Wow, what abusy forum in the last 24 hours! Oh Cynthia, what a disaster! You and your sister must be so disappointed. I hope she isn't in too much pain as well. Good that her kids are stepping up to the plate in her time of need. And the same applies to you V. Good foy you guys to be taking care of MIL. Rotator cuff injuries don't ever go away by themselves (ask me how I know) - sometimes surgery is required but often a course of physio will do the trick. Irt's a long haul either way. Interesting comments about kids and independence. Actually TCS wasn't the problem in the morning yesterday - it was all me! He was standing outside, fed, warmly dressed, teeth brushed, back pack packed and on, while I was still in the house trying to dress the dog (harness, coat, Invisible Boots), looking for my hat and mitts. I walk TCS to the bus and then walk/run the dog before I come home again. I am very pleased with TCS's mornings - he gets himself up, finds clothes, packs his stuff, and will often make his own toasted cheese sandwich, glass of milk and Flintstone. I usually try to keep him on track time-wise, by saying things like "It's coat time, Adrian" or "The hand on the clock is at the 3". That means it's 8:15 and time to be brushing teeth and finding winter duds. He's good at bedtime too, with his music practice, snack, reading etc. although he would keep his light on to all hours to continue reading! And he also takes his own bath, washing his hair himself, although I like to rinse it sometimes, as he does leave some shampoo. He also makes his own bed, it's a sloppy little nest to be sure, but he does do it himself. I think he's doing o.k. for seven years old! It's interesting that I brought up my two kids the same way, because both DH and I worked and sinmply couldn't do everything, and my DD has been very self sufficient since the age of about 17. DS on the other hand.....I'm still working on him *G* I like using the debit cards. We have them only for one bank account, and that is our "disposable" cash. We have another account for bills etc., and a pension goes into each account, with the bigger one into the "bill" account, so the money is always there to pay the monthly bills. My rant is because the "disposable" income always gets disposed of *LOL* This week I saw an ad from the SPCA about a rescued Boston Terrier, and I just love my Boston, so I called to see if maybe we could adopt him. The SPCA wanted an adopti0on fee of $700! Yikes! There isn't that much in the diposable account right now, so I had to send my regrets. Still sad about that one. But that's the way it works. When the dispoable is disposed of, no more spending. Simple. I should just dispose more of it myself *LOL* I really like the HOnda CRV. When we bought the Subaru Forester, it was toss up between it and the CRV. The only reason that the Forester won out is that DH is a big man and he didn't fit well into the CRV driver position. We now have a big horse of a Ford, but still have the all wheel drive. Once you have it, you always want it! DD just bought a Nissan Extrail (I keep calling it an Entrail *LOL* it does have "guts") with the 4 wheel drive. She commutes about 45 minutes to work, including night sifts when the plows might not yet be out, and also drives to the ski hills every week-end. The 4 wheel drive is almost an essential for her in the winter. We went for the $500 deductable beacause we have only had one accident in 35 or 40 years. The difference was about $50 bucks, so in the long run we are o.k. with it. Glad that our little mishap had some good consequences for somebody, PM2! My solarium window faces south east. Too hot and bright for orchids directly. When I do my pelargonium cuttings, I cut a good sized stem, remove the lower leaves, stick on some rooting hormone where I removed the leaves, and stick the stem into the dirt, I mean, earth (sorry, gardeners don't have dirt). I water carefully as they don't like to be very wet. I use clear plastic cups so I can see the root development.I usually lose a couple to "black leg", that is, the stem turns black and rots, but not many. I also water with my leftover Lotus water, which has extra oxygen and apparently has sanitizing effects. This seems to help with damping off or whatever. Glad to hear Ebony is better. I hate my hair. Doesn't matter if it short, long, or inbetween, it always looks lousy. Hmmm, maybe I'll get it cut today. I got carried away with JJobs yesterday, and spent an hour cleaning the grout on the kitchen floor. Looks great - but the tree is still standing in the living room. It's getting really old still having Christmas stuff around - TCS started decorating Nov. 29th!! Our smoke detectors are hardwired into our house, and yes, we do have a carbon monoxide detector too! Gotta run if I want a drive to the hair salon. No time to proofread, sorry if there are mistakes. Later. Julie

We need to buy two new openers for our wood doors. One door is large- for a two car area & the smaller door would house one car. We hardly use the second door, it's just for storage, anyway. In our remodel both have broken. The large one was on it's last legs anyway so our contractor sent a guy out to check it out. His idea was that both doors need new springs (no big deal) new brackets and hinges and door buttons. I asked for weatherstripping on the bottom of the doors as well. The contractor's guy spec'd two Genie units (no model numbers) but I believe are both belt drives as quietness was discussed. The bid was $2500+!!! I called in a guy who my neighbor had used about 4 years ago. He put a Stealth in her same large garage door for $500 at the time. He came today and recomended a Liftmaster belt drive instead of the Genie recomended realignment and hinges etc and all told his price was $1800. You can guess what I'm going to tell our contractor. I don't have the quote yet (he's faxing it today or tomorrow)but is a Liftmaster better than the Genie Stealth? Not sure of the horsepower either is spec'ing. Input please!

How about a picture of the outside of the structure of where it would be leaking. It's all a guessing game without an inspection. However, it would be better to guess knowing a little of how the structure is built. From the picture, it looks like a service door from the garage, to the house. It appears those are the rafters in the garage. If that is the second floor, it would be a juncture to the main structure from the garage roof. It does not matter where the water is coming out. Water takes the path of least resistance. It can be leaking at the juncture, running inside the wall, and existing where you see it. You have to help us out a bit here with some more pictures.

It sounds like Speckles is on a mission to drive you crazy. We have one Plymouth Rock hen who thinks she is supposed to live in the garage. You open the door to walk in and she runs in behind you. Then she hides under the grill or behind the deep freeze so you cannot get her out of there. I try to keep the garage doors closed to keep her out, but since our garage is large (1200 s.f.) and has three roll-up doors and two walk-in doors, and is used for storage as well, someone is constantly going in and out of there. When Chris is working on his house, he is in and out of the garage all day getting tools and such. That chicken spends more time in the garage than she does outdoors. A couple of days ago I came outside in the middle of the day, and that hen had about 15 other chickens with her, standing and waiting at the walk-in door so they all could run into the garage the next time someone opened the door. I ran them off before I went into the garage and I closed the door quickly so they couldn't run in behind me. I don't understand why she has become obsessed with the garage.