Is this a good deal? "No" Why? The newer version of this tractor sells for $2,299 at Lowe's "Husqvarna 26-HP 54" V-Twin Hydrostatic Garden Tractor Item #: 91238 Model: LGT2654" Also if he is selling a 2 yr. old tractor that means that the warranty is or soon will be out. What would offer him? "Nothing, walk away" Owner says it sells for $2900 new. See above. Who knows what else may be correct or wrong that he may tell you about the mower. Do you have better recommendations? "It's the fall of the year and they should be a lot of better deals out there for a used or new tractor that someone wants to get rid of before winter. I bought a new smaller version of the Husqvarna earlier this year and love it.

Thanks all. I spent my birthday near the end of a two-weekend visit with my daughter in AZ ... who bought a condo in Phoenix last year and said that I had to come down to see it ... and celebrate my 80th. Since she'd bought shuttle bus ticket London - Detroit ... plus plane fare to Phoenix for Fri. Jan23 ... and I'd laughingly told friends that, as it was a return ticket, I guess that she didn't want to put up with me, long-term ... and they asked whether there was a date on the return portion ... yes, there was a date on the return portion ... ... in the light of all of that ... I could scarcely refuse, right? Son gave me a load of stuff for his sister that was safely stashed in my luggage. Shuttle bus made pit stop for coffee, fruit and bathroom in Windsor, just before border ... and we decided, with an assist from the bus driver, that if we didn't want to get held up for an hour or so, it'd be best not to make any smart comments at the border. I succeeded in restraining myself ... they said that if I didn't, they'd leave me! Got my bag checked ($15.00) ... when it came time to go through security, put carry-on, coats, shoes, wallet, etc. in tray ... and blew the horn, flashed the lights,etc. when I walked through. Took off belt ... plus coin purse ... ... and there showed up the pocket knife that I usually carry ... and had forgotten about: should have emptied pockets and put it into checked bag. The inspector was nice about it - I could take it back to the car ... but it was 100 miles away. "Good-bye, old uncle's knife!". Still blew the system's warnings ... and they decided that it was the back brace thatI was wearing, following my fall on ice on Christmas night. Frisked me lightly, sat me down, felt the bottoms of my feet, ran a rag three times across each palm ... and decided that, since I had such a nice smile, that they'd let me go. Four-hour flight to Phoenix, airport not too far from downtown, Kathryn lives several miles north. She has double garage, walkway to front door in rather narrow space beside it. Three bedrooms, beautiful large master with lovely en-suite bath and large closet. K. counsels people laid off from work, using two laptops at a time in second bedroom, big increase in business, got a promotion, hired new staff, trained them, oversees them running webinars with a dozen or so people at a time, scattered all over our two countries and still runs webinars herself. On Saturday, heading north, we passed a number of hills sticking up from the dry landscape ... as we travelled, we were rising, and after while there was snow on the tops of the hills, then down among the low trees near the road. Phoenix is something under 1,000 feet above sea level, and when we were several miles south of Flagstaff there was a sign saying that we were 6,000 feet above sea level. When we arrived at the motel in Flagstaff, there was a pile of snow at the edge of the parking lot. I picked up some and found that there was some hard ice in it, so dropped it, then picked up some soft snow, made a snowball and threw it at daughter, aiming to be close. While discussing seniors' and kids' rates at the desk, daughter opined that any father that threw snowballs at his daughter had to be in his second childhood! I contacted KT from their computer in the lobby, while enjoying coffee ... and they offered whole milk and 2%, as well. Next morning we headed for the Grand Canyon. More on that later - it's time for bed (especially since I didn't get my beauty sleep, last night i.e yesterday)! See y'all later. ole joyful

