A couple of months ago, my brother-in-law called belly-aching that he was tied down to his house ALL WEEKEND because it would take him that long to burn up the old wooden deck he just replaced.....HOLD THE FIRE ! ! ! We went by with a trailer and got all the CEDAR he was ready to burn. 4 x 4 support posts, 2 x 5 decking, 2 x 8 stringers, 2 X 10 joists up to 16 feet long, and all sorts of 1 x 1 spindles ! ! ! Who cares if some ends were a little rotted? We just trimmed the nasty stuff and used the rest! We finshed one raised bed garden (4' X 16' X 2.5') and are now finishing another 16' x 16' raised area on a slope. It only cost up $30 of deck screws and a couple of bags of cement for the corner posts. That's alot of lumber recycled! We are filling it up with a free pile of dirt from a lady's yard a few miles away. She had sidwalks put in, and the contractor wouldn't dispose of the topsoil he removed. All she wants is to have us level it out and throw some grass seed over the flat spot! If we have any leftover long boards, we are going to make a "turtle log" to jut out from our shore on the lake. The natural log on the next lot has 20+ turtles on it everyday, and there are always more that are swiming around it. Cedar should work pretty well. We will just tie a couple of clear plastic grape juice jugs under the floating end so it won't sink away.

Jim, Did you get your boat??? Here's a few fishing boat names to get you thinking... Boatweizer Weather Oar Knot Never Again II Debaitable Braggin' Rights Learning Curve (painted upside down!) lol Sunny Side Up Knot So Fast Beached Buoys E-fishn-C Chub Tub Fishcapades Rhumb Runner Fish Tank Naut-a-Byte B.O.A.T. (Bank Owns Another Toy!) And, if you're braver & don't mind the chuckles... Happy Hooker Master Baiter Pee-2-Lee Looking forward to pixs! Our first boat was named 'Whiskey River'. I love the name of our current tender that we either carry on the swim platform or tow behind the boat...'Little Tender Behind'! Even the Coasties laugh... /tricia

How about a swap thread (a thread that we make an effort to keep on page 1)? People write to the thread saying what they need to borrow. Someone who has the desired item sends it out, and then the borrower sends it back when finished. I guess the particulars could get worked out over email, but if you don't know who has what, you write to the swap thread to find out? For example, I don't need it now ('cause DS's 4-year b-day has just passed, not to mention we are moving and I don't want one more thing in my house right now), but that Ninja Turtle cake pan that somebody has could have come in handy...and may come in handy next year! But I'd never go out and buy one. That's just one example. Why not reuse and recycle, instead of going out to purchase a gadget you'd use once or twice? Just a thought. -mando

ML- my MIL had actually given me her jewelry and silver shortly before she died. She hadn't been sick or anything, she just wanted them to be passed on and I was the only close female and mother of her only gd. Also, she knew I treasured family things - and old things. When my kids were little a neighbor girl (close friend) died. They passed on her skates to my dd. A yr later when our oldest ds died we also gave special items of his to his close friends. dd (about 10) decided she wanted to give her other friend her watch now while she was alive. Wow. what we can learn from kids. I told her that was a great idea, so off she went with her treasured watch. I encouraged the other kids to do the same. My bgf at the time admired a diamond chip ring I wore - so, I just took it off and gave it to her. It meant so much to her she wore it with her wedding rings. It wasn't an expensive ring by any means. In more recent yrs my sister has often admired a 'jade tree' (oriental) that I inherited from my MIL (it's very small - maybe 8" tall w/little pieces of 'jade' (don't know if real) for leaves). She thought I planned to leave it to her in my will. A yr or 2 ago I gave it to her for Christmas. It has a front position in her china cabinet. Decades ago another sister collected Hummels and I had lots of them from MIL so I gave her a bunch of them. and maybe 10 yrs ago now I sent my #3 son my wedding ring and his ggf's pocket watch for Christmas (I had no idea what to buy him, refused to buy something he might not want or need. I knew that of all the kids he also treasured old family things (he's the future 'keeper' of the family history). Also, my wedding ring would mean something to one of the kids (not me). He later told me that those were the best presents he had ever received! Another yr I reprinted a bunch of pics from his childhood (some with siblings and/or pets) and put in a small album. Again he loved it. He told me 'keep things like that coming'. He'll get all the family pics when I die but why make him wait til then to have some to go thru and show to show to his kids? In the 90's I gave my Apple dishes (tons of them!) and some silver serving pieces to another bgf. She did 'Sunday' dinners and other entertaining. I didn't, my kids were grown and in other states. She'd get great use of them, I wouldn't. I ran across a beautiful crystal bowl the other day in a box and decided that I'd be keeping that out - to USE now, just for me. Time to have it out regularly and enjoy seeing it. I also plan to use the good china just for me. now that I think about those Hummels - I ran across more of them while unpacking. My BIL bought one each Christmas and sent to my MIL. Those will be good things to tuck into a Christmas pkg to the kids. I like it much better knowing these people are enjoying the things now rather then them being in a box in my closet. Monk - that is the one show I've watched on regular tv in recent yrs. well, until it went off. darn. I didn't watch the first few yrs of it, so caught them on reruns.