If you invest $1.00 at 5% and let it run for 50 years, it would have grown to $11.00+, without allowing for the erosion of your income, whether annually or after a period of years, several times, by income tax, or the ongoing erosion in value of your asset by inflation. If, however, you could invest it at 10%, after that same 50 year period it would have grown to $117.00+. Your investment could lose 3/4 of its value and still come out ahead of having invested it at 5%. Actually, more than that - for it's the value after taxes and inflation that really counts. Do you expect that companies like Exxon, Gillette, Coca Cola, and such, or other major petroleum, pipeline companies, etc. may go out of business? Or even suffer serious losses. A person who invests a major portion of his (probably less likely "her", cause women generally are more risk-averse and less likely to plunge; [some would say, "smarter"]) total invested asset into highly speculative issues seems to me to have cheese for brains. The stock markets as a whole have average growth of 7 - 8% or so, over the long term. Few mutual fund managers' holdings have grown faster. And they charge fees for their expertise - somewhere between 1 - 2% in the U.S. for equity (i.e. stock market based) funds, most of them over 2% annually in Canada. If they match the long-term average growth of the market ... they're reaping about a fifth to a quarter of the growth, a larger proportion in Canada. Unfortunately, if there is no growth - they still get their percentage. Many persons calling themselves financial planners/advisors are actually mutual fund sales people: that's all the equity-related financial issues that they're licensed to sell. They don't want to talk to you about individual stocks, for they can't sell them and it's illegal for them to recommend them unless they've taken the courses that stockbrokers take (which few have - their courses are much less complex). There are a few who sell no financial products, but many of them stop doing that because often their income levels are much lower, despite many people who want to invest saying that they'd really love independent advice. One should investigate what kind of training a prospective personal financial advisor has taken and whether s/he has advanced courses above the minimum requirements. Also what kind and length of experience the prospective advisor has. Also what lifestle experience the prospect has: some have seen a great deal more of life than others - and have learned much more per year than many who have lived as many years. Finally - you need a person whose personality and ideas are compatible with yours. You will trust that person with a very important part of your life. Some years ago, when I had a display at a county fall fair, someone asked me what right I had to call myself a financial planner. I said that we could get rid of unemployment tomorrow - we need only have every unemployed person put out a shingle on his front lawn calling himself a financial planner, as it was unregulated - any darn fool could do it. Stock brokers were regulated, as were mutual fund salespeople, but in our area at that time financial planners were not, as there were few of them operating outside of stockbrokerage and mutual fund sales agencies. That's not the case now - but it would be a good idea to ask several of them what kind of regulations there are governing them. I took the course that stockbrokers take, over 20 years ago and worked for a mutual fund sales brokerage (i.e. they could offer mutual funds managed by a large number of managers, rather than only funds managed by their own company). I didn't produce enough sales to suit them, so was there for only one year. I'm more tuned into the idea of helping people set their financial goals, look at some concepts that they might not have thought of, and work toward achieving them. I am totally devoted to helping my clients decide what they want to achieve and start out on a plan of how to achieve that/those goals. They don't have to be concerned that my advice or recommendations may be slanted toward various financial products that I just happen to sell, for I don't sell any. One local person that I met a few years ago said that he'd done well in business and managing his investments, so some friends asked him to manage some money for them. He asked for a minimum investment of $10,000., asked the client to sign a power of attorney for that account only, and when he made decisions about investments, a copy of the confirmation went to the client and one to him. He charged 10% of the growth (exclusive of dividends, if I remember correctly). Rather a good idea, for if he doesn't produce, he doesn't get paid. There is a fairly major proviso, though - that he might choose some fairly risky investments where there could well be a possibility of major gain. He being a person of integrity, I think that he was quite strongly guided by the level of risk that his clients were willing to tolerate. When I asked what happened if there were no gain - he said that there hadn't been a year yet that he hadn't been able to send a request for payment to every client. I'm not sure how many years the concept had been in operation. This has been rather off topic - sorry about that. As for many people lacking time to manage their investments ... ... many people spend more time on consideration of where they'll go for a two week vacation than they do on an investment system that may well be in place for forty years (or more). Good wishes for making your money work well for you - rather than better for someone else. joyful guy

I'm glad to hear that the LED lights are working for you. It sounds like you have a much bigger space than we do, with only 2 more lights. I think this was perhaps our biggest mistake -- just too many of these lights. (As I mentioned, I was worried that LEDs wouldn't put out enough light). Maybe if we had only installed 4 of them, the amount of light would be ok. To reduce the number to 4 at this point would require completely re-placing the lights and rewiring. I wonder also if the increased number of lights in our smaller space is amplifying the effect of the flickering? i.e. maybe it wouldn't be noticeable if the lights were further apart? The housing and dimmer switch we have are both on the compatible list on the Cree website. All 7 of the lights are connected to the same dimmer switch. So I'm not sure what the problem is. When they are on at full power, they don't buzz or flicker. We had friends over yesterday and at full power they thought the lights looked great. (It wasn't too bright for them). Then I dimmed them and they didn't think the buzzing was too bad. They also didn't really notice much flickering. But then I started waving my arms around and they were shocked. The strobe effect when the lights were dimmed made my kitchen seem like a disco! Cbjmidwood, when you dim your lights and wave your arms around, is there any strobing?

I couldn't wait to get home & play!!! Thank you all so much! We moved in here & a lot wasn't/still isn't finished. I had to take a break for awhile to live in the space. Just for fun, I found another set of pictures to try also. Ok, so I couldn't let completely go of some of my stuff & put it in the "dead corner" The other side of the kitchen( my favorite place to sit, especially in winter). Still need sconces for FP, pendants over island & UC lighting........... AND command center/ wine bar AND rework pantry cabs to hold microwave & breville in my "scullery" area.

"One person said that if you throw the seeds away, they could end up sprouting in the landfill" LOL!! Ever visit a landfill? Nothing - and I mean nothing - grows there!! Too much traffic with heavy equipment, too much disturbance, no growing medium available and little to no light. Those are near impossible conditions for any sort of seed germination! I'd be more concerned about tossing them into the yard waste recycling bin that winds up at a municipal composting operation. But most of those are processed enough and hot enough that seeds do not survive.