Thanks hosta gardeners. From your suggestions, and my own ideas, I have compiled a to do list. Winter prep for hosta gardens 1. Take pictures of hosta gardens for reference and winter planning. 2. Cut back hosta to about 6-8 inches. Leaving that much to catch leaves and snow to act as a winter mulch. Otherwise, I don�t give winter protection to my hosta. 3. Mark hosta crowns with stakes. My husband, I notice, has a pile of wooden garden stakes he made, probably from scrap. I am going to use them this year as my plant labels aren�t ready, (winter project?) 2. Store container hosta for winter. Some I will sink into my vegetable patch as I did last two winters, and some I will use the hosta forum tip method (I decided to name it such without permission and apologize to any forum members who disagree): store sideways and the north side of my house under the eaves so they will stay frozen and dry all winter. 3. Take notes. From what needs to be moved next spring to where I think I could squeeze in a few more hosta. Also which annuals worked best as hosta companions. Many of my hosta are still immature and I like to fill with annuals and groundcovers. 4. Water thouroughly one last time. It has been dry and windy here and the soil doesn�t freeze until late November or December. We have had it better than some, but have had to water. If it doesn�t rain this week, I will water one last time. After October 15th, no more. 5. Make a large pot of chili, buy some Spanish red wine, make a fire and enjoy the last of the garden,. Happy October Beverly (Sorry, this got rather long winded.)

The thing to remember is that buying any car is a gamble. New ones have a warranty, with an accompanying big price tag. A used car is more of a gamble unless you know who's selling it and how it's been cared for. Even if all's well, things still break. You can reduce your chances of unpleasant surprises by deciding on a year, make, model ahead of time and look only for that car. The year can vary a little as long as the design hasn't changed much. Then educate yourself on that particular car before you go shoping. When you get an idea of what you might want to buy, do some research as to what the maintainence costs for that vehicle are. IMO, forums like this are a good place to look. There are forums for honda, toyota, chevy, most anything you can think of. After doing the research, you might conclude your first choice wasn't a good one and explore something different. Keep in mind all cars need things. Belts, hoses, coolant changes, spark plugs, wires and such every 30k. Transmission service at 30k to 100k. Some have a timing belt that needs to be replaced at 100k. Brake life varies, for me they last about 70k at a time. ect. Read through the forums to see if the particular model you're considering has any common problems. Some engines seem to develope sludge easier than others. All will if neglected. If the previous owner hasn't changed the oil as often as he should, or used dino oil when synthetic was required, there could be a serious problem on the horizon. Is it a car that needs a timing belt every 100k, it's a $1000 service, and the vehicle has 110k on it now and never been changed? Something to consider. Don't forget to check the tires. If the tread is about gone, that's another $200+ you may end up adding to the original price tag before you know it. Easy to overlook that kind of thing while admiring the shiney paint. Keeping all that in mind and tenatively making a choice, it'd be nice if the owner would let you take it to someone for a look see. They can check for brake wear, tire wear, condition of the exhaust system, ect. Often times an experienced person can tell if a vehicle as been pretty well maintained or totally ignored with a visual inspection. If you buy off a car lot, keep in mind those guys don't know a thing about the vehicle and don't want to know a thing about it. They'll also clean the hec out of it. Though it's very nice to be looking at an ultra clean used car, all that cleaning may have hidden it's true condition. If you want to be even safer, keep $1600 or more available for things the car may need that you and everyone else may have overlooked. If you find out after the fact that it needs a water pump or something, that's ok. You predicted it might need a thing or two and got the money to cover it. jmo

Thanks everyone. The more I learn the more uncertain I am. The Asus' sound good - and I know Raven loves hers - but when I look at the negative reviews (on varous sites), there seems to be significant quality control issues. Lots of lemons - and defects - and terrible cusotmer service. There's enough of that type of review that I hesitate to buy an Asus tablet. I saw a google nexus 10. I prefer it to have a microsd card slot - not have fixed storage like an ipad. It also just did not feel or look good to me. Genes - you may be right about not finding that kind of battery life for video play. I thought that ipads were (at least older generations) got 9-10 hours of video play. On the one hand, i would expect video to be one of the biggest battery drains. But perhaps surfing the web - downloading content, etc also consumes battery life. Urlee - I interpreted that quote about really killing the tablet - and what battery life it gets - to suggest that even using it to the max - he gets 6 hours - and thinks "regular?" use could get 10 hours. Of course, we don't know what "regular is". That kind of leaves the Samsung tablets - either galaxy tab 10.1 - or Note. The actual pen aspect of the note doesn't do anything for me (maybe I'd wind up loving it - but it's not on my list of desireable features). I just saw a refurbished note at Best Buy for about $330 (something like that - I had a small credit - and there was tax). 500-600. They're often closer to $So I decided to order it and give it a try. It's supposed to be fast - 2GB ram - with ICS. I have not seen one in person. This has just 16GB on board storage - but with a micro sd slot, that doesn't matter since I can add 64GB more. For some reason, this Note doesn't excite me in theory the way the Asus tablets did. But the relatively large number of complaints (and consistent complaints) on Asus have made me pause. Mike - I am aware that many international flights have power ports. But we have not been that lucky in our last international flights. These flights have been booked through an educational tour group - and therefore the airline has been very reluctant to give us any information. I know we're in a Boeing 777. But from Seat Guru it looks like there are 5 different versions. And the one that looks closest to the seating chart on Delta's website - does not have power ports in economy. One seating chart looked like it might. Another suggested just ipod/iphone charging in economy - no tablets or laptops. But none of the charts on seat guru quite match what's on Delta. If there were power ports, that would make this easy. But my experience is, don't count on power ports. First - they may not be in economy. And if they are, they may not be at every seat. And even if they're there, doesn't mean they're working. (Heck - 2 of the last 4 domestic flights I took - the readling light for my seat was not working - and the flights were full - no reading for me (this was before i had the Nook). If I could really count on power ports that work - I'd just bring my nook tablet for now. But it's been acting up in terms of battery drain lately - and I don't want to risk this as my only entertainment. I'll keep everyone posted. Thanks. Lynn.

Thanks for posting the piucture! Here are some pictures of the original cabinet in our butler's pantry. Photobucket compresses already grainy pictures, and everything is a mess because we ripped out a lot of stuff already. Got down to the second from the bottom floor (4" green tiles), the bottom of which is a black rubber mat with some design (the black may also be glue from the tiles). Inside underneath the original cabinet is some old linoleum with an interesting pattern. So it seems that the cabinets, at least in the butler's pantry were just wood. I dont know that they were ever refinished, the folks who lived in the home before us didnt really care for the cabinet, and we have been somewhat afraid to try anything with it because of its age. All the woodwork in the home is natural chestnut. But I have seen where the butler's pantry is wood and the kitchen itself is sanitary white. I dont know that this cabinet was ever moved, nor if there ever were more of them. The pantry has a deeper section where I guess a freestanding hoosier could have been. When we remove the 50's stuff, it will be interesting to see what remains of signs of yesteryear... We are not interested in doing white cabinets, but a neutral wood color, perhaps even slightly lighter than this, or white are our two thoughts. Or even to do another white cabinet in the pantry to compliment this one (plus more storage) without having a conflicting wood tone, and then new wood cabinets in the kitchen so it looks a bit warmer in there. Ugh, I just dont know!!