I have never experienced Black Friday although thru my Aunt who was a buyer for a big department store, i know how meaningful that day is! My kids grew up on military posts and the biggest "I want-need-want that!" years were overseas with little commercial influence. Now I am a grandparent (x5) and Oh, how different and fun this all is not being the Santa Claus! And this year I did lots of BF buying over the net....sales plus free shipping! I even have my new artificial tree up tho not decorated. Now, this artificial tree is almost a crime for me who delegated Hubby in charge of bringing in the fresh tree and to decorate it--on Christmas Eve! What a wonderful mad rush that all was! I think all my outdoor gardening has made this rather heartless transition to pretty but plastic easier and my bad-back guy just brought in a bottle of cedar spray to ease the tension of this less-mess "new". Guess we are getting delegated to the sidelines now, but still having great fun and have great memories.

It's great you found a firm that you have confidence in! If you have been on this board for any length of time you know that even good relationships with contractors can change. The initial meeting with contractors is usually very rosy as they are doing their job to sell themselves to you. Getting a competitive bid is for your protection. If it were me ... I would agree to a price to draw the plans WITH the stipulation that the plans are owned by me meaning the contractor can not build the same home for anyone else and that I have the option of using any builder. Then I would get competitive bids to be sure that the pricing for my favored contractor is in line. I would not want to spend $10,000 on plans only to realize that it is not the builder I want to use and I can not build the home using any other builder. Just remember life happens and many things can change between now and when your ready to build ... the builder's personal life can change (divorce, illness, death), or the builder's financial situation may change (lawsuits, bankruptsy, etc), or even the builder's workforce may change (site supervisor, crews, subs, etc). This is a business transaction and you need to protect yourself.

The laptop's all set up - and dd received it on Tuesday. For now we'll try open office. She does have a desktop pc with word if she needs it. And at school they use Mac's. So no matter what we use at home, it won't be quite the same as in school. abreeze - thanks for the link. It's beyond anything she or I will do now - but one or both of us might get more versed in powerpoint over time. That's a helpful comparison. I created recovery disks - but when I went to create a password reset disk, the laptop kept asking me to insert a disk. There was a disk in there. I even switched disks in case one was bad. But it was birthday day - so I figured I'd get to this later. Well - it came back and bit me in the butt. Birthday night had some trauma. After dinner, my mother fell backwards and hit her head on the sidewalk. I took her to the ER. My daughter was distraught - and the parent controls had logged her off at 9pm. Husband thought this was a reasonable exception - so he logged into the admin account for her. She immediately eliminated the time controls. No big deal, I thought - I'll reset them another time. Somehow she tricked my husband into entering the admin password again - told him she'd restarted the computer by accident. Well - that sneak had gotten him to enter the password in a field that allowed her to change it. She changed the passwords and locked us out of the laptop. So this is where that password reset disk would have been helpful - to override what she did and reset a new admin password. So this is partly a note to people about the important of creating a password reset disk (or set up on flash drive). I'd never even heard of this before. We're at the beach with my daughter and friend - it's instead of a birthday party. So we're not having the confrontation with this weekend. Monday - we tell her she has to hand back the reins for the admin account (or no laptop). The joys of parenting preteens. It took her less than 24 hours to violate most of the terms of the contract she signed. Sure wish I'd had that reset password disk. When I get admin control back, I'll be sure to create one somehow. (I assume at this point my only option is getting her to give me that new password she created.) Thanks. Lynn.

Shambo, I had the same vertigo inner ear thing. I remember full well how de-habilitating (spelling?) and frightening the experience was. For me it came on suddenly one morning and hung around for about a week. If I turned my head, even slightly to the right, the room would start to spin. I think mine was the result of swimming and getting an ear full of lake water. Anyway, I stayed off of milk products (they aggrivated the issue) and was taking Meclizine (motion sickness) to treat it. At that time I had to stop the crunches because even laying on my back for a few moments would bring on a spell of vertigo. A friend of mine, who is a yoga instructor, showed me a way to strengthen without laying down. I stood up, lifting arms gently up and pulling the stomach muscles tightly in while using my breath to expell air, holding this for a few seconds (as long as you can), then inhaling and releasing the muscles. I did this over and over until I felt the muscles were getting the workout they needed. I never realized how yoga can give you a work out without making you breathless and grunting. I actually got sore from this because it was working muscles that the crunches were not addressing, plus it was mentally very therapeutic. I also tightened the buttocks while doing this which gives those muscles a work out simultaneously. I hope this works for you and that your inner ear issue resolve themselves.