I also hate cucumber beetles, and thrips. I guess I dislike all of the bad guys. Ants may be at the top of my list. However, putting everything into perspective, it is spring, and there is no ice or freezing weather. All is well. Sammy

There are 2 safety issues with home pressure canned foods - pH and density. The problem with noodles, pasta, rice, etc. is they are thickeners, they change (increase) the density of the food in the jars. Increased density requires higher pressures, greater temperatures and increased processing times. How much time and pressure increase is unknown but the implication is that it would be so much that the end product would be inedible or at least undesirable. Commercial canning equipment is very different from the good old home pressure canner. They run at much higher pressures and temps than we can achieve at home. In some cases as much as 50-100 degrees higher. Plus the commercially canned foods are often irradiated first and have additives and stabilizers added to maintain the pH of the food during shelf storage. We don't add those items when home canning nor have irradiation equipment. Home pressure canning will never be able to duplicate commercial canning so we have to live with some restrictions they don't have. Using such thickeners is one of them. So when possible we learn ways to work around them. For example, you can make up small bags of pre-cooked rice or noodles and freeze them and include them with the canned food to be added at preparation time. That way you have the safety and the convenience. Another alternative is to make the chicken noodle/rice soup and freeze it rather than canning it. Hope this helps. Dave

Me? A procrastinator? Just because I put off until now reading this? I started to read it on Thursday, but after just a few words I saw a bad word! EXERCISE! So I didn't read any more. So here I am. So far today I have: read the paper, had my oatmeal and tea, made the bed, fussed at the cat for getting on the new chair, checked on Eagle Cam, Africam, Gorilla Cam, and lucked out on Djuma Cam and spent a lot of time there, had a banana and more tea, watched a few minutes of 20/20 that I taped last night (will finish that later) played around on photoshop, started a letter to a friend (I'll finish that later) and now here I am back at the KT. And it is time to fix some dinner, or I could do that later. Oh, well, guilty as charged. Think I'll watch the news. Sue

may_flowers and sprtphntc - I seldom buy either. I have been buying and looking at a few things lately. Both my mother and my MIL downsized this year and I got a few small pottery pieces from each of them. I wanted to display them but none of them really went together and so I was looking for other pieces to set them off so I was prowling consignment stores and antique stores. So much of it was pretty but not suitable, but when a piece "spoke" to me and I thought "yes, you will set off and add to my enjoyment of my great-grandmothers water pitcher", that's when I bought something. palimpset - exactly. I agree with you. I too prowl real estate listings (used to frighten my DH) but I don't want a new house. Appreciating things does not mean having to own them. mudhouse - oh I really like that imagery of "stocking the visual library in our minds". I'm going to use that line on my DH the next time a situation arises. Then watch him try to figure what I'm saying - he won't get it, poor guy. romy718 - Perhaps like your daughter, I just want to convey my joy in seeing something that I think is, for me, pretty. I don't expect the person that I'm with to agree with me because I do know that we all have different tastes and different definitions as to what is visually pleasing. I guess I just want them to see my joy in seeing something that I find to be pretty and I want to share that - not to buy but just to stop, take a minute and enjoy looking.. Oh, and to be clear that doesn't actually happen all that often. And kevinmark - you're right ,not every gorgeous accessory is meant to buy. I suspect that if one did that the joy of owning pretty things that one found joy in would somehow be diminished over time. For me anyway.