Well what a great report from you, pitimpinai!! The last I heard you were still very low in energy and still on a ton of medication and little appetite, and listen to you, helping the neighbor till up a lawn! LOL What a nice neighbor you were to plant tomatoes and Dahlias. :-) I am happy to hear that you've also benefited from a shorter work day. Great that you had all that time off saved up. I bet you really needed it to get your energy back. We have gotten pretty much back to what is normal for us here. The weather has been stupendous in the past month! I have never seen the cover crop in the veggie beds so high. We've also gotten all the leaves mowed and collected in bins, ours and three neighbors. [g] We have gotten somewhat cleaned up for the year in the garden, but I keep adding to my list of what I want to get done before the weather turns. Still have a small amount of bulbs to plant and three shrubs to get in the ground, some pots to clean and put away and that will just about do it. I am actually looking forward to a break from the garden. Not that we don't get outside and enjoy it, but it's nice this time of year, to focus on other things. During the gardening season, the garden seems to push out other priorities. [g] I enjoy the winter garden and by the time spring comes, I am just itching to get back to a new growing season. Glad you are able to enjoy gardening again and hope you stay well this winter! :-)

Oh I know how you feel! I am frozen with finishing my living room, mainly because of one of my cats. I made some lovely plaid drapes and would like to get two new chairs. But my sweet Emma will scratch on the furniture despite having scratching posts and those corrugated box things with catnip. I've tried the squirt bottle with water, which helps for a short time, but then she's right back at it. There's now a small spot on the back of the sofa with threads sticking out. I just don't think I want the added stress with new chairs but what I have now doesn't work. So I spend a lot of time outside with my roses instead of making a decision. My DH just shakes his head. Good luck! You've gotten lots of good advice. Take your time and buy what you love. Maybe you'll find a painting or rug that will inspire you. I'm so sorry for all of you hurt by this lousy economy. My son lost his job at the first of the year. Luckily he is single, no kids, but he's still living on a fraction of what he made before. I'm just thankful we're in a position to help him out, if needed.

