This is fabulous. Three of the wonderful things I have learned since I was fortunate enough to discover gardening: 1. Nothing grows on the mountaintop. We must have valleys to grow. 2. Momma birds have to kick baby birds out of the nest, or they will never fly. Momma squirrels are smart to destroy the nest so no one can come back to it. 3. You have to have darkness to grow. Never pray away your bad times. Learn from them. The people across the street do everything I do to my yard. They mow, water, feed correctly. Their yard is full of weeds and weak...mine is beautiful. The difference? They shine a 100 watt bulb in their street light every nite, all nite. I have 60 watts and it goes off at 2am every morning. It has to have darkness to grow.

Thanks Pauline! Well you won't believe it. I totally lucked out. That is actually a display I bought. The company that I bought it from was changing their showroom. I stopped in and bought all of those cabinets with the counter tops,island, cook stove and warming oven for 12K Canadian. they are solid cherry cupboards. The island is granite. Counters are Corian. As the kitchen is only a 10x10 and our kitchen is considerably larger -2.5 times bigger - we are using those cupboards and adding others from the same manufacturer. I have a floor to ceiling(9') pantry going in, a buffet and 6 large shelves on either side of the window (I am a dish fanatic and have a lot of bowls and platters, etc I want to display) When I have some time I will post my kitchen plan. In the end it will cost around 30K Canadian. It is exactly what I wanted. I think it has 18 drawers and 24 cupboards. I will be putting rod iron brackets and knobs - 3 styles on the drawers. The company does custom work. They are called Acorn Kitchens and they are in Canada. Here is a link that might be useful: Acorn Kitchens

Oh yes Alexa and going even earlier than that, I remember when there was no TV so we listed to radio programs such as Ozzie & Harriet, Mr. & Mrs. North, Lux Theater, The Edgar Bergen show with Charlie McCarthy, Amos and Andy. We read books and comic such as Archie, Little Lulu, Donald Duck and played cards, jacks, pick-up sticks, Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, hopscotch, skipped rope, and roller skated on heavy metal skates that you clamped onto your heaviest shoes using a tightening key on a cord that you hung around your neck, until you needed to tighten them again. Balloons had just been invented or reinvented after the war. Records were 78 rpm until the Long plays LPs and the 45s came out. We could play outside all day until we heard our moms standing on the back porch calling our name for us to come in. Girls all wore dresses to school and wearing trousers or slacks (as they were called) to school was forbidden except when there was deep snow. We wore gumboots over our shoes when it rained. When we picked up the phone, an operator said...'Number please', and the phone cord was black and not spring coiled. People who came to the door: the milkman, the egg man, the newspaper boy, the grocer bringing the groceries, the boy from the meat market, the laundry service with dad's white work shirts, the Watkins man, the bread man. There were no supermarkets. We fought over who could read the Sunday comics first when the weekend newspapers arrived on the front porch. And we walked miles to high school carried a load of books and an umbrella, usually open. I guess I'm going farther back in time to when most here were not yet born lol! SharonCb

Juellie, glad you liked the idea of "memories." My friend has been gone now for several years, but that memory lives on, and more scatches memories were added this holiday, when one of my DGGS (twice) bumped a candy dish off of the coffee table. Hold those little ones close. I like to remember this "Give your children roots, and wings." Sue