prolific is right on that jewel weed... I am leaving a large patch in an area I am not adding to at all..just removing invasive from.The Jewel weed can have a blast there. Besides I may need the flowers myself..it seems I am VERY sensitive to poison ivy. I am trying to tell DH we need a goat so it can eat the PI..but he ain't buying it! I did transplant a large Solomons seal colony ..it was in an area that my kids play in. I am very tickled with the star flowers,and looking forward to the Mayflowers growing up.. And.... a friend of mine had to have her septic done...and right before the digging she found a colony of lady slippers... She gave me 4 to see if between the 2 of us we can keep them alive.It's been a week here and so far so good..I did pinch off the flower bud..as heartbreaking as that was... I want them to build roots and not flowers...

Annellis, The thing to do when you have so much necessary "stuff" and just not enough room, is (1) try to declutter again - throw out what you can live without, (2) separate "home" from "business" from "hobbies" (3) Within each one of those three sections are sometimes ten or so subsections. Don't feel like we've all got the tiny desk with the 3 flowered vase on it and are just so content with that. At the moment, I've got a few rooms of disorganization spilled over onto the next (but I work almost 16 hrs a day and wait for weekends to catch up). Anyways, those magazine desk rooms are "staged" rooms - they don't exist. The minute you put a real person with real receipts and documents in those rooms, it will be a tornado. Anyways, a few tips I've used that have helped me: (1) Buy a photo album with the clear sheets: I put warranties, important receipts, important documents (deeds, mortgage transactions, etc.) in these bad boys because it lets me see instantaneously what I have. (2) Get an accordian style folder. This is for coupons. Label the tabs by month, and put the coupons in that are due to expire in that month. We are never more motivated to use coupons then when their value will expire. At least that is the way for me. (3) Get fancy (but cheap) bins to put "stuff to look over when I have a minute" and divide by type: business, home, play. Organizing is very personal; make it the way you need to in order to retrieve documents quickly and to organize efficiently. If big color stickies are what grabs your attention, then do it! If you want that kind of attention-getting organization, but behind closed doors - stash your stuff in matching bins, cabinets, etc. You don't have to buy fancy stuff, just make it all consistent; paint the ugly file cabinet a nice brown to match the incoming & outgoing mail bins, that will match the accordian files. Harmony is established visually through consistency. So, you can have alot of clutter, but consolidate it behind consistent color and texture and find a code of organization that works for you and your family. Having alot of "stuff" isn't bad - especially if it is important documents or idea sheets or creative inspirations. The trick is to be able to devise a system to organize it so that you can retrieve it quickly, or flip through it to remind you of what is available. I have volumes and volumes of pictures I've cut out from magazines, because I loved the way a room looked. I have several albums dedicated soley to kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, bonus rooms, basements, mudrooms, and gardens. And in each one of those categories, I have several subcategories (paint style/color, furniture arrangement, etc.). As long as you organize in a way that you won't have to lose an inspiration idea, you are fine! And you can do all this on a budget, and still be eloquent, and organized looking. Go over the system with your partner and make sure you two are on the same page in regards to (1) what needs to be filed and where they go (2) what things can wait and where their holding place is, and (3) not sure, but I'll ask my partner about this one bin. Remember that the "home office" is the "brains" of the house; deceptionaly pretty, but internally complex. Kinda like what my DBoyfriend calls me. ;)

