When I was a teenager, my mother thought chipmunks were cute. My Aunt next door cut down on the amount of cats & Mom was feeding them (the tree rats). The next thing we knew, there were chipmunks EVERYWHERE. Dozens of them, digging up all the bulbs & everything we planted. Emptying all the bird feeders. Running & playing & most of all multiplying. My Uncles were poisoning, trapping & shooting them until they finally got down to a manageable number. In later years, I had a Sheltie who thought it was her job to be on chipmunk patrol & she took it very seriously & kept them away. My Newf isn't that excited over such a small mouthfull but we have an Eskie who likes organic dog toys (mice & such are organic cat toys). Linda

I believe I had IE, but not sure which version. Now, I am not sure WHAT one is up! Right now there are 3 searches running- there are 3 'file card tabs' at the top of the page. Two of them have a small red/green/blue/yellow flag icon, the third has the 'Gardenweb' icon- the page that I am on now. Walnut.. I did not download anything that I am aware of.. If I move my curser to the top nothing happens- there is a 'wrench' on the far right, but when I click on it, it opens a list that has 'Google Chrome' near the bottom, yet the icon on the far left of the page (this page), is the 'Yahoo' icon. I don't even have a way to open my 'favorites' now. Did IE7 have favorites/back/forward arrows, file/edit/view/tools/help in the upper left hand corner?? I am wondering if I am in 'Google Chrome' or IE9 by some chance? How do I check which browser I am set to go to auto? Tx

I am canceling my service with Comcast. I have the $4.99 charge to cover me in case I need to have a service call. Well in April I did have a service call as one of my two phone lines was not working. The technician who came out broke my phone and did not tell me that he broke it. I found that out much later -- it should have been a hint when he did not want me to hold the phone. Then he or Comcast put a $70.00 charge on my account. When I called Comcast, I told them about this, they admitted that it should not have been there and they told me that they would credit my account on the next bill, but that I was expected to pay it and they would issue a credit. I need to check the statutes but I don't think you can collect on disputed charges, especially when you are aware that YOU made the mistake. For the $70.00 that should not have been billed, they interrupted the service. I refuse to pay it and have notified my local jurisdiction and the FCC. If you are looking for a cable or internet or phone provider, don't walk past Comcast, run as fast and as far as you can.

I want to thank you all for replying to my post. It was very generous of you to take the time to help me with this decision. You all made some great points for me to consider. Looks like we'll be putting it on the market but I thought I would address some of the comments in your posts at this point: Play up what 'spoke' to us when we bought it issue: That's gonna be tough. I dare say I do hate EVERYTHING about this place: but I know that can't be entirely true. Mostly is though! I'll give it that it has a pretty good floor plan and a nice neighborhood. Period. Why did we buy it? Well we had a list of things we wanted the new house to have and this one had many of them, when we looked at the list on paper and put checkmarks next to it, it looked ok. i.e. 2 car att garage, 4 bedrooms, office, screen porch, playroom...Plus basically had the square footage we wanted for our family of 5, a nice quiet neighborhood, and was in the school district we were trying to get into, which was our #1 priority and could close in time (#2priority). That's about it. Nothing of the actual house itself spoke to us, other than to say" you'll need to fix this , clean that, update this, repair that"....ad nauseum. It had been neglected by previous owners and showed its wear and tear but we thought it had the bones to work with and once we put "our mark on it, it would be nice" and we'd be in a good school district. I remember saying that. We had left a lovely new house that I had drawn the plans for and needed nothing done but was in a poor school district. After the move I sunk into a very deep depression which I have been able with much effort to scratch and crawl my way out of but as a result I think I'll forever resent this hellhole since it robbed me of a couple years when I was depressed. We have done a lot of improvements and in fact it is considered by most (not me) to be quite nice. It is nice but I am too emotionally tied to hating it to ever see it as really nice. We could stay and continue working on it since there are a few mre things we'd like to do. The only thing is the more we do, though in a way it helps, in another way it just reminds me of what a mistake we made by buying it in the first place. The $30,000 lost issue: I think I was referring to the fact that the market has depreciated by that much here so I was seeing it as a loss IF we move but I agree with the point that it's actually already lost! I had never thought of it that way. Thanks for pointing that out. The can we afford to move question: I'd say that's the million dollar question. And the answer is a definite yes but with some caveats. We'll be paid off here within 9 years. Oldest will be starting college in 6 years. If we move, we'd need to go back up to a 15 year mortgage and payments would be about the same as now. Yikes, I am very frugal and paying a mortgage for an extra 6 years is a tough pill to swallow. Tougher even than the Prozac maybe! We have lots of friends who have lovely houses and 30 yr mortgages but I can't handle that, though we could have one S W E E T !!! house if I could. Not in the cards for me or my DH since I hate debt. a 15 yr mortgage again will be a little tough to take but less so than living here where I'm unhappy. And you know what they say: "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!" Life is short issue: Sure is which is why we are planning on selling. It's a tough market and we're only willing to lower the price such that we can get a nicer place with a 15 yr mortgage. We won't go so low on price here that would necessitate us getting a 30 yr mortgage for any new place. That would definitely make me resent any new place such that I'd be in the same boat as now. Hopefully we'll get lucky and be able to sell with not too big a loss. So, have I mentioned that I have a lovely house to sell????? LOL