Annie.... Ashley was just asking a logical question wasn't she LOL! But it's so true that tourists....often strong German men.....underestimate the strength of the undertow on the open Atlantic and there are drownings here, of either swimmers or people being swept off rocks when they get closer than they should. I just came back from a little walk down to a lookout point near our house and as it's late in the day, I caught an evening cloud over the volcano, as well as a look over the edge to one of the downtown beaches. Here's the volcano,and here it is 6 minutes later, taken from another vantage point. The clouds have totally changed formation. (Click will enlarge.) Here's the view looking downtown to one of the beaches and the developed pool area with nightclub in the centre of the artificial lake, all together called The Lido, then a closeup of same. (Click will enlarge.) In the second photo you can see that the waves are still very large here as the islands are all on 'orange alert' which is one step below red alert or extreme danger from the seas. And in a calmer note, I decided to make better use of the lovely little two-tiered Moroccan cake plate I bought at Laura Ashley, since we buy cake one piece as a time, so I put it into the little tree outside my computer room window where the birds congregate every day. I filled it with dry cat food and set my camera up on my desk. Only had to wait a few minutes before they noticed that their food was now up in the tree! I hope to get some wild bird feed for the smaller birds and wild canaries as they also abound here. They came to check out the cat food but the biggies chased them away. The kibbles are too big anyway for small birds. (Click will enlarge.) SharonCb

LOL, Arley. I'm not an opera fan but Elery is, so I'm going to show this to him, he'll love it. One of the local malls here often has a piano player on Saturdays. The older gentleman who accompanies the pianist sometimes gives impromptu waltz lessons to willing bystanders, and that's kind of fun. Annie

I had a Complete Hysterectomy at 33 yrs old. Was on HRT- Premarin until just 3 yrs ago. I felt GREAT !!!! Yes, a family history of cancer and heart issues. Still felt great and no problems until >>> I flew long distance flight and got DVT- PE. Now Doc's won't give me anything! Crap! I felt so good on them. No herbal stuff helps, they finally tried Paxil on me. Worked for a while but then I gained 55 lbs. in the snap of my fingers and CANNOT lose it. I am just giving up....I want my Uterus BACK a.s.a.p. !!!

The stress builds and you never know what will trigger the tears and/or breakdown. I am at the stage where we have a lot of progress made but are stuck for approx a week now and there are issues. I can't imagine how so many professionals can make so many mistakes. I think that on the whole, the people we have are good at what they do, but that they plunge ahead at times and catch mistakes after the fact. In the past 3 weeks: First: Out of 18 cabs to be delivered, they delivered 5 and told me that it always looks like less when I questioned how little I was getting. It took 4 days to get the rest of my order delivered(and still had some pieces missing, yet they sent me extra cabs). Needless to say, the plumber, electrician, installers, etc... got their schedules messed up by this and I have not been able to get it all back on track. My gc is away on vacation this week, yet he forgot to tell me he was going. Since he went, I don't know who will show up on any day, if anyone. The few subs who have come have not stayed for more than an hour or 2. The electricians installed 2 fans in our screened in porch, the switch for the one on the right was on the left and vice versa. There is a leak in our old laundry room where the plumber charged us $1k to rework all the pipes to bring it up to code. Our island has a back with cubbies in it, so the cab installers put wood under it so that the counter would transition smoothly into the cubbies. Turns out, they put a 1.5" thick piece of wood instead of a 3/4" piece, so it has to be removed, changed out and the fills need to be reworked.. all before the counter guy can install the counters. Since the counter guy can't come, the plumber can't install my kitchen sink.... so the plumber has not come back to install our dw, toilet, icemaker for freezer, install our washer/dryer in our new laundry room on main level and install the propane for our stove. I can understand that he won't come for an item or 2, but there is plenty for him to do without doing my sinks (see below about bathroom sink issue). Our venthood was installed at 27" over our island, but worse than that, they installed it before the island was put where it will end up. Now, they have to uninstall the hood and move it 3" to the side and 3" back. Obviously, they can take that opportunity to make it the correct height. Of course, I had hustled to get the ceilings primed and painted over there and now they will be ripped apart. Our bathroom faucet was bought for a steal as it retails for over $600 and I got it for $65, delivered, on ebay. I took the top part to the fabricator so he could drill the hole for it and left the "guts" at home in its special box. A few days ago, the plumber was here to install it and the box is nowhere to be found. It had been lost among the materials a few years ago, so dh and I are very aware of what the box looks like and I imagine it was not light since it had parts in it, but it appears that someone other than us threw it out. I contacted the mfr (Jado)and it has been discontinued and they can't seem to locate any parts for it. I may have to buy a new one with our budget already at the breaking point. Prior to that: They installed our eyebrow window wrong. I made it clear it does not look like the plan and I do not like how it came out from the exterior. They keep telling me they will fix it when the weather is better, but it is better and now I keep hearing how they are working on other people's exteriors because the weather had pushed their schedule back. We have our old gutters literally hanging off our house and on the ground, yet the gutter guy is nowhere to be found. Just about every light or electric fixture had a wire pulled through the ceiling or wall for it, all had to be moved when we set up the rooms for real. The electrician swears he did not pull the wires through the ceilings (accessible through the attic, so not needed ahead of time). I painted kitchen walls as told and then they moved the outlet for the mw and made a big mess on the wall that I had to repair and repaint. The biggest stressers are money is tight and we have been in the bsmt for 13 weeks and have no definite end in sight. We were supposed to be out by March and yet our main level is a construction zone and my only working real appliance is a wall oven. I have a countertop convection oven and a toaster oven in our temp kitchen in the bsmt, so that is not the appliance I'd want working first! The only bright side is we don't have to pay the balance until the work is done, so the delays are giving us more time for dh to get paychecks before then, but this mess is keeping me from working much and I am on commission, so earning much less than normal. Sigh....