Hi Zeffy - I'm glad you took the time to catch us up on your life, I've been wondering. In fact I have a Thanksgiving card in front of me on my desk with your name on it and cannot find your street address! So now you know how cluttered my office is, because I know it's here somewhere, just not in my email address book under residence, or my regular address book either. I'm so happy you are feeling better - it doesn't sound perfect but better is good if it's letting you enjoy some things again. And I love the idea of two turkeys to cut down on your work Thanksgiving Day (read your other post on the day-before gravy). I'm the gravy maker in our family and will cook that at my Sis's house; last year my brother put the turkey in a roaster in his Traeger grill (uses wood pellets) at Christmas and the bird was great but I had a heck of a time with the gravy, the drippings had a distinct smokey taste that I didn't like and I couldn't find anything to add to diminish the smoke flavor. Thought I might roast some hind quarters or something ahead of time and freeze drippings to take this Christmas on the chance he does that again :) Maybe I'll even just roast a small bird for leftovers and use the juices from that. I think Robyn can count on her children seeing the divorce differently when given some time to mature and get used to the change. It would be nice if it was sooner, but if she's patient I'm convinced they'll come around. When my sister and her husband divorced, to her credit she never once said anything critical about him to her kids and they blamed her for his unhappiness and their own. Once grown, they came to understand on their own and to trust her completely while with their dad, they realized (finally) they were always trying to please him enough to 'deserve' his love. In fact, in court (huge battle over custody) the judge even said HE trusted her enough to put the kids ahead of her own feelings and make sure they had quality time with their dad, he didn't believe the same to be true of her ex, told him that, and she was given full custody. Celeste, I hope you have a lovely holiday too - what a difference a year makes! I think you have an angel on your shoulder watching the loving care you give your mother - that mother who looks so content in the pictures you've shared.

Good news for you Brenda! So glad to hear you did get some rain. At this point, we will take anything we can get. We went to our 5 year old grand-daughter's softball game (those little girls are so much fun to watch) and wouldn't you know it, we got rainned out! There were actually two lines of storms that went through the area today and we got some rain from both of them. I'm pleased and so grateful. I'm also looking forward to a few days of cooler weather too. My plants are looking better already. Not only from the rain, but also because the relentless sun was in the clouds quite a bit of the day. stevation, we are also sad to read and hear on the news about your dry, hot weather and the fires you are having to endure. Hopefully, rain will soon come your way and things will improve. Linda

Here is something that might work for you. So far, I have been unable to get it to work for me, but others report success. Could be that because I have dialup or AOL, something is different enough to make it not work. It's a little bit tricky, but not too bad, and if it works will remove most ads (including banners and those animated things) from all sites. First, go to this website: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/spam/adblock.shtml It will direct you through the steps for blocking ads by updating your host file. This works for all browswers--IE, Firefox, Netscape. The directions on the webpage above do not really explain too well how to open the host file, so here are the preliminary steps: --First, open Notepad (on my computer, Notepad can be found by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories and clicking Notepad). --Next, click File and then Open. --You will be looking for a directory that can be found in one of the following places: Windows XP C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 2K C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 98 C:\WINDOWS *Note: I have XP but found the directory in the place shown for Windows 2K (WINNT). The website above shows a table that is pretty accurate and includes other operating systems besides Windows. --Now, open the file in Notepad. On my computer, once I had 'etc' I had to change "Files of type:" to "All Files" with the arrow and then click on 'hosts' and Open. From there you can use the directions from the website given above and paste in all of the entries to add to your host file. Supposedly, this will tell your browser that these ad servers are located on your machine and so attempts to retrieve the ads will fail. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked yet for me, but others say it works great for them. In addition, here are some more entries that I found from a Gardenweb post a while back that are specifically targeting GW ads. I don't know whether or not they are also covered by the entries above, but here they are just in case: 127.0.0.1 amch.questionmarket.com 127.0.0.1 a820.g.akamai.net 127.0.0.1 iv.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 i.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 m.2mdn.net 127.0.0.1 tste.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com 127.0.0.1 ads.vmirror.com 127.0.0.1 cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com 127.0.0.1 ads.pointroll.com Edit each entry above so that there is a tab between the IP address 127.0.0.1 and the URLs. Click Save and you're finished. Close and re-open your browser and hopefully all the ads will be gone. Now, the second part of the directions on the webpage tell you to update your proxy configuration (even if you aren't behind a proxy). I can't figure out how to do it, though. I get to where I paste in the long line into the No Proxy box, but my computer then tells me I need more info in the address/port box and I have no idea what I'm supposed to put in there. If anyone knows this, let me know!

I just found a copy of a post from August of 2002, so guess it's been a while. Got alot, I mean ALOT, of good book suggestions and quite a few good book discussions over the years. After all these years it almost feels like I know some of these posters.