I had a wonderful timer...it had a clip on the back and I could attach it to my shirt.....and it rang until I shut it off. Alas though it wore out!. Since then I have gone through 3 or 4 others....one that was very good, Peppi gave me.....and my son who has "rock band ears"...played in a rock band as a kid and wouldn't pay attention to me about using ear plugs... anyhow he "stole" my timer because he said it was the only timer he could hear. I need one that clips to my shirt ...or hangs around my neck. I remember walking over to a neighbor's who was in his yard....and he saying "Linda, I don't know what you are timing but you only have 2 minutes left!" I need that polder one....and I need to get rid of the 3 in the drawer that you have to punch 45 times to set for 45 minutes!!

Hi Schoolhouse and Bronwyn, I appreciate (and totally get) your opinion. And you haven't hurt my feelings! I always tell my kids, make sure only take offense if you can tell the other person wants you to. Anyway, since you brought it up, here's why this cottage, at least in this iteration, will not be what you describe, which I would call Maison du Lac or "lakehouse-y". 1, Been there, done that. Our lakehouse has all of that vernacular. Pendleton loves me. It is totally de rigeur in that setting, and I enjoyed doing it, but I don't want to do it again. I can't find an interior shot on this mac but here she is: 2. I don't view myself as cutie-pieing it, more like feminizing it a bit. I could cutie pie it up with purple shutters and pink awnings and a ice cream parlor set and a wooden dutch door with stencils. Or make it a Little Mermaid house or somesuch. I never even did that when they were infants. My first daughter's crib featured b/w gingham with apple green. My children's rooms and bathrooms are sophisticated enough for an adult. BTW --- I don't judge people who want their kids to have a Cars the Movie Bed, because I know they could judge me as harshly for not letting my kids "express themselves". I would disagree, and say they are very welcome to express themselves, but tastefully. Anyway, my point is I don't cutie-pie anything --- at least no intentionally! 3. Form, and finishes, follow function. My girls are likely to be the primary users for now. I also have a few friends and relatives who think it would be so romantic to stay when they visit. And I would like to turn it into a pondside bar when we entertain outdoors, to get people to come down to the water instead of just look at the views from the patio. Someday, I can see making it my office. Or maybe my own Petit Trianon! In any event, this won't be a boys fishin' lodge or poker room. It's for us girls, and it is a bit of a folly we would not try elsewhere. 4. My inspiration pictures (avert your eyes if you are tired of seeing these) are actually girly. The picture at the top of this post was just the best shot I found showing the layout I want. The style, as I have said, is fab, but not what we want here. My inspiration pictures are the little cottage in the link (note the loft sans railing, where the chandelier must hit your belly button) and, this pic, which I posted about before, when i posted about how to "copy a look" The picture above is, of all of the images, the closest to the look I want. To that end I have bought a similar sofa (the one in the photo is an enormous albeit gorgeous two sided circus act!), copied the ottoman and the rug, even bought a silver tray and aqua vase, and chose pillows to mimic the look but somewhat different colors (pillows are shown below on an unrelated chaise in an unrelated room ). I am holding off to see if a chandy will ruin the sight line to the loft. I am using wall sconces similar to the chandy, and probably a mirror. I am trying to get some of the pale pink in my painting the shiplap ceiling pale pink (BM Pink Bliss, which I think was one Bronwyn suggested when I said I was looking for pale pale pink) Of course, my room will look totally different, for goodness sakes, because it has stone walls! But I think everything looks good with stone or brick. It will surely be unexpected, but i think it might look very nice in a quirky off beat way. Or, it will be awful. In which case it is a matter of few pillows and repainting the ceiling. So there you go .... more than anyone ever wanted to knpw! Here is a link that might be useful: One of my inspirations

My neighbor switched to LED outdoor Christmas lights last year. What I didn't like was how puny the light was....toooooo dim. Big contrast between our C9 reds and his LEDs. We usually run four or five strands of outdoor lights 24 hours a day for the month. We turn off the regular outdoor lights for December. In the house, the tree and a lighted garland and a couple of small lighted things are the extent of it. Our electric bill doesn't rise that much...a couple of dollars from the lights. One of the keys is that we turn off our regular outdoor lamp post and garage light. Indoors one lamp doesn't get used during Christmas. It's a trade-off. We are slowly replacing all our incandesent bulbs in the house. I'll miss the warmth of the old bulbs, but the new energy savers are looking better and better each year. For now, the LEDs are staying in the stores. Someday....maybe..... Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Soul

CFLs are working fine for me in the kitchen. A small room with eight 23w CFLs (each equivalent to 100w incandescent) is adequately lit. I'm interested in LEDs for the dining room's eight pendants. Our dining room is a multi-purpose space - the kids use it for homework, SWMBO for sewing and painting, plus dining of course - so we want the light level to range from very bright task lighting to mood low. For full bright, we used to have 100w incandescent bulbs in each pendant. That's 800w I was burning! The dimmable CFLs I've tried don't dim down to ''mood'' low-light levels. LEDs might be better, but the glass pendant shades are fairly small and the 100w-equivalent LEDs I've seen don't fit. Plus, at 8 x $60 = $480, LEDS are still too rich. So we currently have a combination of dimmable CFLs and halogens, and keep looking for something better. Almost every other light in the house is ''warm (soft) light'' non-dimmable CFLs. I'm perfectly happy with them. LEDs would have to come down by 75% in price and 50% in size to get me interested. The next project is to replace some wall switches with timer switches, since no-one can seem to turn lights off when leaving a room.