Hee hee.. I made myself some circular knitting needles... don't know how it will work, but, I am laughing at myself as I write.. 1. I disconnected some #1 metal circular needles from their cord. 2. With a dremel, I shaped the other (not the knitting ends) of the needle so it would slip into a small wire tube 3. Bought some plastic pony bead stringing tubing that has a very small hole, and stuck both needles in real tight.. Voila.. a circular needle.. size 1, length 11 inches! :-) When I go to Home Depot, I'm going to look for some stiffer wire.. this tubing is sorta flimsy.. Where there's a will, there's a way! :-) Pat

Ladynimu, we are at the tail end of our process (closing on our purchase next Thursday!) and also had a whirlwind period of looking every night. We were buying locally, though, so one night we'd do our drive-bys and the next we'd have showings scheduled to look inside the ones that interested us. A few we did not make offers on: The one with the "fun house" door frames... obvious cosmetic fixing could not disguise the fact that the door frames were crooked - closer to the ceiling on one end than the other! ANY of the ones where the neighboring homes were less than 20 feet from the structure we were looking at. We own motorcycles, and try to be good neighbors with regard to the noise generated by warming up the bikes. The lovely family home with the 18-inch-wide hallway that led to the basement door, and the disturbingly tiny winding staircase that led to a finished attic space (no kidding - four-inch deep step, four-inch riser... for CHILDREN ONLY? (Too bad, too - we both LOVED the location of this one.) The one with the weird labyrinth of rooms that was a foreclosure and had been vacant for three years. Generally, everything we looked at was tidy and presented as best it could be, with only a couple exceptions. The home we purchased has been a rental for a few years so it needs some TLC but we are happy to do that work and it will be a great home for us. Glad you found something, hope your favorite comes through! Janet

It's interesting what writersblock said, that the local Lowe's let go all their "pros" because that is what I see happening. Pros knew the merchandise and therefore knew how to serve customers. But they cost more to employ. Once you ditch that, your store is just a big warehouse with folks milling around. But that costs you money too, to run it and staff it, Then might as well be online and folks can "mill" around over the computer. IKEA is an interesting riff off of the warehouse concept, kind of like what I was talking about, a nice big showroom and then the warehouse below where you actually pull the stuff and assemble it. Lots of furniture I see is going to that model, albeit sans the warehouse so more risky for the customer. Seems like the jobs of the future are going to be in warehousing and truck driving and UPS-ing! However, we as customers are not going to be well served by this. However, it was always thus. Folks ordered from the Sears catalog back at the turn of the century, and it came via train and "Wells Fargo Wagon." Only the wealthy could afford custom built things with customer service. The department store was a departure that spread to the middle class, but I guess times were more flush then. Not sure what kind of storefront anyone could make a go of these days, but I know tons of people who fondly remember the joys of actually being able to go somewhere and shop in person. In my case, downtown and big department stores were FUN. I always hated malls, but even they used to be much more fun than they are now. I think a few artsy upscale neighborhoods can still support storefronts, but in my poor rural area, few businesses seem to be able to stay going at all. And they carry limited selections which means they just can't hardly even afford to keep the storefronts open. Can't even keep a florist shop storefront open, although my experience with ordering flowers and plants online has been DISMAL. The stuff that shows up half the time is crap, unless you hit the jackpot and find a decent local place that is partnering with the online ordering company.

Mila - sounds like you have a plan, and I know what you mean about not wanting to wait to follow through on your plan. There's always room for more roses if you get creative! Glad the pictures helped you get tempted - they're all great climbers and you can't go wrong with any of the three you mentioned. Summers - for sure you'd have to finagle a way to attach the canes to the trees, and that's getting way too close to Quadra for my skin's sake. He's big and thorny, and between two trees he'd be just waiting to pounce. For sure you'd need another kind of support in addition to the trees, or he'd be flopping on your other roses as you mention. I used to grow my Quadra as a free-standing bush and he was at least 7' wide and aggressive with space. Can you stretch some sort of trellis or arch between the trees for extra support? He might not bloom as much in part shade beneath trees, but I'm all for giving it a try if that's where he is. I have Veilchenblau beneath a huge oak tree and it's pretty impressive (though it doesn't want to climb). Cynthia