It was a confusing time for me as well. I had done the Secret Santa Swap and had also sent a few SASBEs to a few others. My son and DIL were here and since they live in Africa, it is a once a year thing. We were all going on a cruise for Christmas so I had a little too much going on. I also sent for some Hot Pepper seeds that had very specific instructions. You needed a bubble envelope, small envelopes inside that were labeled with the variaty you requested, postage, etc. I did all of that and mailed it before we left on the cruise on Dec 21st. It has still not arrived, but it also has not been returned to me. My experience with the post office this year has not been good. In the Santa swap they returned something. Then I got a call that said a package couldn't be delivered because I didn't have a mail receptacle. Then when I went to the PO to get it, they couldn't find it. They also told me there was no such house number on my street. Then they found the package and it was marked with two things, both wrong, but one said "address is a vacant house but they were home". Neither house is vacant, and "hello", if they were home why didn't you leave it. Could it be because you were at the wrong house? My mailbox is in the same place it has been for the past seven years. It is about a block from my house because they don't want to drive down my street since it is in the center of the loop they drive down. Last week I found a neighbors mail on the ground under the mailbox. I have two friends in this town with the same last name but are not related to each other. They live 2 to 3 miles apart, but get each others mail. If we pick up each others mail, or put the ones that are delivered wrong to us, in the right mailbox they ask us if we know that is illegal. I guess when I think of government waste, they are the first ones that come to mind. FedEx can find my house, UPS can find my house. Even Carnival Cruise got me to Cozumel and back befoe the PO can get a package from Oklahoma to Maine. Maybe one of them should carry the mail.

While repotting my African violets in the evening one time, I used the wrong soil - the one for cacti. Was too lazy to change the soil and posted the question on the African violet forum to see if it was OK to use cacti soil for African violet. Quick response was "not unless you want them to die!". Sure enough I lost one before I had a chance to change the soil! Must have been half asleep or blind when I did the repotting and grabed the wrong soil package!

hmmmm.. i am in z5 ... last week was 65 to 85 degrees ... i can see the heat storage system getting somewhere.. but that was ambient air ... the week prior.. i seem to think it was 40 ish .. with night temps.. down into the 30 ... if not lower .. heck my ground wasnt even thawed when the heat hit ... how much stored heat.. could have been stored the week prior .. and how fast is significant heat stored ... come on.. admit it.. you jumped the shark .... the theory is all there.. but the fever clouded your judgement ... regardless.. you will be more hesitant next year ... which is good .. IN MARCH ... even with your setup .. as you have learned ... how about a new post.. and some pix of your greenhouse set up.. i am jealous also ... ken

I feel your pain! I wanted a sectional last year, and was really sad about the size and quality at my $3000 budget point. I found a large sectional, 12' by 8' on craigslist. Stanford furniture, 8-way hand-tied springs, down cushions, hardwood frame, good construction, with matching ottoman. It was described as being in excellent condition. The loose back cushions were a little slouchy, the fabric was very red, and the arm style was a little dated. So i paid them $800, and planned to get my friend, a local upholsterer to redo it for me probably in blue in a year or so.. So i will probably put another $1500 to 2000 in fabric and labor, but i can have the arm style altered cushion density altered. But... When i arrived with moving truck, the seller happily told me that she had pulled it out from the wall and vacuumed it all over for me and she was going to give me all of her decorative pillows too. We went in the room to inspect it and the entire sofa had been pulled apart into 4 or 5 sections, and Seat cushions, back cushions and decorative pillows were stacked in piles everywhere. She proudly announced, "i've been putting them in bags for you, so they will stay clean for transport." I felt a little rude but i told her as politely as possible, that i would need to see the cushions before i bought them. (trying to be wary here, i was afraid of stains, etc....). The cushions were clearly invery nice condition. We paid and loaded and drove 2 hours home. We unloaded and discovered that Four of the seven back cushions were missing! At first i thought we had maybe left them there or dropped them in the snow, lol, but when you looked at her photo in the ad -- - i dont know how to describe it exactly - but she had plumped the decorative pillows forward, so they looked like they were resting on back cushions. And with the deep red sofa, and the kind of grainy photo... It just wasnt easy to see that there were back cushions missing, even when you knew! At her home, with all the sectional pieces apart and the pillows and cushions stacked in piles ---- i thought to examine the condition of them, but i never thought to count them! So i was furious, but to best salvage the situation for myself, i politely emailed her, told her that 4 cushions were missing, and that i assumed that they had gotten damaged or something. i was aware on CL it was caveat emptor, but if the cushions were damaged, i would still apprecite having the down bags that go inside the cushions. She apologized and offered to mail me back $200, and said she didnt have the cushions. Never heard from her again. Definitely didn't receive the $200. Anyway, since i was planning to reupholster it anyway, it is not a complete disaster, but now i have the additional cost of having 4 large down cushions made. And it looks goofy right now. But it is exceedingly comfortable and solid. So ultimately it will come out right. I hope. But as an aside, if you want revenge - ask high school students! They are all secretly creative evil geniuses with enough free time to hatch a plan. I tutor, and one of the vocb words was "dupe" During breaktime, we were laughing about my experience being Sofa-Duped and my students suggested that since i knew the seller's address, that i could use google earth to locate all the addresses of neighbors in her community. My students offered to write a letter describing my experience, paste in a copy of her ad showing the deceptive "staging" of the sectional, paste in a copy of the sofa as it actually is, and close by saying that "i cant fix my transaction but i can publicize her behavior" andmail the story to everyone in her neighborhood. I did NOT do that, and instead assigned an SAT style essay on whether revenge is ever justified ; ) (apologies for typos, i have a terrible time typing on ipad screen!) Here is a link that might be useful: This is exactly my ottoman, shows color of sectional.