I figured I'd put my 2 cents in anyway & see if anyone wanted me, even though I joined the site last year. lol I'd put up my 'wanted' list & what I have to trade, but I don't know how to do that. I live near Tulsa, Oklahoma.. Some maps say that's zone 7, some say it's zone 6, so I don't know exactly what zone I'm in. Like kawaii_fruit, I am mostly interested in vegetables & edible flowers, as well as collecting some more exotic/different/unusual kinds of plants. I also have an interest in bonsai (but want to know more about it, first!). Like Kawaii_Fruit, I also don't have a lot of room to work with. I have a 4x8 square foot garden & lots of containers around there. I use compost, potting mixes & that kind of thing for everything, except nasturtiums. I planted those in the ground, since they like bad soil & little water. :D lol Right now I have adzuki beans, green beans, korean summer squash, a few varieties of tomatoes, thai purple eggplants, a variety of herbs, 2 kinds of Asian watermelons, several varieties of peppers, multi-colored bell peppers (as well as the usual ones), korean shiso (i have an abundance of that & would be interested in giving some away, if it wouldn't hurt the plants), I also have some bunching onions, 2 kinds of chives, garlic, shallots, onion bulbs, Kyoto red carrots, Japanese kabocha pumpkins, Korean summer radishes & ponytail radishes & several types of leaf lettuce, arugala & rainbow swiss chard. As for herbs, I have 4 types of basil, 2 types of mint, 2 types of dill, parsley, chamomile, catnip & that's all I can think of at the moment.. lol I am interested in organic gardening, composting & growing different kinds of ginger, lemongrass, etc.. (I cook a lot of Asian foods).. I would also like to learn about growing water plants, like lotus (for the roots).. :)

I found that, though I can have certificates issued for mutual fund ownership (no fee), or stocks (about $35. each), I cannot have a stock certificAte issued for an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in Canada. Which means that I cannot use the evidence of ownership of an ETF as security to arrange a line of credit or loan with my bank/credit union, at low rate of interest. I can use it as collateral with the stockbroker who holds the fund, as well as others of my assets, in his electronic data base ... but my experience has usually been that the stockbroker usually charges at least 1% higher rate than at the bank, which is an appreciable difference, when compounded over time. Sometimes I have little asset easily available as ready cash, or that I choose to liquidate now to make available as money in case of an emergency, as I may not like the price available, or the sales commission required. As I sometimes lack available ready-cash, I have a fully-secured Line of Credit, backed by certificates of stocks and mutual funds, to obtain a low rate of interest - currently about 6.25%, but unused at the moment. Then I can use a credit card in an emergency, then use my line of credit to pay off that amount in full before it starts accruing interest, unless the credit card carries 0% rate, which is not the case, as I have had my card for several years. The trouble is that the interest paid on a loan used for an emergency or consumption is almost always not deductible and I prefer to use loans for investment, thus making them deductible. So when I use an emergency loan for emergency, which is seldom deductible, I stop investing for a while and use that part of current income to pay off that non-deductible-interest loan as quickly as possible. Then I start using that regular saving to begin investing again, plus may borrow to invest, if I feel that the situation justifies it. Also, in my Canadian situation most of the time, I can borrow for investing at almost no net cost. Are you familiar with the Rule of 72? Divide 72 by the rate of gain/growth that you are getting and the result will show you the number of years that it will take for your investment to double. Thus, investment return of 6% will double in 12 years ... at 9% will double in 8 years. But it's not the raw figure that counts. If your bond pays 5% and you are in 20% tax bracket, that means that 1% is lost to tax, so your after-tax rate of return is actually 4%. But when your bond matures, you'll get back only the number of dollars invested originally, so those equal-value dollars suffer annual erosion of value due to inflation. If you assume inflation to be 3%, that leaves your effective rate of return at only 1%. Which means that it'll take 72 years for my $1.00 current return on invested asset to become $2.00. I bought a long-term quality Canadian stock 40 years ago for $4.20, that paid me about a dime or so a year in dividend, which is tax-advantaged here. Over the years, it's paid about 3% or so, or about 2.5% after taxes. A few months ago I could have sold that stock for $107.+ per share, and a few months later for about $89.50, and since it recovered to about $101.00, then last Friday dropped to about $96.50. Did I choose ot sell it? Not on your life! It has grown well for me over the years, and is currently a high quality stock. As the stock has grown well over the years, you can see my reasoning when I say that I do not feel the need to make any calculated deduction from current dividend rate to allow for the erosion of value of the basic investment due to inflation. Current after-tax income of 2.5%, divided into 72, shows that those dividends reinvested will double in about 30 years ... to my mind, a lot better than taking 72 years to do it. When I calculated the rate of growth of the stock a while ago, I think that I calculated that to be about 7% compounded. So you can see my reasons for being happy with that investment. That's one of my better ones - one of my equity-based mutual funds has taken over 20 years to slightly more than double. I'm not very pleased with the folks who have managed it over the years - and they've changed several times. Good wishes as you pursue your savings and investment program. ole joyful

