That sounds wonderful! I have found several recipes for using pears, so I will be experimenting a little when the fruit comes in this year to determine which will adapt well to this variety of pear. The texture may make some differences in the final product, but I'm assuming any variety of pear will work in a recipe that uses pears. It will just be a matter of discovering which will be most pleasing to the palate, I suppose. This could turn out to be a lot of fun, and I will certainly have plenty of fruit to experiment with. I really love pepper jams and such, so I find the idea of a pear and pepper combination appealing. I grow several varieties of hot peppers, which I prefer over the sweeter peppers. I have some bell peppers and sweet banana peppers, but mostly grow hotter varieties. The first thing I put up this season was mango/jalapeno jam, which is not really very hot. Most of my family do not share my love for truly hot foods and condiments. I can do some experimenting and adapt some of the recipes I have already found, but would be more than happy to try yours if it's not too much trouble to locate and post. You've been so helpful that I really don't want to put you out any more, so please don't go to a lot of trouble on my account. I'm finding a wealth of information by searching the internet, and have discovered quite a few things I'm anxious to try! Once more, I offer my most heartfelt gratitude, not only to you for the personal responses, but to the entire garden web community. There is just so much information here, and it is truly a blessing for a novice gardener such as myself to be able to draw on the experience of such a knowledgeable and neighborly community! The site reminds me so much of the way people once helped each other when I was growing up in rural northeast Florida. Now, most of the old dirt roads are paved (some with 4 lanes), and the spirit of a close knit community has given way to seemingly uncaring strangers and the old way of life is gone... This is why I moved a little further north, where it is still "rural." My poor granny stepped in a hole and broke her leg, right in her front yard, and was very distraught over the fact that she had to lie there on the ground for hours, watching as possibly hundreds of cars passed, until my aunt finally came to visit and discovered her! I apologize for my off-topic meandering, but it just means a lot to me that you have taken the time to personally respond, and have been so helpful. I think I could really grow to love the garden web community!

Dear Elizabeth, I am so sorry that you carry so much pain inside. I think I know how bad it is...only because the death of both parents still causes much pain. We ache for them and the "hole" that they leave. Lucky you to be so close to your brother. I will never know the closeness of a sibling as he and I were the only 2 children. He was my parent's biological child and they adopted me from birth. Sometimes I think he didn't like me...and he was the only family member to ever treat me differently or said anything about me not "really" being family. This was especially obvious when my dad died and made me the executor of the estate (younger child...and in my brother's opinion "not blood"), so maybe that's why he cut me out of his life. I could try to guess for years, but am trying to close the book on a chapter that was particularly painful. I beat myself up for years, and now that he's gone, I have to let the pain and the "shoulda, coulda, woulds" go. I don't claim this to be a universal approach, but I can get on with my life not worrying about him and I am glad that he's not in need of anything. He wouldn't take any help I offered unless it involved a "dead president" (I heard someone refer to money as that and thought it was clever). So...the weight is off my shoulders. I am still sad and will be everytime I think of him...but I can't let it drag me down. MY HIPPIS NEED ME to be happy!! THE DATE was nice (ok, it's 9PM and I'm home....) this was dinner with Ed. I met him on a cruise in 1997 (they thought we were a married couple!!) and we have dinner every year. He lives in IL and I usually catch up with him on the way to a dog show. He happened to drive his new car down towards Houston and invited me to a very nice Italian resturant. New car??? His old Miata was just fine by me...fun and zippy (I used to have a convertible too), but the new car is fun and zippier. A new Porche boxter! Boys and their toys. Tomorrow is another "date" of sorts. Going to a wine tasting and meeting a friend (Alan) there. Asked him what I should bring and he recommended cheesecake, so I made a Chocolate Kaluha chocolate chip cheesecake with ganauche(?) on top! :-) see what these guys are missing?? Handy in the yard AND kitchen?? Kristi

Thanks! I can see myself buying something called Eskimo Pie, just based on the name, not to mention that it is a white or light centered one, which is my favorite type (I wonder how such preferences come about: why do I like that so much more than a white edged one?). Anyone else know anything? What is the big one in the middle of the last shot, with a narrow white edge? Nothing here is more than 2 years old, and I am surprised at how big that one got. And, the smallish blue ones (not the Blue Cadet, the ones with a slightly wavy edge), like that in the forground of "view from the North"? I appreciate the help!

Here is what I was thinking about for turning Bath 3 into a hall bath that could be easily shared by unrelated by different gender and/or non-related kids. If you didn't put a lock on the outer door, but have locks on the toilet room and tub room doors, two people could use the space at the same time with reasonable privacy and no one could lock the other out of space that wasn't actually being used. Obviously, there is no privacy at the sink when brushing teeth, washing hands, fixing hair, or putting on make-up. Most of us are reasonably okay with that and Besides, those of us who grew up in the days when entire families shared a single bath learned to take our hair and make-up primping to our bedrooms to free up the bathroom anyway. But, if you absolutely hate pocket doors then this won't work very well because you'd have too many doors opening into too small a space. But it is an idea. I personally think it would look okay to have the door to bedroom 3 moved forward... but then I'm not that hung up on symmetry. Another option would be to move the door to bedroom 3 all the way to the front of the house so that it is straight across from the top of the stairs. That would give you a different kind of symmetry. But it would also mean whoever had bedroom 3 would have a rather long walk to reach his/her bathroom. Alternatively, you just could do a more traditional hall bath like this and just leave the door to bedroom 3 right where it is. Since you have room in the attic area to build a closet for the study if/when you want to turn it into a bedroom, this would work fine. As for getting furniture into bedroom 4, with 3'6" hallways, you're probably okay as long as you're not planning on putting anything really massive in there. Dressers can be tipped up on one end to get them thru the hallways. Mattresses can be bent a little bit to get them around tight corners. The biggest problem would probably be the box springs if you were trying to get a queen or king size bed into the room. As long as it's a child's room and you plan to stick with a twin or full-size bed, I wouldn't worry about it. It's great that you have a kitchen designer helping you plan the kitchen but you might also want to post your plan on the kitchen forum here on GW. Those folks are AMAZING when it comes to designing kitchens. It's also great that you have a second garage for the bicycles and stuff like that! I'd still want my laundry room and mud room to be larger tho. I agree with your reasoning about having the downstairs "bonus room." In fact, if you can find a way to do it while redesigning the kitchen space, I'd recommend a "pass thru" opening from the kitchen to the family room so that you can see the kids while working in the kitchen. But, tho I agree with you about having a downstairs bonus room, I'm not sure I agree that it needs to be quite so big. Are you planning to put a pool table or ping-pong table in there or are we just talking board games, TV, and room for little ones to scatter their toys and run around a bit? If you're thinking family night with board games, it is unlikely that half your family will be watching TV while the other half plays board games in the same room. The noise from the two activities isn't exactly compatible so it's likely that the TV watchers would drift off to the living room to watch their shows in peace or the board game players would move out to the nook or dining room. So, I'd still probably steal about a 5 ft wide strip out of the bottom of the family room to expand the laundry room and mud room.