Although it was in 2008, someone said above, "I agree that it is difficult to post on this [step] forum. . . it is hard." This is pretty much true today, almost 10 years later. It is still difficult for a SM to post on a step-forum without risking getting roasted. I find that those who usually insist on needing to know more and more "facts," are unwilling to take SM's word for anything and waiting for the right moment to jump on SM to discredit her. Bio-parents can complain all the time, but when a SP does, the first thought is usually SM is over-reacting and SK is being misjudged. A lot of this I see as a cultural or societal issue. Most have no clue what to do with SPs. No clue whatsoever, other than to try to pretend like they don't exist. What is normal or best for SMs? No one seems to really know. Even a lot of SMs aren't sure. Sure, there are some theories out there, but do they work? Like Imamommy said above, we are told to keep at arm's length, so to speak, but what does that accomplish other than ever-present awkwardness? Is it true that it takes a village to raise a child, except when it comes to SPs? Somewhat exaggerated, but I always say a SM's world is backwards from most other's "normal. It's a world where you are supposed to have no say in your own household, a world where you are supposed to give love and settle for nothing in return, a world where you are supposed to be a servant or babysitter and never get paid, and a world where you may be married to your DH but BM and adult SKs still get first dibs on your spouse. Society as a whole doesn't get it, and that includes even some counseling professionals. The entire focus is on pretending like the divorce never really happened to "make things easier" for the children involved. SMs, the vast majority of whom never got involved with DH until after the divorce, are basically expected, in the year 2018, to sacrifice themselves (a/k/a take the high road, suck it up and take it, be the bigger person, etc.) for another family's divorce and fallout from that. There is absolutely no way anyone can justify that a person is supposed to pay a higher price for something she had zero involvement in than the people who were actually involved. There is just no way. Some still try, however. Some SMs get lucky and have both supportive BMs and DHs, and some at least have supportive DHs. Other SMs have neither. And, in these situations where SM is lacking support, what is SM's reward for trying to be the glue that somehow keeps everyone together? It is usually to become the family scapegoat or punching bag. And, society endorses this. If SM doesn't accept her role as the family lackey and a lesser wife, well to get back at her, they'll just slap the Evil SM title on her. What it all comes down to is divorce sucks big time for everyone, but because society as a whole doesn't want to deal with the realities of divorce and wants to act like it is not that big of a deal, and pretend like mom and dad are still the real, one-and-only couple even after the divorce, that means that the only way to keep up this fiasco is to totally degrade anyone mom or dad goes on to get involved with or remarry, to totally discount them. And, to make matters worse, if they dare to protest, then you slap them with the Evil SM label or tell them they are not minding their place. SM's main role is to be a wife to her husband. Her husband's role is to be a husband to her and a dad to his children. SM is her own person, and she doesn't owe anyone anything for what has gone on in someone else's past and not her own. She shouldn't have to give a long laundry list to anyone to justify that she needs help and support. She wants to do the right thing, and it is certainly in her best interest to do so. But, the only support most ever seem to want to give a SM is to tell her that she is over-reacting and to suck it up and take it. I always tell SMs to do what works best for you, because no matter what you decide or do, someone will be there every time telling you it is wrong. Comes w/the Evil SM label finely embroidered on all of our chests.

Let me be the contrarian here. If you need to cut back somewhere, the fridge is an obvious place to start. It's easily replaceable at a later date, and, as others on GW have observed, the fridge is the appliance that gives you the least bang for your buck. I see no conflict in buying an expensive range and keeping an old fridge. Our kitchen renovation ran well into six figures (not including appliances) and we spent another $14K on a Wolf rangetop, M Series oven and CSO, but decided to keep our 3 y.o. KitchenAid dishwasher, and 25 y.o. Hotpoint fridge. Both my wife and I think the kitchen looks quite nice this way. I'd be happy to post a picture if someone could tell me how to do it (I click photo and click on the picture, but nothing seems to happen). In any event, our new kitchen layout precluded re-using our old Thermador range (even though it was in perfect shape), so cooking appliances were the obvious area to devote to our rapidly-dwindling resources. My wife didn't think it was worth the extra $1,000 to get a CSO instead of a double oven, but I ultimately convinced her it was worth a shot. She still prefers the M Series, so the CSO is "my" oven and the M Series is "hers". The dishwasher decision came next. I would love to get a Miele Pro Series DW at some point, as it can do a load in 25 minutes, but at $5K it's pretty pricey. Our KitchenAid runs fine, so we decided to re-use it, but have a 220V receptacle installed under the sink. So, a future upgrade to a Miele will be pretty simple. Finally decisions had to be made about a refrigerator. Our fridge space goes into a cubby in the mud room, so we're lucky in that we can accommodate either a counter depth or a full-depth fridge. Neither my wife nor I could see the point in spending $8K on a SZ or other high-end fridge, when $2K will provide you with a fridge that works almost as well and has more storage space, so we ruled out a counter-depth pretty quickly. There were 2 main reasons why we decided to keep our old fridge, at least for the time being. The first is my concern about noise and reliability. Our 25 y.o. Hotpoint is very quiet and has had exactly one service call in 25 years (by contrast our 3 new Wolf appliances have had a total of 7 service calls in just 4 months). My perception is that newer appliances just aren't built as well as they used to be. We have to keep our GE washer & dryer under maintenance contracts, as they seem to crap out at least once a year, whereas our old Whirlpool ran over 20 years without a problem. Also after reading reviews of even highly-rated refrigerators, I get the impression that new fridges are much noisier than the old ones. Someone told me that this is because the new energy-efficient compressors make a lot of noise. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't be too concerned about this, as the fan on our Wolf M Series sounds like a jet engine once the oven gets hot. Most of our meals are spent with that thing howling in the background. Maybe the biggest reason for keeping the old fridge though, was due to a simple matter of aesthetics. My wife doesn't like having too much stainless steel in the kitchen, and all of the better full depth fridges only seem top come in that. Our old fridge is a nice cream color with black accents on the handles that perfectly matches our Kohler Biscuit sinks. The closest you can get to this color nowadays seems to be a "bisque" color, that is monotone and way too yellow for my taste. So we decided to keep our old fridge in the hope that something more to our liking comes out before this one decides to kick the bucket. We took a 3 week vacation during construction and left the fridge powered off and closed, which was a big mistake. We almost decided to chuck the fridge when we came back and discovered it was full of mold. It took almost a full day of scrubbing with Clorox, but it ended up looking almost new again. The same thing happened again, when the carpenters took the fridge out for the floor refinishing. They took the doors off this time and covered the fridge in plastic. We returned to find the worst of both worlds - the fridge was full of both sawdust and mold. In the end, both my wife and I are happy with our decision to keep the old fridge. We know its days are numbered, but will be sad to see it go.