$500 is definitely NOT a good price on the mini. QVC's prices on all Apple products are always bad, and always seem to be sold in a bundle so you might not realize how much extra you're truly paying. You can do better ANYWHERE else. The price of that mini is around $300 and you can buy it online from Apple dot com and have it in a week. A good case is in the $25-50 range, many decent ones even less. The device comes with earplugs and charger included. Most discount stores sell Apple products at the exact same price since Apple does not allow discounts, but sometimes you can get like a $25-50 Gift Card thrown in at Target, Best Buy or WalMart. Another option is to buy a refurbished one....FROM APPLE only...and they carry the same warranty as a new one. I've bought MANY,MANY Apple devices from their refurbished line. Though I've never had a problem, I would still only buy refurbished directly from Apple; nowhere else.

I agree, but just for a moment. (the use of blockers) Those that are computer savvy, and have the instant ability to cary on by using apps so quickly, do have an advantage. My father is 86 and needs social media for stimulation and brain exercise. He is still brilliant but very frustrated. Every update is a struggle. Every visit i need to walk him through changes. And i can barely keep up. I don't like to think of our elders loosing connections via their computers, or getting more confused. (i'm on my husbands new air laptop right now, just days old, without problems.) My iPad i use at work, and for work, is touch sensitive. I speed read and just can't read posts with big sections of posts blocked. And i have add blockers but need to keep trying i suppose. I'm personally not at all put off as i know it will continue and needs to be accepted...I just have to support those here that are frustrated with it just wanting some social time, relaxing time... On an iPad it is a mess. Just a simple scroll, the page present jumps away instantly and hard to retrieve. As if these new pop-ups were designed for just that.

Or you could try to connect with remodelers. In areas where they remodel perfectly fine kitchens to embrace the owner's version of a dream room, or simply the switching out of hardware due to finish changes, the old stuff is still in great condition. I know we bought some temporary value-pack pulls to replace the hideous knobs in the kitchen when we purchased the house. Now I am staining the cabinets and changing the pulls to ones with a different finish. So there will be a box of pulls that are only a few years old sitting in a box in the garage, or waiting for a garage sale. I cannot be the only one.

I am loving all these pull-out ideas. Another idea I had is to close off the blind part of my cabinet (not the whole thing but the part where it turns to the left and goes so deep) and then open it up on the other side, which is our stairwell to the basement. We could put a couple of shelves in there for cleaning products or towels or something. It's right at the level of the middle landing, which is where we already have a basket for dirty kitchen linens, so it would work out quite well.