El!! yay!! and no, you're not late sending yours at all. Sounds like you got a really nice pkg! I'm jealous, lol..I was cruisin Caren's site the other day as well. You do beautiful work Caren! Do fellow GW'ers get a discount? lmao!!! jk! I need labels as well, thats too funny...The dog snapped a few blinds on the back door, they were at the bottom, so I cut them off to use..got a little carried away, lol..now I need to get a whole new one for that door...DH thinks the dog did it all! LMAO! Shhhhh!!!

Both my main grill and my small smoker are on my deck but I'm very careful. all I have to do is look over the the next door neighbour's melted siding to remind myself. I lay one of those cheap hardware store mats down. They are black/charcoal coloured and generally come three sizes stapled together. Hope I'm describing them, ribbed, made from some kind of recycled poly pop bottles or something. So, on top of the mat I place concrete patio stones, those square or rectangular concrete blocks that are used for walkways or patios when you are first married and can't afford rock work. So, the mat protects from grease drips, the concrete is a bit of fire/heat protection for the deck boards. The smoker is out, away from the house and siding even tho we have Hardie board and even tho the smoker doesn't run hot (the grill does!) When I'm done the concrete and the mat go into a deck box and the grill or smoker get covered and put up against the railing on the far corner, out of the way. Usually the grill gets left set up all summer but I move the smoker because its used not as often and you want it out of the way because after you use it a while it smells good and smoky. Whenever I'm either cleaning the grill or using the smoker I bring the fire extinguisher up from the workshed as well. Never had to use it in 50 years but I still have it on hand.

Beautiful! I asked for the quilt book for Christmas, so maybe in the future I'll have a snow quilt too!

I have an "EPI", so called Mexican Orchid that DSIL left on the side of the house when he & family went to Okinawa.....I didn't want it. It is beautiful and in California Central Valley it thrived, outdoors in a covered screened patio. It has been here in So. Or now for 12 years and it has survived, but only on its' own terms. It used to bloom on Mothers' Day.....and today it (needs to be put in the garage) has 24 buds that need another warmer month to bloom. Every year it has been more prolific and I think we have 4 huge cocoa baskets that cascade a couple of feet. When we move it for winter, we usually lose some of the growth that I can't throw away, so every year I have many new starts to share. We leave it in the garage winters, with only light from the windows in the garage doors, and it survives our long absences while we do our snowbird thing, being gone 6 to 8 weeks with no water. It turned out to be one of my favorite things...and yet I don't really "know" much about it.