I see this post has resurfaced and I am glad. I was not around much when this originally was posted due to a very sad time in my life, but I am glad to add my views today. YES, I am very glad to have Felix back and to see pictures of his beautiful garden and listen to his stories and I wait the day I get to visit his place. I know you have offered me an invitation, Felix, but life just got in the way along with depression but I am back and ready to visit with people and live life once again. I can not wait to meet you in person and get to hear your stories firsthand. As a writer I adore listening to people and their life stories and history as it enhances my knowledge base and it allows me the opportunity to embrace another culture and outlook on life. None of us are true Americans unless we are Native American Indians. We are all immigrants and have come here to this country for varying reasons and the majority of those reasons were for political persecution or a differing of religious beliefs or ideologies. We came here to be free and to embrace a lifestyle where we had the rights to believe what we wished and to have a life where we could speak and fight for our rights and desires. This country is all about embracing people of all cultures, beliefs, creeds, religions, etc. We are all immigrants and very few of us are Native Americans and I feel shame when I think how we treated the Indians and still treat them today. We owe them so much and yet we do so much damage to them. I remember the mass exodus of Cubans to America and the turmoil that was happening in their country. We had numerous families in the Havana, Florida area and we laughed about the name of the town. I attended a very small school that was so prejudiced that they did not accept me because I was from Tallahassee and yet we welcomed the Cuban classmates. I spent a majority of my life living amongst the black community because my father worked in the lumber business and we lived at the sawmill. I learned about acceptance a long time ago. I have had the privilege of having Cubans in my family and I have learned a lot about the culture and more importantly the food. I love Cubans for bringing their food and culture to us. I love the fact they are hard working and yet they know how to relax and enjoy life. Most of all I love them for being some of the best Americans I have ever had the privilege to know. I feel their pride and their love for this country. I also have had the honor of being present for naturalization ceremonies at Disney where several of my co-workers became American citizens and took the oath. I saw first hand the pride and joy and the tears of happiness as they became a real part of this country. YES, one of them was Cuban. She has been in this country for seven years and now I tease her that since she is an American she has to learn Southernese. I have taught her how to say yall with the drawl and dahling, aka darling. She is so cute when she pronounces the words and she sounds so American and Southern when she does. I enjoy our potlucks when she brings Flan and other Cuban dishes. We have a lot of employees at Disney from South America and all across the world. Disney is all about diversity as is America. We also talk about gardening, herbs that we use in cooking etc. We are all Americans and we garden and work and love. We share ideas, holidays, cultures and we learn one from another. I am so glad we are part of this great country and that we are able to meet not only on this site but in person to share our gardens and plants and food and beliefs. I LOVE YOU FELIX and all the other Cuban or Russian or Italians or Greeks or whatever country you come from. One big American hodge podge hug. By the way I am Irish, Scot, German, Italian and American Indian. How much o a hodge podge can you get? I will close with this one phrase. Disney uses the word RAVE which stands for Respect, Appreciate and Value Everyone, Linda

Unfortunately, I've seen (and heard about) quite a bit of it over the years. I can even remember when people were publicly "disinvited" to swaps and hot back-and-forth arguments that went on for days. I always hear that gardeners are friendly people, and I think that's generally true. But, it's not a guarantee. I've met some of the friendliest people I know of on this forum (and through the East Tennessee Plant Swap), but sometimes you just get a bad apple. The trick is to not let one bad apple spoil the bunch. (-:

Thanks for checking in on our progress, patty_cakes! Unfortunately, with all of the rain we've received over the past month or so, progress came to a standstill and we are still waiting for our foundation to be poured! Construction crews all over this area are so far behind on jobs, and I'm trying to have patience. At least we presently have a house in which to live. I know that there are many who work construction here who depend on having those regular paychecks and when they stop rolling in, they really suffer. My heart goes out to them, and I'm trying to keep this all in perspective! As it now stands, our projected completion date is mid-October at the earliest. We have made all of our selections for the house, and I think I've got photos of most everything we've selected here in my "idea book." (Can you view it?) My vision was to keep things as classic and timeless as possible. We've chosen hardwood flooring throughout, with the exception of the bathrooms and the laundry which will be tiled. My kitchen will have white cabinets (with a couple of lighted Flemish-glass fronted cabinets to display my blue and white Cornishware), black granite countertops, and a glossy white subway tile backsplash. We've added crown molding throughout the house. Will have a stacked-stone fireplace in the living room (which is open to the kitchen - a concept that will be quite different than we are used to!). The bathrooms will be simply styled with white subway tile in the showers, white integrated counters/sinks, and we'll have brushed nickel hardware throughout the house. The walls will be painted a very neutral off-white -- certainly different from the Crayola box that our current house used to be! I'm yearning for simple, classic, clean. And new. Never, EVER thought I'd be saying that, but well ... here I am. :-) We'll be buying new furniture once we're in. I'm leaning towards a sectional in the main living space, and we'll need new bedroom furniture for the master and the upstairs bedroom. The little "game room" upstairs will be a space for TV watching and reading, and I'd like to furnish it sparsely but comfortably. I plan to use my paintings as pops of color, and it will be fun to figure out where to hang things once we move. I'll have to sell a few pieces, but I think I can use most of my favorites. We have already committed to plantation shutters in all of the rooms requiring window coverings, and I'm really happy with that decision. I've loved that look for ages, and am also just tired of dealing with curtains. Right now it still feels a little like a dream that's a long way off ... But I know we'll get there eventually!

Same old message I got. When I pushed the issue after that response [telling them I was an IT person, had tried 5 different browsers including chrome], they just gave me a song and a dance. When I pushed further, they claimed they were working on the issue, which was a couple of month ago. Thru external sources, I next got the name and contact info for one of their actual IT guys. I messaged him thru that source [Linked-In] but he never replied. I found another name there but had no way to contact him. It looks to me like they don't care and are not going to do anything to help.