Good Morning, Thought I'd better get in here while I actually have the thread loaded and time to read it, before that opportunity escapes... Martie, so glad you checked in and are feeling good. Thought about you often yesterday. Listen to your own advice and take it easy. Eden, knew you would be great at your seminar! Congrats! Mary will be too. V, congrats on your unexpected bonus! I'm very happy for you! So, are you headed to Monaco as well as to see Kathy in Napa, CA for vaca this year? I'm with Martie, a greenhouse would be my first purchase (after the required hot water heater). Deanne, the detail on your birdies and the beaver moon shot are astounding! Very cool what talent and technology can accomplish. Kids loving all the pics. I'd have been extremely peeved at the license bureau too. Talk about wasting your time. Drema, you and Skip were hilarious in your cavepeople get-ups! Thanks for sharing that! Search atriplex hortensis rubra on Ebay and see if this is the plant you mean. One of my fav annuals, though it IS weedy, seeds about like perilla, but easy to hoe out extras. If you don't find it search completed listings, everything is ending tonight. Email me your snail mail addy & I'll send you some seed if this is the one you mean. Re Ebay, seems superior to Amazon for prices and shipping speed on the Invisible Garden book. I had it one week from ordering. Was a bit surprised at the lack of open response when I shared some great sources for bulbs. But want to thank the 5 lurkers who emailed me privately, and hope you got some great deals through those sellers and others. I was so pleased with my finds, especially the variegated Silverstreams, that I wanted to share with everyone, despite the time it took to upload photos. I had hoped others would chime in with sources they were happy with, but I guess it's late in the season. I was glad to hear some of the lurkers were still looking for bulbs, though I understand their reluctance to post in "idyll-land". Re hairy bathroom floors, I am thrilled with the Swivelsweeper I got a couple of weeks ago. It is rechargeable, weighs only 2 pounds, goes in any direction, gets the corners easily, and is fantastic at picking up hair! I have only two rooms with carpet, and sweeping the hardwood/laminate/vinyl in the rest of the house was a pain. My vac was too heavy to lug around and didn't pick up on floors that great anyway. (Plus Im leery of it attacking, lol!) This thing is perfect for bare floors, getting crumbs, hair, dead wasps, wood ashes, etc, easily. It works well on carpets too for quick pick-ups, though doesn't go as deep as my regular vac. I bought it for $39.00 and free shipping on Ebay, but the seller isn't registered any more. But there are other sellers with it, or check out swivelsweeper.com. My only caveats are that I used it before it was fully charged the first time so the battery has a memory for that and needs charging faster. I couldnt wait to try it! It really picks up the hair, but then it needs to be removed from the rotating brushes. They provide a little tool for this. And it needs emptying every few minutes in my house, but with 3 kids and 2 cats that's to be expected. Otherwise, I love it! (No, not affiliate in any way--again, just sharing information on a product I like.) Michelle, I really enjoyed your photo tour! Thank you for posting that. I love photo bucket with dial-up, as the thumbnails load easily and I can open one I want to see large in another window and let it load while Im looking at the others. Cant do that here, though its always worth the wait. Kenzie is a lucky young lady to have a grandma making her a private spot to garden in! Youll make lots of garden mentor memories for her as well. Where is Babs? It is not like her to miss Halloween. And Eileen? Honey? Norma? Saucy? Marian, we miss you! Brenda is probably busy, but I thought Janie was going to check in here? And Julie, would be nice to see a rara avis as well as Deannes birds. Yeona? Hope life is settling down with your DS. Barb? You havent checked in forever! Jerri, I saw Jerri on the book thread too! Wonder if Cynthia and Da even lurk any more. There are more MIA who are due to say helloand did I see GLDNO pop in here briefly? Why dont you join us! Hi Monique! T, I want (some would say need) that mirror! LOL! Sorry about your bad day, and hope you had good dark chocolate and/or merlot to recover. Your new beds are looking wonderful! Are you interested in growing from seed? I could send you someself-sowing annuals help fill in large spaces until the perennials and shrubs reach their proper size. Chelone, so where did you find your fruit? Looking forward to pics of the finished swags. Thinking of two different friends named Bruce today Been a crazy couple of weeks. Had blast with my family here the weekend before last. Great time, great meal, lots of fun. DS played piano and sang for us. DB had too much wine and attempted the same. Lots of blackmail material on the memory card I videotaped there, lol. Cousins had a blast playing together for two days. Worked on and sent in a sample flyer in MSPublisher for the marketing aspect of the job I interviewed for. Havent heard back yet, but he said end of the month so am still hopeful. Have found one job since (today) worth applying for and will fire off the resume soon. Been battling the bees/wasps and am pretty tired of it! We found the huge nest, under the roof of the sunroom where it joins the floor of the second level. DH has used 3 cans of that foam stuff you can spray from 6 feet away, and it is killing lots, but since the actual nest is under shingles, hasnt killed them all. We are getting 10-20 inside the house per day, through cracks in the floorboards as near as we can figure. I woke to one on my pillow yesterday, and nearly stepped on one when I got out of bed today. Didnt think Id ever be wishing for a killing frost to strike, but I am! But first, have to finish putting the shrinkwrap on all the older windows and the patio door off the family room, and weatherstripping the doors. Even with the fireplace as a secondary heat source, this is a lot of house to heat, and is old and drafty. I did the sunroom windows first. We are going to see if its feasible to keep it at 55F with the door to the house partially open. I hope so, as I have a bunch of houseplants in there, and with all the other windows soon to be shrinkwrapped, no windowsills left. Until we get the electric bills under control, fluorescents for houseplants is not an option. Hope to have it figured out by seedstarting time. Well it is a gorgeous, sunny day out there, and 60F already, up from 36F at 8:00am. Im going to plant some bulbs and sow some poppies over top, the Laurens Grape that Eileen gave me at IU3. Creating new invisible gardens is fun! Then its off to the library, grocery store, post office with Ebay packages. Sorry out of time for more comments, but hi to all Ive missed! Best, Taryn

