Another potato-holic here. Of all the tubers I’ve loved before, I‘ve recently adopted the most adorable little guy - Yamuel Tuberson, I call him! I’ve grown quite fond, and as such would love to keep him around indefinitely. I’m seeing a trend of heartbreak on this forum spanning many years now, but for the sake of my lil Yamuel, hoping there may be a new modern marvel of kitchen science someone could share, to end the cycle of sadness. PS: I too found a heart-shaped guy before. Last Feb 9 in fact, what luck!

Thanks Moni, there are some great ideas here. Some I had heard of but the last one is new to me -using fabric softener and water to help remove burned on foods. I'll pass it on to my kids who seem to do this all too often.

Hi Nancy, Actually, I already had a general, very general, layout and I brought it to them (Jacob). I gave them the exact measurements of the room and some pictures for inspiration. You can have them come out to measure, but you'll pay for the trip...probably worth it. I told Jacob what I wanted and he worked with me to get/fit it all. They have many sample cabinet door and drawer fronts to look at and a book to look through to pick out your hood design. The corbels I assume are also through a book of pictures of kitchens they have done. Jacob mailed me a paper with several legs to choose from, and I circled the one I wanted and sent it back. We did a lot of mailing, but it only takes 1 or 2 days. I gave them all of my appliance specs before they made the cabinets. My HVAC guy installed the hood insert The paint color is one of their standard choices. BM dove white or white dove, I can't remember which. It is a soothing color. They do have a fax number. I believe there are a few people that help them out with that stuff. Jacob Jr. doesn't do the faxing. He will talk on the phone, but he usually isn't there in the morning, his dad Jacob Sr. is, so Jacob Jr. usually ended up calling me back around 1 pm. Good Luck! The craftsmanship is excellent, and the price is unbeatable...I think. Lori

Arch13, I'm glad to hear it! That would be terrifying! Exactly Jake! There's dangers everywhere! And yuck for well water that has so many unknowns, can't wait to get it tested next week. Glad you get my point about chemicals being everywhere. now...do we just soak ourselves in chemicals on purpose because it's unavoidable (gotta die from something, right?)? Or do we limit the exposure to what we DO have control over? Logically (at least I'd hope so) we would naturally try to limit the risks that we can. It's pretty easy to filter the water. Is there really a risk, who knows. We know there's definitely leaching - that's been shown through various studies including those through NSF. We know there's been issues with other plastics in the past in finding hormone disruptors and other chemicals. So it's a reasonable conclusion that there could be a risk that we don't fully understand. You are free to ignore that risk, or believe that there is no risk at all. We all have to decide what risks are important to us as individuals. Neither of us are wrong, we just perceive the risk differently. You guys are referring to acute toxicity, which would be ridiculous with PEX. Small doses of chemical exposure is more likely to be a chronic and slow progressing problem that is very unlikely to ever get pinned on one thing like PEX. That's because there's probably not one culprit. It's likely a combination of our awful American lifestyle that includes processed foods, overeating, pollution, lack of exercise, and chemical exposure in every single thing we do and eat. And when you add it all up over time, you see a rise in autoimmune disease, inflammatory conditions, cancer, autism, depression, bipolar. What do we do about it? We do what we can. Can I eliminate all of it? Absolutely not. But maybe I can eliminate 20-30% of it, and that gives me peace of mind. Filtering the water, using cloth diapers on the kids, eating organic, that's what I can do. Does my peanut butter still come in a plastic jar, ugh unfortunately yes. Do I take the risk to drive my car as you pointed out, sure I do. Those aren't easy risks to eliminate. When you assess risk, you have to look at risk vs the benefit you get from continuing that risk, but also what risks are easy to eliminate and which are difficult. Then you make the changes that you can, and the changes that you feel have meaning. If you focus on trying to eliminate all risks, you'll drown in your fears. Filtering the water isn't a difficult one to attempt to eliminate. I am also a teacher and I feel myself getting into a lesson on risk analysis...lol..so I'm really done with this conversation. It was meant to be a genuine inquiry to get some advice about filtering. This debate is bogging down the other feeds of people trying to get help with their houses and unless anyone has some constructive advice on a type of filter, I'd ask you to just let it go. Patricia, Deborahhines, Decoenthusiaste, Jim Mat, and BeverlyFLADeziner...thank you for your help!