Alisande, the minors are the "farm teams" for the major league teams. The lowest level is Rookie, and progressing on up it goes as follows: Short Season A, Low A, High A, AA, then AAA. After that, it's "the show" (the major leagues). Depending on how good the player is, he might start in Rookie, or he could start in AA, and some have even gone right to AAA. When a major league team has to put a player on the Disabled List (DL), the team will generally call up a player from either AA or AAA (depending on the location of the team at the time -- home or away -- and how close to that location the farm team is. There have been times when a player has been called up from the A team to fill in on a major league team. And, of course, every minor league player's dream is to be called up to the show on a permanent basis. Also, when players are about to come off the DL, they are often sent to the team's AAA team for some rehabilitation games before returning to major league play, so you sometimes get to see some really big-name famous players in a minor league game. We live in a suburb of Sacramento, and there is a AAA team -- the Sacramento RiverCats -- which is part of the Oakland A's organization. The inaugural season was 2000, so this is their 15th season. Hubs and I had season tickets for the first 13 seasons, but we didn't renew for the 2013 season and didn't buy tickets for this season, either. I was one of the first 30 people who got to choose seat location for season tickets, so we had seats right behind home plate. Awesome seats. But Art Savage, the majority owner and CEO, died (age 58!) in November 2009. In our opinion, the organization changed for the worse after his death. Art's goal was for everyone to have a good time when they came to a game, and he wanted the ballpark to be a place where a family could afford to come more than just once or twice a season. After his death, it seemed that monetary profit was the name of the game, and fan loyalty was disregarded. Major league players who made rehab appearances at Raley Field (the name of the ballpark where the RiverCats play) include Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, and Manny Ramirez. RiverCats who went on to make a name for themselves in the major leagues include Dallas Braden, Eric Byrnes, Andre Ethier, Aaron Harang, Houston Street, Kurt Suzuki, and Barry Zito. There are more, of course, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. We've all heard about the huge salaries that some of the major league players earn. But minor league players are very poorly paid. The major league team pays the salaries of the minor leaguers (they "own" them). So most minor leaguers have another job during the off season (e.g., teacher, fireman, insurance salesman, etc.). Several minor league players have filed a lawsuit against some of the major league teams, because they are paid less than the federal poverty level. The salary of a minor league player goes up depending on how much time he has spent at that level. For example, a player in his first year in Rookie or Short Season A will earn $1,150 per month, and it goes up $50 a month for each additional season at the same level. Low A and High A start at $1,300 and $1,500 per month, respectively, and increase by $50 per month for each additional season at the same level. Players at the AA level start at $1,700 per month and it goes up by $100 per month for additional seasons, while players in AAA start at $2,150 per month for their first year, going up to $2,400 per month their second year and $2,700 per month their third year. But, bear in mind that they only earn that monthly salary during the baseball season, which for minor leaguers is about 5 months per year. They also get $25 per day for meals when they are on the road, and they have to pay for meals in the clubhouse after every game. And the low minor league salary is what makes it so important for a minor leaguer to be called up, even if all he does is warm the bench. Once a player has been "up to the show," his salary will be much higher for the remainder of the season. This is where the 25-man roster and 40-man roster come into play, but I won't explain all of that here... And once a player makes it onto a major league team, his minimum salary will be $500,000 per year. Not bad for playing a game they love, eh? During the time we had our season tickets, we got to know a lot of the RiverCats. It means so much to the players when there are a lot of fans at the games. They definitely hear the crowd and the cheers. We even went on a lot of road trips with the team. No, we didn't officially travel with the team, but, yes, there were times when we'd be on the same flight. We would stay at the same hotels as the team (and pretty much every hotel would give us a big discount when they found out we were there to support the team). And the players always put us on the "comp list" so we'd get into the games for free. And there were several other folks who would go on the road trips, too. Some would only go to the games that were within driving distance (like from Sacramento to Reno, or to Fresno), but others would fly to where the team would be playing (Tacoma, Portland, Las Vegas, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Memphis, Nashville, etc.). We would always whoop and holler and cheer like crazy so our players would hear us. It was a ton of fun. Here's a photo I took from my seat during a game back in September 2004. The rows in front of us were owned and controlled by Art Savage, and he would have some of the starting pitchers sit there and chart the game. One would score the game just like any fan would do, one would chart the pitches (speed, type of pitch, where it ended up [98 mph fastball, ball, high outside to the right; 82 mph curveball, strike]) and one would sometimes chart the other team's pitches. One of the guys would always be the next game's starter. Anyway, the guys you see in the rows in front of me are three of our pitchers. The guy in the blue short-sleeved shirt is one of the aisle ushers who had just kicked some folks out of that row because they didn't belong there, and he sat for a while to make sure they didn't sneak back. Whenever Billy Beane (GM of the Oakland A's) or Branch Rickey (grandson of THE Branch Rickey, and President of the Pacific Coast League) would attend games, they'd sit in front of us. So, those rows had to be kept clear because there was no telling when a VIP would show up.

Two25, I am very happy for you being able to leave your current job situation and take a break. A long time ago, early in my career, I was very happy to leave one job. The people I worked with and the work itself were great, but the boss at the top was awful. He had staff meetings where he rambled on for an hour and a half about nothing. He would endlessly talk about himself and what HE had been doing, as he was always on the road in DC or somewhere. It was all blah, blah, blah, and none of us could ever figure out what he had said and what it had to do with what our mission was. None of us ever really knew what he was up to as he didn’t really bring us new work. We later found out he had some nefarious deals going on, along with another supervisor who was always pretty shady too. These were government employees who were ‘reassigned’ as I found out later. I was the only female engineer and it was really hard to imagine getting ahead or promoted. I started applying for jobs and sure enough, got a call one day. I didn’t realize just how really unhappy and stuck I felt until I got into my new job. Best move I ever made.