I am originally from Detroit--we graduated from college, got married, and moved down here (Houston)in 1981 because of the recession back then...no one was hiring. All the rest of our family and friends are still up there...one by one, getting laid off, things getting tight. Almost everything is tied into the auto industry...for instance, several have been laid off in constriction, employees of one of the Big 3 have lost jobs, my brother works for Sirius/XM Satellite Radio...new car sales down=less customers, even one laid off after 10 years being with an animal hospital--people do not not have the $$ for pet surguries. Many people don't have the $$ to send their kids to college & student loans are of a different time! These kids are the future of our country... I know we have cut back...everyone needs to hope for the best, prepare for the worst. ~MJ I am not a Democrat---but I am praying that our new president (and his crew...) can make the right decisions for the future of our country.

Good Morning All, May I be the third in line to say a huge THANK YOU to our Ms. Shirley and to sing her praises? I received a GREAT last minute daylily/hosta swap box from her! I think she miscounted a little on the 6 only items and enclosed a note saying she hoped she wasn't in trouble with Cindy for over packing! Here's what she sent me: Daylilies: American Eagle Angelic Messenger (Ooooohhhhhh!!) Ballyhoo Double Breakthrough Frilly Bliss (Spider -Love this one!) Lavender Bonanza Spacecoast Sweet Eye (!) String Bikini (Another awesome spider) Louisiana Iris (Think these have become my favorite of the irises): Mr. Man (a pass on from our dearly missed Joey's garden) Voodoo Magic Canna 'Florence Vaughn' Hosta: 'Little Sunspot' (Almost just bought this last week! Very pretty!) 'Sitting pretty' Crocosmia 'Norwich Canary' (Love!) Iris 'Champagne Elegance' (2 fans) Shirley, Thanks again for always blessing your swap partner with a most awesome packed full box. Always love my trades with you! Cindy, GREAT box from Shirley! I agree with her- you are a special angel among us and so deserving to be honored with that! Always love your pictures, your shared wisdom, sense of humor and ofcourse your great daylilies! Marea, I agree with Sherri on the prolif info. I just snap mine off the scape and put it in just a very small amount of water - about 1/4" - just enough so the tip of the crown is sitting in. It will begin to grow roots in a matter of a few days. Very easy! Hope the move is going well for you - know you must be getting there! Diann, speaking of baby Ben - how about an updated picture? He must be growing like a weed since his newborn picture you posted. Debbie, please post and let us know how you're doing - it's been way too long. Have been wide awake since 2:00 a.m. so I guess I'd better go accomplish something constructive before work today. Hope you all have a good one! MaryB

I have the iPod mini, which they no longer make. It was replaced by the nano, which is even smaller and has much longer battery life btw charges. My batteries last about 3 hrs before needing a charge, while they say the Nano's last about 8. I just plug mine in every night along w all the other things that need charged. It is easy to transfer CD music to your iPod, as Steve said. You use software (iTunes or other free software that's out there) -hubby uses some other free software for that. This converts your CD's into a format that iTunes can recognize. Then you just drag and drop the tunes or folders into your iTunes library. We each have iPods and named each after ourselves, so that we have a master library w everything in it, and then created separte places for "his" or "hers" tunes. It's much less complicated than it sounds. Honest. Have you ever had a PDA, such as a palm pilot or anything else that requires you to synchronize data, such as calendars, email, or whatever between your PC and the device? Well, iPods - using the iTunes software that come with them - work the same way. If you have added new material to your music library on your PC, and you plug your iPod into your USB or firewire (upgraded type of USB ports that most all computers have now and are much faster), iTunes automatically detects your iPod and transfers all of the new music over to it. It does this super fast. For 20 tunes it may take less than a minute. You might want to poke around the apple site to see if they have any PDF's of the iPod instruction manuals posted. I am sure they do. A quick read through the basics, and also the FAQ's and pictures they show of the iTunes library will help clear up some of your questions and make it easier to visualize what these terrific products do. Better yet, get thee to the local Apple store and have them give you a demo. In our area, the staff are super nice and will explain and demonstrate everything to you. They are set up for that. The only thing you cannot do, is transfer music from an iPod back to the computer (yours or anyone elses). Apple saw to that to prevent pirating/sharing of music. We learned that the hard way after our computer crashed and we did not have a backup of anything in our iTunes library. A lot was from CD's, so that was easy to redo, but we lost some rare british guitar music that hubby had downloaded from emusic.com. It's still there on the iPod, but if he ever plugs it back into the PC, it will write over what he has and put the contents of the new library we built onto it. Re-charging is no big deal at all. If you are going to play music through one of the hundreds of devices with speakers, you sit your iPod in its charging stand and then plug that into a mineature speaker system - or the system has its own stand that you sit the iPod in. Then batteries are not an issue, since it runs off of the speaker system power, not its batteries. The only time you are using the batteries is when you are away and using the iPod w the headphones. I travel between the East and West coast a great deal and cannot live w/o mine. It gets me through all those long bumby rides in cramped quarters and I can relax or work on the laptop while listing to what I want to hear. Once checked into the hotel, I get out my 3 charging devices: iPod, Blackberry, and Bluetooth cordless headset (for my blackberry/cell phone). Oh, and my digital camera if I happen to bring it. Everything gets charged during the evening so they are ready to go for the next day. I believe all the iPods they are selling today, come with their charging stands and of course, all the cords you need. I HATE the headphones they provide though. They give me an earache (hard plastic w rubber things that keep falling off and they get lost in the first week anyway). But they have some other nice ones with much better design, so that's what I did in the first week - got rid of the awful headphones. Must-haves today are Tivo, XM satellite radio (we have 4), and iPods. Let us know what you end up getting. These are the best thing Apple has ever come up with in terms of functionalitiy, design, and price point. L

The short answer is yes you can. Look for a stereo a/v receiver. You will want a seperate system so that you have enough connections. Recommend looking at Harmon Kardon for around $500 you can buy a decent one. Harmon Kardon sells an IPOD dock that will integrate with the receiver and in some cases allow viewing of music on a connected video monitor/tv. All laptops can be connected via the line out/headphone jack using a mini to RCA connector. In addition you can also buy a USB device to allow digital connection via optical cable to the receiver. Depending on your XM radio you will likely need to get a dock, most all of the portable radios have a home dock option that will easily allow connection to the receiver. Most XM radio channels are broadcast in 2 -channel meaning you only get left/right sound, that being said all modern receivers will have a built in sound setting to give a simulated surround sound effect coming out of 5 to 7 speakers.