoring historic homes and cabins is a very popular endeavor. Central Texas has been into re-purposing furniture and slip covering sofas and chairs forever. I first saw the SC on Montana when I still lived in California, and then I was reminded of it when saw a satellite of a Houston store in Round Top in the mid-nineties--it had slip covered upholstered pieces, but it used Bennison fabrics exclusively. More pattern variety than what SC had at the time, but emphatically comfortable, faded, natural, down-filled, and so forth. The Round Top Antiques Fair has gotten much more sophisticated over the years; Festival Hill concerts, Shakespeare-at-Winedale, Royer's Round Top cafe, touring the renovated historic cabins and homes, visiting shops and galleries are fun things to do there. There used to be lecturers in herb cultivation and use; they were well-known, but I'm not sure if their place is still around. The official population of the town is 77, but the county has about 22,000 people (and about twice as many cattle, LOL).

I'm probably too late, but for what it's worth, I'd say go for it, if that's what you want. That's what DH and I *wanted* - just to go to Vegas (or Tahoe) and get married on our own, but we "caved" to the pressure from the "moms" to have a small ceremony here in town. It didn't take too much planning - that wasn't the problem, the problem was the almost *constant* pressure on us to do this or that and "give in" to how other people wanted the wedding to be. Even though we didn't have much planning stress, it was still made stressful by the parents, friends who were upset they weren't included, and non-immediate family who also weren't included. It was low-key - in a backyard (though even that was dicy, due to family trying to pressure us again), with a JP (which we caught flack for as well), lunch for the family (which we had to fight to pay for, and it was a pain finding a place that everyone would agree to - in the end, *I* ended up compromising & our wedding lunch was at a buffet, of all places)...I suppose it was okay, but it wasn't the "special" day just for us that I had envisioned. Nothing nearly as memorable or exciting as running off and just spending the day *together* somewhere else would have been, and we were both so focused on just getting it over with and getting away from the family that we didn't even really notice much of the ceremony or vows - it all felt like we were just "going through the motions" for other people, puppets on display, rather than two people vowing to be together forever (DH agreed with me when we had a chance to talk later). We didn't take a honeymoon because my in-laws wanted to go along (they were going to pay, and we couldn't afford one on our own at that point since we were buying a house)...we spent the night in a local hotel instead. If I had it to do over again, I would *insist* on running off with just DH, and maybe a couple of our closest friends like we wanted to in the first place. It would have been an exciting trip, honeymoon included, and we wouldn't have had to deal with all the pressure and stress that just planning even a small wedding came with. So if running off and eloping is what you want to do - by all means, go for it!! You have the rest of your life to share with family - the wedding should be for *you* and your future husband, IMO...including family is "optional", and you shouldn't feel guilty for not wanting them there.