I am making note of ravencajun's very helpful sites. My computer with Windows XP crashed last week and I had to buy a new one - I live in Toronto - and yes, I bought one that unfortunately has Windows 8. Windows 8 is not compatible with our paid for by the month security - found out that the hard way - and finally spoke with someone at Rogers who knew this - they all don't. I spent hours on the phone with HP in India and then the same with Microsoft. I also bought the Student Microsoft 2013 package that has Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote - but it came with a KEY number - not discs. I have successfully loaded Microsoft Office Professional (with discs) on my last 2 computers so was not expecting a major problem - but I have one. You can only use the key once and it didn't take I know it has something to do with my e-mail address. The computer store where I bought the sucker told me to enter my e-mail address and carry on when I was setting up the computer. I did so, but my password was all lower case and this would not work with the new set-up so I made up a new one (apparently you can change it - but guess what - it won't let me). The person at the Rogers, our Internet/Cable company instructed me to uninstall the Norton anti-virus so that I could re-install our monthly paid for anti-virus that we buy from them. Well, it doesn't work with Windows 8 but he didn't know this. I called Best Buy - couldn't help. So I called HP and they took control of my computer and downloaded Defender. I knew not to try and load the Microsoft office until I had an anti-virus program installed. The HP fellow tried to install it and realized after I had typed in the key that it wasn't going to work. Apparently, according to Microsoft - he transferred me to him - this happens a lot - the e-mail/password problem - ends up corrupting something and you can't reload - so now the Microsoft fellow has sent my file to the appropriate dept. to be fixed and I am to expect a call from India within 3 days. Someone had better be able to fix this because the program cost me $139.00 plus our Cdn. taxes. Then Microsoft loaded on a Hotmail e-mail - but I noticed he did it via the temporary Outlook. While I love Outlook I have not purchased it and do not need it. So when I open up Internet I get the MSN - bing business and I have to sign in with my original Rogers e-mail with the new password that has 2 capitalized alpha characters. But I want my home page to be Rogers - we have Rogers Internet. When I am lucky enough to find it I can enter my e-mail using my original password - so something is still very iffy. The 'charms' as they are called on the first page drive me nuts. I only use my computer for e-mail, Internet and some Word - plus a few of the necessary accessories to keep the computer "healthy'. I do not shop on e-Bay, Amazon, etc., I don't play games, play music or watch TV. I use it like a fancy typewriter. I know there must be a way to increase the font size and the size of the screen. At the moment everything is probably in 8 point with 2 inch margins. I have always kept my fonts large and I didn't have the margins. it isn't a problem with my vision - at almost 63 I still have 20/20 but I see no point in straining my eyes just to see the darned computer. So - I HATE IT! I haven't hooked up the Brother laser printer I bought as yet. My old printer - a Canon - that cost about $60.00 used the dreaded inkjet cartridges - and even though I would tell it not to print in colour - and I do know how - it ignored me. Of course you can't print unless there are colour and black cartridges in the printer - so there I was with $51.34 worth of 2 cartridges - the colour is very expensive - plus our taxes on hand - and I was 6 days late in being able to return them. I knew the old printer would not work with the new computer so I was printing out what I could while I was crashing. It was kind of awful - non-responsive mode for an hour at a time. I have no plans to try and reload anything on to the new computer just in case there is something wrong with the data. Then there was the old computer. I deleted what I could but couldn't manage to get rid of the stuff that I really wanted to - as in my name, registration, Outlook Express etc. - so I took off the side panel, took out the likely pieces of hardware - gave them a soaking and took the hammer to them and then put the side piece back on before I took It to the store's recycling department. So I am not a happy camper. Every time I try to do something basic it backfires, so I will definitely look at raven's websites - and I guess I had better see if that darned new printer will work. Best Buy sold it to me with the computer so it had better work - and I will be having something to say to them about the Microsoft Office package. Sorry for the rant, but you got me on Day ONE! I keep trying to load a toolbar that has something on it to allow me to change the font but so far that hasn't worked.

I'm glad to hear you got it all working. But don't shield the router with metal in any way - it will prevent the wireless from working. What you want to check is, that the wireless password is strong. I use ten characters - alphabetical upper & lower case, numbers, and punctuation. I put it on a small cheap flash drive so when friends come over they can use it to copy and paste, although it's still a bit of hassle for mobile phones as you can't plug in the flash drive. I would think about changing it to some completely new password that no one could know. Like, you didn't have some wild party where some interloper looked on the bottom of the router and copied down the password ? You can use more than ten characters if you like, but the wireless network would be the main entry point for some bad guy. They'd have to first have wireless access, and once that's achieved, know the administrative password to get into the router, to make changes. It's much harder for someone to get access via the **wired** network - they'd have to get in your house and plug in, so that's not of greatest concern. But a strong administrative router password is the defense there, and that way you can keep your husband from poking around and mucking things up as well (just teasing.) Make sure that the router's admin password is changed to something other than the default, because there are websites where you can look up the default login passwords for all routers. The login user ID is not so important. Myself, since I'm in a very urban area (San Francisco) and there are tons of techies and routers, I named my wireless network SSID "Typhoid" just to kind of scare off anyone. But of course it really is no real defense. Next, you should look around for the router setting that controls **visibility **from the outside world over the wired connection. It's usually a checkbox in the Advanced settings saying something like "WAN Blocking." Make sure that's enabled so people can't see your router when looking around. Also look for something that controls administration **from the outside** , named something like "Remote Management", and you want to make sure that's disabled. Finally, you might check if your router is updated to the latest firmware - the software in the router that runs the show. The latest version would have all the latest fixits and patches for any vulnerabilities. You need to check it on the router, then compare it to what's offered on the company's website for that router. If your version is way behind, you should read the manual carefully about how to update. Usually it seems scary, but is actually pretty easy to do. That's all i can think of at this time. Best of luck ! -Kent