Enjoy your trip and hope you can get your computer stuff figured out at home. Do you guys have the geek squad out there? They might be able to help, they come to your home and help you with stuff like that from what I've heard. been seeing a lot of them around here lately (our neighbourhood) Aprille

Can we also maybe put up a hybridizer who frequents our forum, like Don Rawson? He has more than Rhino Hide to his credit. I'll let someone else do it, since I'm in the throes of remodel final preparation, as well as learning how to bake bread. Yep, that has been on my New Year Resolutions list for the last 30 years, and finally I'm gonna do it. Starting off with sourdough starter, the starter is from a New England 1750s origin.....can you imagine someone keeping that particular line of starter alive all that time? Honestly, the history you can learn from the most unexpected places. Same goes for hosta, of course. I also plan to look into Johnny's Seed Catalog and check any hosta holdings there, just for the heck of it.....I mean, have you seen how FAT that catalog is?

flyleft, send me an email and I'll give you the whole ugly scoop - I don't want to totally derail this thread into something that I could easily see devolving into a political argument. oakleyok says: "I think we all would like a pat on the back every now and then. [...] It hurts when we do a topic asking a simple question or just to show something off, and all we get is criticism." So SAY what you want and don't want. Say something like "Hey, I finally finished such-and-such, and I wanted some pats on the back from my buddies because I worked really hard and my family just doesn't 'get it' how much this project meant to me. I'm not looking for critiques because I like it the way it is, I just want to share what I did." If you want people to critique something but you're feeling extra thin-skinned (not the best time to post, however), tell people to go easy on you. If you only want them to consider one thing, like a lamp, and not pay attention to the rug or the curtains, say so! "I do get my feelings hurt when I do a topic and the replies have nothing to do with what I ask." I'm sure you'll probably take this as "criticism", but you do need to become better acquainted with the concept of "topic drift". Side discussions do occur, especially in long threads, when person A finds something in a post by person B that s/he wants to address even though it isn't what the OP has asked, but it doesn't quite merit starting an entire new thread. And sometimes the whole thread does drift off into an unexpected direction and take on a life of its own... when that happens you either put on the big girl panties and go with it (because frequently when this happens it can be a LOT of fun) or you shrug and abandon the thread as a lost cause, but it's gotta sink in better that it is NOT about YOU personally when every single post in a thread you start isn't about you and your question from beginning to end. It's just the way forums work.

Hi hisown, My mini washing machine doesn't sound like the one you describe. Mine was fully automated with the exception of I had to plug it into an electrical socket after I pushed and pulled it into the kitchen and I had to hook the intake water tube to the kitchen faucet then I would set the faucet for the temperature I wanted to use for a cycle. It was just like a regular top loader from that time period, but about half the size. For example, to wash our king size sheets, I had to wash top sheet in one load, then fitted sheet in another load. It filled, agitated, drained and spun just like a regular top loader. When I say life was splendid with that washer, I really mean it : ) For my work laundry, it did take many loads to get a week's worth of towels, my aprons, client smocks, etc to get washed...pretty much an all day event because the capacity was half the usual size. I loved that I could soak my work laundry as much as I needed to with bleach or ammonia get them very clean rather than the laundromat washers which did not offer a soaking. I don't remember for certain which brand the mini portable washer was, but I want to say it was a Maytag. But really, I'm relying on a fuzzy, long ago memory on that. I sold the w/d set to some lucky person when we moved to Nor Cal, and while I brought a hand me down full size w/d with me on that move, I did miss those machines very much. They were wonderful trouble-free work horses. Your old semi-automatic washer sounds like a great machine too! I kind of wish more washers such as these were still made for people living in apt/condos that don't have w/d hook ups and don't fancy the whole communal laundry room/laundromat headaches.