I agree with the above. Plus the fact that too much personal information gets divulged or can be mined by joining facebook. I'd rather limit my online participation to forums like GW and other, less inclusive, less wide open sites. I've been a member here for a long time....going on a couple of decades......and I have seen the same ebb and flow of visitor traffic through the seasons as we are now witnessing. January, February, March are always as slow as molasses but it will pick up when the gardening season comes into to full force in the next 6-8 weeks. And I have to say that the comments about excessive ads and pop-ups surprises me. I don't experience hardly any at all and just use Explorer with the standard firewalls. Didn't realize this was much of a problem anymore regardless of the Internet server one used...... I have to be honest when I say I read more than post. Most of the topics don't hold a great deal of interest for me and I tend only to respond to questions that get neglected or overlooked or when erroneous info is provided. Since conifers are not my area of concentrated expertise, I let others respond first - there is an amazing knowledge base here :-) But I still remain pretty active in some other forums. I also live in an area where the Internet is not widely available so I am not online at home. And since my work life is pretty seasonal and therefore computer access the same, I tend not to post much in winter anyway.

Hi everyone! The BLUE SEEDS are in the mail! I didn't quite make it to the post office in time yesterday, so they went in the mail this morning. Thanks for all of the interesting seeds that you all sent in! Please post here when you get your seeds, so that I know that they arrived safely. ihana, no big deal! Just as long as they get here, that is all that really matters. For anyone who is interested, the color of the month for July is RED and Bonnie is hosting that swap right here. I also thought that I would post the remaining schedule for the Color of the Month Swaps. Here it is: July -- RED - Will be hosted by Bonnie (highalttransplant) August -- PURPLE - Will be hosted by Linda (lindaruzicka) September -- BLACK - Will be hosted by Janine (janine) October -- ORANGE - Will be hosted by Lynn (carsons_mimi) November -- BIG RAINBOW - Will be hosted by Penny (cybermeowz) December -- SILVER & GOLD - Will be hosted by Jeanne (sandlapper rose) Thanks everyone for a great swap! Penny

Hi and Welcome, Susan. I'm so glad you've enjoyed this Forum, and even more glad you came out of Lurkdom to introduce yourself. Sounds like you belong here with all those dishes and ideas, hope you can share them as you already know we are a bit photo-obsessed here. LOL With many of our gang outside in their gardens this time of year, tablescapes are what keeps us going during the summer. I'm inside till about Oct, LOL. Phoenix is a bit too close to another place (H---l) for my taste during the summer. I just need to learn this dish stuff so I can better entertain the gang here. ;o> hugs, Karen

Yoo hoo golddust ~ Welcome to the other side LOL. I'm Nora from mid New York State. I've been married for 20 years and we have a 26 yo DS. DH and I got together when Eli was a little over 4 years old and we married when he was six. There is definitely truth in nurture vs. nature because they are like two peas in a pod ;o) We live on 7 idyllic acres in a small hamlet in southern Dutchess County with our pug, Tootie, and kitties Bitsy and Bundles. DS and his GF live in a cottage on our property, which is a blessing. We love to renovate anything that isn't nailed down and it seems that we're in a constant state of flux (no pun intended considering your metier). We also love to garden, which we do with fervor, though not always with as much success as we'd like. The earth tells us what it needs and most of the time we pay attention. But when we don't we learn early on that we should have listened to Mother Nature. Welcome!!