And planting them in September? I'm sure they will adequately water them though. As much as I like white oaks, a variety would be better - especially in the case of disease as grandma says.

Jeanne, your table is just lovely! The centerpiece is perfect, simple but so eye-catching. And you know that I love the addition of all the white bunnies (and tea pot). I am a firm believer that bunnies go with any and all holidays. LOL. Probably cause my house is overrun with the non-real kind. And none of those in the yard causing mischief, thanks to my life as a city dweller. Sorry I'm late to all the Memorial celebrations. And I never did get out my decor either. I'm going to give myself one more chance...4th of July...and if it stays packed again this year (be two in a row), then it will have to go. New rule I'm trying to enforce, stuff can NOT stay packed several years without seeing the light of day. I need to let someone else enjoy it if I can't. Anyway, I definitely enjoyed seeing your pretty things and am so glad you decorated for "us" here. ;o) hugs, Karen

This has been a fun process for me because I've decided to downsize considerably in order to justify having a few nicer things in the small space. I'll be going from an 1,800 sq ft home with separate garage/workshop to a 530 sq ft apartment above a 500 sq ft garage/workshop. This is an experiment for me both in simple living as well as in designing a living space that will cost as little as possible to heat or maintain. I'm also a bachelor, so it's a bit easier making a tiny space work. This structure is also being built on the edge of an heirloom fruit orchard of mine (16 acres), and much of my time is spent outdoors. The apartment is a comprised of a main living space divided into three areas: a well-equipped little kitchen, a dining area, and a home office. There's also a separate bedroom with a large closet as well as a full bath. The workshop/garage is large enough to hold a pick-up truck, tractor, a laundry area, a workbench, and three large chest freezers for storage. My challenge has been to take a serious look at what I truly need and I'm willing to give up in order to make this space work. I've learned a lot about myself in the process. In particular, a piano is more important to me than a sofa! When guests come to visit, our time indoors will have to be spent around the dining table. This is a concession I decided to make in order to have space for an upright piano. I also had to give up having a big, comfortable leather club chair and ottoman for reading and relaxing. Instead, I opted to have an over-sized bed (California King), really comfortable dining room chairs and an ergonomic chair for my desk (Aeron). Having sized down so drastically though, I will own my home outright (and all of its contents.) It's also been designed to be so well-insulated and airtight that I'll have a monthly utility bill of around $195/mo that will cover all space heating, air conditioning, hot water, electricity and propane, including a gas range and a top of the line steam shower. My Scrimps have turned out to be what I've simply given up: *No formal living room *No sofa *No space for a comfortable leather chair *No guest room My Splurges are: *Kohler Unwind Luxury Steam Shower (with six shower heads) *Sun Valley Bronze architectural hardware *Custom made Cedar garage and entry doors *Custom made Cherry kitchen cabinetry *Custom made Cherry rolltop office desk *Custom made Cherry Shaker Panel bed and nightstands with storage drawers beneath *6 Cherry dining chairs & table by Gary Weeks & Co. *BlueStar LP gas range *Yamaha Avant Grand N2 piano *Lie-Nielsen Roubo workbench (in garage) *BR-111 Tiete Rosewood floors and staircase *Sorpetaler Triple-Glazed European windows (from Germany) *Farrow & Ball paint *Caesarstone countertops *Rohl faucets and apron kitchen sink *Fisher & Paykel refrigerator/freezer *Bosch dishwasher *Motawi tile for bathroom and kitchen backsplash *Jaga...

Your new PC has solid state storage instead of the more traditionally common hard drive with a spinning platter. That's a good feature. This is the more technologically modern approach and is now more common and available for more reasonable prices for manufacturers and consumers than before. These are much faster than hard drives and I'm sure this PC comes on quickly when started from being off. The tradeoff is because solid state is more expensive than traditional hard drives, "standard equipment" is a smaller size. You have a 128 GB (gigabyte) "drive". My 14 inch PC, about 5 years old, has a 500 GB hard drive but it's very slow. What you have would be excellent for travel and casual use. As for something to store photos on, etc., the space may be limited (depending on how much you have) In this case, because the hard drive is solid state, it's been configured with a small "virtual memory". With my cutting board example, think of what you have as a smaller (and slower) additional cutting board you can use just to hold what was moved off of the main board because it's needed for something else. On your PC, a small portion of the "hard drive" has been set up for this task as virtual memory, a cache or swap file, to speed up operations. For others who find their PC gets bogged down, you can set up your own virtual memory without opening up the PC. Get a fast SD card or thumb drive of at least 4 GB and configure it using the WIndows Ready Boost feature. For PCs with inadequate RAM, it can help.