Hello livinwell!! Your very generous comments about our home honor my wife and myself. Thank you so very much. You've certainly made our day. As for pics of my STAR WARS Toy collection room... Well, I'm not sure that everyone here is ready to be hit with THAT level of geekiness. LOL There are plenty of photos of my collection on several sites around the net, and some of those folks have had some really strange and mean reactions to it. I've even been called a "hoarder" among other things. Oh well. But really I'm just a guy who's been collecting since the age of 11 back in 1978, and so the collection is somewhat sizable. Hey there Daisyadair, No need for apologies, but you are most gracious to offer one. Thank you so much. I agree with you . The internet CAN be full of some very strange people hiding behind their anonymity and posting the wildest claims, many of which are mean-spirited, vicious, or flat-out un-true. I'm actually pretty flattered that you find our place a bit "un-real" even if it is not your taste. Following your example, I googled my "darklord1967" name and found an MSN message board for vampyres! There was an individual on there with my exact same internet name saying that he likes to drink blood (I guess that's what you encountered) Yuk! The thought just makes my skin crawl. The thing that puzzles and alarms me is that his private e-mail address is the same as mine. I hope to goodness I haven't been hacked. Anyhow daisyadair, my wife and I thank again so much for the correspondence.

Hi. I just got word about this thread. Yes, it's me!!! I am beyond overjoyed to be back in touch!!! And, sadly, yes, that IS me that was attacked by a pitbull in 2010. I can't wait to talk with you privately, Stacey. Life has thrown me some curveballs, to say the least.lol

caflowerluver: I did not take offence. I merely wanted to mention that most of us today contain a large mix of genes. As far as "fooling around", I have a few in my closet in a joking manner. I have ancestors of whom I can not find a trace of a marriage record, mention in a journal, or any other indication. This doesn't prove they were not married; It only says there are no records to be found. Some of my ancestors were "on the frontier" and official accommodations were scarce. I probably have some common law ancestors as well. Some of my 200 yr old records are not readable and others have been lost in court house disasters. A number of court house records were lost during the Civil War. If a minister of the gospel performs a marriage ceremony, the couple is not "officially" married in the eyes of the law until the marriage papers have been filed at the court house. During pioneer days, the Minister might not get to the court house for 2 weeks to a month after the marriage. I have 2 mariage dates for my grandparents: one is the day of the wedding and the other is the filing date at the court house. if something happened to the Minister before he filed, the record could be lost. Relationships can get messy. I have a great grand uncle who lost his first wife and 2 children. He married again and they had several children and then she died while the last child was very young. Her sister stepped in, married the man, and they had children. In the same community, another man and wife had 4 children of their own and took in 12 orphans at various times. He adopted all the orphans so they took on his surname. That's got to be a mess in the gene pool to straighten out. Another mess: My gggrand father, after his wife died, married the sister of a brother who married his daughter. Oh my!

Will check out the suggested recipes. I spent some time on the King Arthur site and took note of the graham crackers, as it happens, and also of the animal crackers. One of the problems with baking in Italy is how many ingredients that are common in the U.S. can't be found here, at least not in the country: Milan or Florence might be a different story. Our local small supermarket is not currently carrying oatmeal (it was expensive anyway). Also unavailable: molasses, wheat germ, buttermilk, sour cream, buckwheat, rye, hard wheat flours (buckwheat flour used to be available, but not lately), dried currants and cherries, pecans, cranberries fresh or dried. Water pack pie cherries, though there's an abandoned orchard down the road. Pumpkin pack, though we get a fine substitute by roasting winter squash. Reliable dried yeast: I only use fresh now. Walnuts are very expensive. Vanilla and almond extract come in miniscule individual vials: my last trip to the U.S. I brought back bottles of both. We still eat well, but I really had to revise a lot of my cooking, and baking in particular. Also I'm a healthy cook, and getting older, both of which have caused changes in my cooking. We have good produce here, and the cheeses are sublime, though mostly I limit myself to a bit of Parmesan.