The things you don't like about other peoples dogs, you may not believe it now, but having your own, a lot of times those annoying things end up being the things you love about them the most. One of my dogs is a beagle/lab and beagles were near the top of my list of dog breeds i did not want, and she is everything I thought she'd be, but I love her personality. She does bark but it is fairy easy to teach the "quiet" command to a dog once you've taught them speak. Dogs won't track in much, mine aren't on flea and tick preventative because i am uncomfortable with it and i know i don' have any fleas in my yard, and i just tick check them daily during normal affection, but as easy way to avoid that is just to use a flea/tick preventative from the start and you won't have a problem. Most will have fleas when you get them so the pill from the vet that kills fleas before it's in the house plus a bath with blue dawn dishsoap will get rid of any fleas and you won't have a problem. Mine sleep in bed and they are allowed on the couches and they don't track a whole lot of dirt in. I can't imagine not having a fenced in yard with my dogs though, my life would be miserable and so would theirs. They like to run around out back and hang out. My beagle/lab came from a house with cats when she was a puppy and still 3 years later she loves cats. So gentle and submissive around them, and she is a very hyper playful dog you would not expect to be good with cats. I was a cat person and I love having dogs. A big thing to consider is how much work they are. They are like kids you can't just leave them like you can cats. Especially one that hasn't been trained because they will wreck stuff. Crate training is great for this though, and they learn pretty quickly. You can train a dog out of almost anything, but there are some things that you are better off just adjusting your life to. Trash picking is one of those things, a trash picker is usually going to trash pick given the opportunity and chance alone, so we shut our bathroom doors instead of leaving temptation out there. A digger is gonna dig especially when it comes to hounds, and while you can train some out of it sometimes you just have to give them a designated digging spot. Jumping up is very easily corrected I've worked with a lot of fosters and it's the easiest thing to stop. Crotch sniffing more difficult but I would say most don't have that problem. intact males mostly. They CAN be very well trained and it doesn't take a ton of work to do so. They will learn a lot of things without you even teaching it to them, mine picked up room names and i can tell them which room to go to and they will go. If told to get off they won't come back up until invited. You can teach them to go to their crate very easily, and use that command when people knock on the door, and soon they will learn knocks on the door mean crate until invited out. The key is to get basic commands down and use them to teach the dog more complicated commands. One big thing I can't stress enough, if you get a puppy do not adopt a puppy from someone who has the litter and is adopting them out at 6 weeks. 8-9 weeks is the responsible thing to do. I've fostered litters and they learn bite inhibition starting at week 7, any dog leaving before that will have the mouthing problem and it's very annoying to have a dog mouthing constantly and so much more work to train that when two more weeks with it's siblings and it would learn most of it on their own. If you want to avoid a dog gutting things it's simple, never give them any toys with stuffing. There are plenty of stuffing free toys to keep a dog happy. Give them plush toys to tear into and they do not understand why it's ok to do that and not gut pillows etc. One plush toy removed and corrected the second the dog starts to gut it so they learn gutting is bad. Clicker training is someting i can't recommend enough. It is one of the best training tools out there. People don't understand why their dog isn't learning things because they have people with different tones, a clicker is cheap and the dog will remember that click means good and the click can come immediately after the dog has correctly done what you wanted. So many people praise their dog too late and the dog has no idea what it's getting praised for, and so many people have monotone voices that a dog can't distinguish positive from negative. That is also the cause of so many dogs not listening to commands, a stern voice is needed, i could take any dog ive trained who knows the "off" command, or get off. or down. and will do it immediately. Now tell them to do it but say it in a cheerful voice and no they are not going to do it. They are taught commands in stern voices, they obey stern voices, not voices that mix in with normal conversation that they hear all the time. It's not mean it's communicating with your dog. The biggest thing is to understand that your dog doesn't know what you want. If your dog isn't trained yet, you can't throw out commands and expect them to understand. You can't expect them not to do bad things, they aren't doing it to make you mad, they are following their instincts and you need to teach them what you want from them. you need to show them the behavior you like and what you don't like. Dogs like to please, training sessions are a great bonding experience and provide a lot of mental stimulation which a dog needs just as much as physical to tire them out. They are happy when you are happy, the moment you first teach a dog a trick and they do it and understand it you will understand by the look on their face that they are happy, and how awesome it is to have been able to communicate your wants to them and have them understand. Great bonding, training sessions, not necessarily from a trainer, just you and the dog are highly beneficial even for adult dogs as an ongoing thing it strengthens your relationship with the dog. It's really not work either,, it's just taking a few minutes to work with them. Socialization is also key,and it doesn't stop with dog to dog interation and dog to human interaction. It involves experience and situations as well. You don't want a dog afraid of storms or who won't go out in the rain, so when it's raining, excited play time in the rain so the dog sees it as a good thing. Car rides. you leaving the house, come back with something for the dog and they will learn that you leaving can be rewarding. Even with the worst barkers that i couldn't train 'quiet' effectively, i could train lay down and stay, and that is usually effective in stopping them from barking.

Jane, I personally would be hesitant to invest in a small condo now. Condos went down first in the last decline. I knew so many friends who bought in the late 80s who were upside down on their loans for a really long time (close to 10 years) meanwhile they needed to move on and start families and needed space. Some rented the, some sold at a loss and some sold only recently and tripled their money. Please make sure it is in a location you can rent out if you need to. However, everyone debates whether prices are going up or down so who knows Momtokai well said "Why is that an immigrant person who may have been a college professor/professional/businees owner in his/her country will come to America and cut your grass and clean your house, but a person born in this country without a high school diploma thinks it is beneath him/her to do that kind of work" I think education or skills training and a work ethic is the way out. We came here in 1968 and my parents had no money but they were educated and had a profession and because of the Vietnam War, were able to actually get jobs in their field since everyone was off fighting. They did not own a house for another 10 years but by then could afford something very upscale. They bought right before the price jump of the 1980s but then I bought right before the price crash of 1987! So it is also a function of random timing. I agree they are not your typical immigrants but I think throughout the generations the typical immigrants worked to better themselves. A house was a byproduct of that, not the cause of it. I think part of saving for your first house teaches money responsibility, without that it is like handing someone a hunting rifle and sending them out to hunt without teaching them how to use it I think there is a big difference between a first generation person who is working even if he is illegal and washes dishes and the entrenched poverty where mom, grandma and great grandma are all living on the dole