Wooo!!! Cat, I am stuck at home because of the snow storm so wandered around here not looking at anything in particular and came upon your thread. I totally agree with you on the shower curtain choice. Regardless of whether I have the money to spare or not, keeping those suckers clean is a nuisance over time. We have a glass shower door that was installed back in 2003 and I can't tell you how much I hate cleaning it. Not that the door is all that dirty, but a shower curtain is way easier, and you can change the look/style whenever you feel like it. Can't do that with a pricey shower door. Anyway, everything looks lovely as usual, including the "prom" dress :-) Love, love those circular tiles, and the floor tiles that look like fabric. Gorgeous. What colour is that again? It looks greyish on my monitor.

How you feel about winning a particular medal is a relative thing. Going in to a competition expecting to win nothing, you would probably be elated to win Bronze. Going into the same competition expecting to take Gold and ending up with Bronze, that's a completely different feeling. Not that I'm excusing anyone, just that I can completely understand. It's human to feel disappointed when losing a hard fought game. On the other hand, do ya just LOVE Apolo Ohno? He got disqualified in that final round in the 500 meter when he could have won silver. I'm CERTAIN he was disappointed, and he made some remarks regarding the fact that he disagreed with the judges' decision, but he still smiled and said how he had no regrets and felt that he'd had a successful and satisfying time. And speaking of speed skating controversial decisions, the judge who disqualified the Chinese team in the women's relay received threats on his LIFE! How's that for sportsmanship? Ah well, it's over. It was great fun to watch. Congratulations to ALL the winners. Looking forward to the summer games in London in 2012.

To answer and address some previous questions...The containers I typically use for trialing roses are in pots that are 16" wide and 18" deep. They are the thick, black plastic pots you see at nurseries that they use for small trees. My garage is attached to the house, is unheated and non-insulated with a concrete floor. I place the pots directly onto the concrete floor and do not cover them. They receive snow as insulation and as a way of watering them as things warm. More snow is added as needed. Throughout the years, I have had excellent luck in overwintering roses in this manner in average and typical winters. However, in the past 2 record breaking cold winters up here, I have lost the vast majority of the potted trial roses and other plants including perennials. Hope that helps.

We live in a mountain community and our street/development has less than 15 homes on it. We each have at least 2 acres of land around us, so . . . while I can see a few of my neighbors homes, I see them at a distance. One morning a few Winters ago, I was looking out my front windows when I saw a strange man walking down my next door neighbor's loooong driveway towards their house. This, I could see, was not my neighbor, his wife, or their cleaning lady. I didn't want to ignore it, as we all watch each other's homes out here, so I call my neighbor at work. I told him what I saw and he asked if I could see his cleaning lady's car in their parking area. His wife was traveling out of town on business, so he knew it wasn't her. Nope, no cars anywhere. So, he asks me to call the police, as he's actually answering my call during his class (he's a professor at the university). He then told me in a whisper to tell the police that a specific side door was unlocked. I called 911 and a couple of minutes later I see a police car rushing up their driveway. Because of the angle of our two homes, I couldn't see anything else. Later that evening, my neighbor called to tell me what happened. The police officer entered the house very quietly with his gun drawn . . . only to confront my neighbor's cleaning lady carrying a basket piled high with clean, folded laundry. The poor woman was frightened out of her wits, threw the basket of clothes in the air, and almost passed out at seeing a police officer there pointing a gun at her and yelling, "Halt! Put your hands in the air!" The guy walking down the driveway was her adult son. They were afraid the driveway was too slick for her car to get up, and so her son drove her and then walked her up the driveway so she wouldn't slip. He had parked his car down on the main road, and they'd walked from it there. But, when I saw him he was coming back to the house a second time, bringing his mom something she'd forgotten in the car. So he was alone when I saw him. My neighbor didn't blame me. His cleaning lady didn't blame me, but I felt absolutely horrible and so embarrassed at what we innocently put that poor woman through!