Jeff, the swap itself begins promptly at 2 pm, but I'm hearing many people are arriving earlier, some with food in tow. It is located at the Lake Cunningham Recreational Facility where I have reserved the covered area for the day. This park is on N McElhaney, right near the intersection of N McElhaney and Rte 101 (behind the fire station). Here are the original rules I established to help keep things from being totally chaotic: 1. If you bring one plant, you take home one plant. If you bring two, you take two, etc. 2. Houseplants, annuals, perennials, herbs, vegetables, shrubs, trees, vines (did I miss anything?) are all welcome. Seeds or cuttings can be swapped for other seeds or cuttings. 3. I prefer to separate the live plants into "swap rounds". Each person will put one plant into the "round", and numbers will be drawn to see who gets first, second, third, etc pick of that round. New numbers will be chosen each round so the same person doesn't always go first. If you brought only 3 plants, you can only be part of three "rounds". This may not be the way you have done it before, but I'm appealing to you to humor me and try it my way. 4. Since I don't want to keep everyone for hours, I'm limiting the live plant "rounds" to 6. We can swap seeds/cuttings in rounds after, if needed. 5. Please schedule your personal trades for a time that does not conflict with the actual swap. I believe the park is open sun-up to sundown. The Plants: * Please make every attempt to label the plant with its latin name, including the variety. Plastic cutlery or popsicle sticks work great for this if you use a Sharpie. * Please bring plants that are free of bugs, disease and/or weeds. * Please remember to water the plants thoroughly the night before, not the day of the swap. This will help prevent muddy messes. Sandi

Hi!! You have mail. I forgot to ask if you could also include some of the fruit and some of the shrub seeds. Thanks much.

We had the same probelm in our family, and at first no one saw any problem with two grandkids having the same name--one was a boy named James, called Jamie, and the other was a girl named Jamey. But now I would advise against it. The kids ended up being called "Big Jamie" and "Little Jamey" due to their difference in age and height and "Little Jamey" and her parents did not like her title. In fact it caused a lot of rifts in the family. Not to mention the confusion it always caused. Names seen so important when you're naming a baby, but actually there are so many nice names to choose from it's not a big deal. In fact we "re-named" one of our children when he was 3 months old, because we decided we didn't like the name we'd picked after all! If you can, suggest they leave the name Max for a dog (it is in fact the most popular name for a dog) and choose different names.

Virgil said: "More to the point, cost vary due to complexity, quality and frankly, lack of thought resulting in change orders during construction." Exactly. Are you building a basic house with clamshell molding or no molding around the windows, inexpensive carpeting throughout, minimal tile, laminate counters, etc or are you building a top of the line house with 10" crown moldings, 8" baseboard molding, calcutta marble tile in the bathrooms, Sub zero quality appliances, hand scraped hardwood floors throughout, and fireplaces in every room? Are you building in a HCOLA area or in you in a rural area where land and labor are inexpensive? A great example is my house which is custom. If I go with his basic features, which are still very nice, my cost per square foot will be $217 a square foot. Not cheap but it does include granite, tile, wood floors, a pool with hot tub, security system, a Bosch appliance package, tankless water system, semi custom cabinets, Kohler quality fixtures and many other options. However if I add every single option at the maximum price, meaning I decide I can't live without the $50 a square foot tile, or need more expensive wood flooring, the elevator, a full outdoor kitchen, upgraded moldings, a fancier staircase, etc, etc, the price could jump to as high as $279 a square foot. I can go outside my target area to an area that is 5-10 miles from where we're building and can build a house for 1/2 the price per square foot. Same zip code even. So as Virgil is saying, it really means nothing what the square foot price to build is.