The thing that worried me about pressure canning was the boom factor. Just knowing that thing was there and was building pressure and was sitting mere feet away from me while I watched that gage was unnerving the first time or two. Then I got used to it and it was fine. Eventually, I preferred using the pressure canner over using the BWB canner because you don't have to keep that boiling water level topped off. Quarts especially are terrible in a BWB because there is usually not much room to spare above them as it is. Granted, you can't just set it and forget it with a PC, but it is a lot easier to just watch and adjust the burner. The one thing that I do not like about PC is that it is more time consuming per batch than BWB. You have to start with relatively cold water, wait for the temp and pressure to ramp up, then time it, then wait for the temp and pressure to fall, then you're done. With BWB, you can fill the pot with new hot filled jars as soon as you are done with the first load and never miss a beat. Water maintains a boil before, during (mostly) and after. Double or triple batching (separately maintained batches) is a breeze with BWB since you can prep and fill jars close to the time the current load is going to be done. You can't make one big triple recipe and divide it, but you can make three separate recipes and process individually and then can each in succession. Nice for relishes or chutneys or anything that has to marinate overnight as long as you have refrigerator space to do it. I PC canned a lot of pints of green beans and they tasted just like the cans you get at the store. That's fine by me because I like that flavor. But if I do them any more, I'll do quarts instead of pints since I can down a pint by myself at one sitting. usually two. And I canned carrots in it as well. And it seems like plain blueberries. Been a while since I did those. Neither method is really that difficult. Just understand each and how to do them when you do them.

I with most of you, I don't like using the microwave to reheat anything or to cook anything except to boil water or to use it for the steam bag veggies - I use my oven and slowly bring the re-heated food to a good temp in an oven that isn't too hot - about 275 - 300 - that seems to work best trying to re-heat it in a hot oven too quickly tends to ruin the leftovers. I don't own a toaster oven so I don't know anything about re-heating with that. Learning to cook for two (or one) isn't really that complicated with a little practice. When I buy raw meat, I seal it with my seal a meal into servings for two and put it into my freezer, I can just grab and use then. I would never eat leftover quiche though. There are some things that simply aren't meant to be reheated and a quiche would certainly fall into that catagory I would think. I just made a big pot of chicken and sausage gumbo. Now THAT will freeze up into portions for two just beautifully - all I have to do is make enough rice for the two of us, have some crusty, hot french bread and that's the easiest and fastest meal I can think of. I'll make up a lasagna and divide it into portions for the two of us to freeze, same thing with spaghetti sauce. That and a good mixed green salad and it's a meal. There are lots of things you can do ahead of time for fast and easy work night meals - You have to experiment to discover what works for you to w reheat or freeze before cooking well. I'm with the others, I can't imagine eating out every day, that is beyond me. It would be terribly expensive - with practice you can learn to cook for one or two and it would be very inexpensive after you learn how to shop and cook that way, it simply takes experimenting. We go out for a really nice dinner once a week, and on the very rare occasion, we go out for breakfast. Neither of us like fast food at all so that isn't even an issue.

Like Alisande, I only see one about once a year...just passing through. I put out a lot of bird seed. I put black oil sunflower seeds in the feeders in the yard and I get a free mix that is a lot of milo and some sunflower seeds donated to me by Walmart, and I put it out along the driveway for the doves. It is so dry here. Right now I have 5 bird baths in the lower part of my yard, which is only about 1/2 acre big, but ran the horse water troughs over yesterday, and couldn't believe all the doves down there bathing. I guess I'm fortunate. I see sparrows in town, but out here in the country, we don't have them. Bluebirds can be seen in this area...supposedly, but the only time I ever saw them, was a pair in the yard of the old man that I look after a couple of towns over, and he couldn't have cared less. That was a few years ago. Now he has a pair of hawks nesting in a tree right out his door, and I can't even get him to walk to the door to look out at them.

roseabbey, The 'one up' thing doesn't always apply to the way paint works present day -- because paint color strips are not all created equal. Back in the day, there was a lot more consistency and 'one up' kinda sorta could really mean something. Now-a-days if you go one shade lighter, it's a real possibility that it's not the same color that you initially chose. A lighter color, yes, but very characteristically different than the darker color on the strip. Not all paint color strips are the same - these days they're arranged in all sorts of ways. Sometimes, 'one up' is a viable option because the strip really is a progression of color arranged lighter to darker. Oftentimes, that's not the case. The strip is comprised of anywhere from five to seven colors that can be very similar, but are essentially different colors. The way to manage and determine what is too dark, too light or just right is primarily by using LRV. Light Reflectance Value. The number is a consistent piece of data that tells you a lot about how light or how dark a color can look/feel. LRV is especially useful if you have paid attention to it over time and have benchmarks for you, your house that you can refer to when choosing what colors to sample.