Work can be. Tell me about it. Took me a lifetime to grasp that it isn't worth it, unfortunately; I wish it were. Hobby? Obsession? What's the difference? I guess the difference - for me - is that, I spend too much money, way beyond our means, on plants (not only on roses) so gardening has become an obsession, not a hobby any more. Gardening and rose forums I am obsessed with despite the fact that I should not lift, carry heavy stuff or band a lot nor should I spend too much time sitting in front of the computer. Or, when I was in high school and got money from my parents for a pair of shoes I spent on a book instead. Hobby is, in my interpretation, that enriches your life or makes it more interesting but does not destroy your health or make you financially bankrupt.

Happy St. Patrick's Day you guys! MILKDUD!! You are back!! My knee is having sympathy pains for your knee! I hope that the luck o' the Irish is with you and that the pain will soon be gone forever. Nobody likes bike riding here?? 3 years ago I did a 30 mile benefit ride and had a blast! I guess you guys won't be joining me.... : ( You all and your SHOES!! lol! I own 2 pairs of heels, one white , one black, 1 pair of Nike walking shoes, 1 pr tennies, 2 pr hiking boots 1 pr slinky little black ankle boots and a pr of zorries. And that's IT!!! Raeanne, TIA for your help on the 24th ;) Wow, you are really working out, personal trainer and all. Is it very expensive? Zig, I always put green food coloring in the closed bathtub drain (kids turn on shower and are up to their ankles in green!) and put it in the cereal bowls under the cheerios : ) What a busy week this has been! It's raining hard here and the highways have been a mess all day! I was so eager to get home, that I skipped my nail appt. DS has poker night with the youth group guys tonight and I am curling up with a good book or a movie. We are celebrating St Paddy's day on Sunday w/ corned beef n' cabbage when DD can get over here. I start my knee therapy on Monday, along with my new walking tape. (Zig, I'll let you know...) I hope things are better for Joanne's Mom, John's Mom, Besh's family, Patti and Dave and their family. I hope that DeeMarie is having a wonderful time on vacation. And I hope that BJ is behaving herself! Tikanas

I got a note someone had commented on this old post. Interesting to read the old 'news.' It is kind of interesting to read the comments people made regarding patience and being 'nice' to suppliers. I tend to give people one chance, then invoke the nuclear option. I learned way back you get what you accept and hold people accountable to their word. Probably a USMC thing. Ya'know, bring a gun to a knife fight, bring a bigger gun to a gun fight, bring a nuke in any other situation. You get what you accept. Looking at my situation it was my fault, assuming the supplier had integrity, and Lowes would act quickly to resolve a problem that should never had occurred. The Lowes rep said I had to pay up front, which is when I should have walked out. Live and learn. My wife says I do not like the work other people do, and in general she is right. In 30 years of living in my house, rebuilding from the studs out, there are a few things I have not personally completed: Install wall to wall carpets, install the counter tops, put in a new electric service panel, glass shower enclosure Counter top story is here, the carpet guys had to redo a shoddy seam, the electric guy, middle priced quote out of 4 was perfect. The shower guys took out their work because they did not like how they did the job, I didn't have to ask. My wife comments on 'her' plumber, painter, ceramic guy, sheet rocker, cabinet maker, window installer, roofer, electrician, finish carpenter, deck builder, masonary guy, hardwood installer and finisher. She is right when she says I do not like how most people work. When I got to people's homes to see work done, I am warned to not comment. But even now my wife says things like 'why did they accept that work?' Anyway, a couple of 4 year later comments on Curava counter top material. The counters are nice, durable with a couple of exceptions. Since the stuff is manufactured with ground up glass it does have some possibility of chipping along any edges and even in the field of the stuff. We have a couple of spots where small pieces of glass have chipped out. I repaired one or two by cleaning, filling the small ship with clear epoxy, then trimming with a razor blade. Worked fine. One other issue I would caution customers with. Every here and there we have pieces of blue glass mixed in with our brown and amber colored glass chips. If you do not look closely, you would not see them but I would recommend a very thorough, complete agreement before installation and a close inspection of the surface after install or of the tops before they are installed. Maybe that manufacturing problem has been fixed. I think they may have a few more color choices now so I guess its possible for more color schemes to get mixed at the factory.