Hello all, I'm Dody's sister. I do have to say it's a struggle for her. She is doing everything right even down to the exercise. (Isn't shoveling snow exercise?) Now she has some obsticles to over come because she has a very bad back, she has four stints in and more recently rotor cuff surgery. On top of that, she suffers from vertigo. Kodows to you Dody. Myself on the other hand, do not belong to any diet club. I've been fortunate that I was skinny all my life and only in the the past two or three years have started gaining weight. Slowly it snuck up on me. One day I looked in the mirrow and ouch.. there it was, an innertube above what used to be my waiste line. Month by month, it was insidious as it crept up on me. Enough already!!!! So Dody loaned me a slider for WW foods and sent several websites. Wonderful!! I lost two pounds in the first two days, and the third pound the next. Then two days later had regained one pound. and it has stayed there, unchanging for over a week. This morning however, the scales blinked on the one pound less mark and settled on the original number.. Grrrrrrrrrrrr... well, that tells me that maybe it will come off all in good time. It did make me a little happier, because, I've given up my doritos and chips and yummies and exchanging for fruit and cheerios and oatmeal. Which in it self is a hardship, if you had any idea of how much I love doritos. So here I am useing the 18 points.. I really dare not go less then that and I only go over it every couple of days or so. I know we are allowed 30 something extra a week.. (I'm right, yeah?)

I use Cooking Contest Central (you can google and find it). There is a nominal annual fee, but I've always found it worth it. Right now, they have almost 70 open recipe/cooking contests listed just on the Deadline Contest list alone--that doesn't count professional, ongoing and other kinds of contests. Alternatively, I'd suggest Googling something along the lines of: "recipe contests"+May+2008 or "Cooking contests"+May+2008 If you include month and year, you will help narrow down the hits you get. Some will have May deadlines, some may have May notification dates, but at least you won't have millions and millions of contests to weed through, trying to find the viable ones. Try the next several months, and see what pops up. Sometimes, I've even found contests that way that aren't listed on the cooking contest website--although that's really tough to do--they're pretty thorough with their listing. Hope that helps. Sorry I took so long to get back to you, but it's been a busy night around here. If there are any other questions I can help with, just give a 'hollar'. Is there a particular kind of recipe you're interested in working on? Don't post specifics, but if you feel comfortable posting a general category, if I know of any appropriate contest, I'll let you know.

Do read the fine print on everything. Prime shipping isn't all free. Often an item on Prime costs $5 more than the same item without prime. They just build shipping into the price. Additionally, often one version will be on Prime, and the others aren't (and sometimes there are different prices depending on color or whatever). That happens more with outside vendors who use Amazon for fulfillment, but sometimes for direct purchases from Amazon, too. Kindle Unlimited is a separate fee. It does cover about 100,000 popular titles, but the other 500,000 are self-published on Amazon books, so the number of titles available is misleading. Not all the self-published stuff is bad, but little of it is very good, based on my sampling. I got Unlimited at a big discount on Prime Day because I figured I'd use it enough to pay for itself at the reduced price. I figured I wouldn't at the regular price. KindleUnlimited only lets you have ten titles at a time, though you can read them across devices (up to six). You have to give back some to get more. I have a Kindle Paperwhite which I use for the daily paper. I'm allergic to the new inks and can't read the paper on paper anymore, and I love that it just shows up and I don't have to put on a coat and go outside for it. I read books more on my phone and tablet, however. The lending thing is okay, but I find it confusing. Echo is also something to look into. Prime Instant video is great. I use it on my iPad. With titles that aren't on Prime, however, it can be a pain. The best thing, however, if you live anywhere within the catchment of one of their big distribution centers, is the amount of one day, or even same day, deliveries that are possible. Mimipadv, I definitely remember driving all over town looking for what used to be available at a local store, or should have been available at every store, etc. When you need something right away and don't have time to go chasing it, and Amazon can deliver it for less than parking would cost, it's a real boon.

Yep, the sconce. Now that's a good eye! I moved it to the hallway, which I also had painted the same color. The window shutters were also removed and I will have window treatments installed. Re the lamp/table, etc, everything but the wall unit and ceiling fan - anything and everything in the way of furniture in that room - will be removed, GONE. finis. p.s. I never picked out the original furniture.