Everything looked beautiful last night, but then during the night about 300 million wild animals traipsed back and forth across every inch of ground searching for food. We have animal tracks upon animal tracks upon animal tracks. Looks like the deer, rabbits, birds, possums, armadilloes, foxes, bobcats and more were roaming around searching for something to eat and drink last night. Some of the larger animal tracks even had smaller animal tracks inside of them, as if the little animals let the bigger animals break through the snow and make a path for them to follow. I know that we always have tons of critters and varmints wandering around at night, but to see how many tracks there are after snowfall is just incredible. It is so cold out there! I put out food and tried to break holes in the ice over the scant amount of water that remains in the pond so the wildlife could feed today. We aren't supposed to even make it up to freezing temperatures, so I don't know how much the conditions will improve outside today, if any. Late in the afternoon and into the evening yesterday, after the precipitation had stopped falling, the tow truck drivers and local law enforcement officers made a Herculean effort to locate every stalled or abandoned car and to get the occupied vehicles back on the road and moving, and to get the abandoned cars hauled away. They worked for hours and hours. I hope people stay home today and stay off the roadways until conditions improve. Chris made it back to southern OK after he got off work although it took him about 25% longer. He saw tons of accidents on his way home and mentioned he thought the road conditions in OK were much worse this morning than the ones in Texas. I am more excited about the rain (over an inch!) that fell yesterday than the snow. We sure did need the rain. Between the rain and the snow, we had our best one-day precipitation event since at least September. We'll have to wait and see what the NWS says in terms of our recorded precipitation, but we had at least 1.25" of rain before we then received 2-3" of sleet and snow. It blew sideways most the time, so some areas have very little on them while drifts piled up against buildings and plants. Larry, At least you did get the moisture. I don't mind snow too much as long as I can just stay inside looking out the window at it. I, too, hope everyone's Christmas was Merry and that each and every one of you have a safe and happy Holiday season. Let's hope we don't have freezing precipitation around New Year's Eve or New Year's Day to complicate those holiday travels. Now that Christmas is over, I'm going to focus more on finishing my grow list for 2013. It is almost time to start sowing seeds. Dawn

I know this thread is 11 years old, but I would like to add that the culprit could be the toilet seat. I recently replaced our toilets, and they came with soft closing lids. We first notice the "soot" like residue on the seats. I believe that a small amount of grease is released as a fine dust. Several months later we noticed it on surfaces that emit air, such as our dish washer vent, and heat pump. We have used candles for years, but it was not until we replaced our toilets that the residue appeared. So it would be interesting to know how many find the residue on their toilet lids and of those how many are new installs and are they soft closing. Thanks

Hi, Again - First, I do like my KitchenAid dishwasher - especially the cool blue lights. It works well, even though I'm afraid to put in truly dirty dishes! I can't recall which model it is, but I can look it up if you want the info. Second, Etc. - Here are the photos I promised: More photos of White Fantasy Quartzite than you probably wanted (Is it wrong to be obsessed with this countertop?): Photos of Lutron Switchplates and Dimmers (I forget the color, but the line is Diva and Maestro - and I got samples and placed them against my backsplash to see if they matched. They did, perfectly - yay!) OK, I also included more photos of candy, because I'm also obsessed with that. Note that the kids are not allowed to touch the apothecary jars, but the penny candy jars are all theirs. Yes, I do laugh at myself:: I think the photo with the apothecary jars shows a good sample of the jet mist granite, too: Here are photos of the pendant lights and the Hickory Hardware American Diner pulls, knobs and cup pulls. They aren't great pics, unfortunately. The thing that ties the cabinet hardware, pendant lights and kitchen faucet/hot&cold water dispenser together are that they are all satin nickel and they all have "beading" - a row or two rows of banding - at the edges. I hope you can see that in the pics. I do occasionally catch my sweaters on the knobs and pulls, but as I haven't ruined anything yet, I don't mind: I just realized you can click on the photos to go to my album, where you can see larger version of them, which may be helpful for details. A few additional thoughts. I debated putting in the outlets on the horizontal, so they would blend in with the subway tile backsplash. Of course, as soon as I made up my mind, I went to tell my contractor, who was in the kitchen, installing the outlets upright. Oh, well. I can definitely live with it (although I had to work very hard to convince him to install the Lutron outlets/switchplates -he thought white was just fine. Silly man!) Also, although I thought I had thought everything through, using the great advice from everyone here, I'm not happy with my silverware drawers. There aren't enough - really because they are very shallow. I think I should have figured out how to put in at least one or two deeper drawers so I could have put in two layers of silverware, knives, etc. Also, I thought I was going to have three drawers underneath my cooktop, with the top drawer to be used for untensils. It turned out that I can't use the top drawer at all because of the depth of the cooktop. I'm not sure what I would have done differently, but I wish I could use that drawer! Anyway, I think that's it for now, until I show you the "before" and the bathroom. Thanks again!

Tamara....I know this thread is old, but your kitchen is simply stunning! Are your cabinets Chantilly Lace? I read you kitchen delays and had to smile. I've lost weight and sleep over my darn remodel. Who knew how stressful this would be? If you used Chantilly Lace did you paint your ceiling the same. I just ordered my paint yesterday and I'm freaking out that it might be too bright.....