I need to defend SBOE. Most of the Catt crosses are either young seedlings who should bloom in 3 years or 2 bbulbs of a mature plant which also should bloom in 3 years. If you get there first thing in the morning, any day, as they restock at night, and carefully look at each plant in a given group, you will usually find a couple that are 1 year ahead of the pack, 2 bbulbs plus a new growth. That plant will bloom in 2 years. I usually try to get there at 8 AM Friday morning, this year I could not get there until Saturday AM but found nice plants never the less. Some of the Pleuros and the plants in that group often are already in bloom and will give a full head of flowers in a year. Depends on your desire for quick results. I prefer 20 of these to 6 or 7 larger plants. Since I have been doing this for a number of years, as I mount or pot this year's purchases, flowers are popping up on plants I got there 3 years ago and had forgotten about until they surprise you with a bloom. Do that twice a year for a number of years and the surprises keep on popping up. For 'REAL' orchid shopping I would not go there during a show. On any weekday during the year, the personal attention at SBOE and Cal Orchids right across the street is superb. No mass $7.50 table but expert advice and a great selection of obviously more expensive plants. I usually shop for a group, tell James at Cal Orchids "Let's look at Pescatore today" or Wayne at SBOE "Good day for Lycaste" and you get a selection of their best. Large enough purchases will get you the usual discount. The $7.50 table is like an exiting swap meet, no comparison to 'real orchid shopping' but I would not miss it. Nick

I've done major weedings at all the schools i've worked at, and it's amazing what's on the shelves! My favourite is one called something like "The World of the Future" which has a good description of what a fax machine would be like. You'd write your letter on special paper and put it in a special envelope and bring it to the post office. There they'd put it into the fax machine, which would take it out of the envelope and send it to a fax machine at the post office at the other end. That machine would put your letter into an evelope and the post office would deliver it to the recipient! Several years ago, i had weeded so much that people commented on how empty the shelves were, but i knew that somewhere down the line we'd be getting the books from another school that was going to close. That happened a couple of years ago and now my shelves are full again. One of the difficult parts of automation was sending all those catalogue cards away to the automation company. Thirty years of work getting put into the mail! Ack!! I really sweated over the first batch that went, but it got easier after that. Another thing that happened was that three schools in Dryden closed and merged into one brand new one. I was working in one of the schools that closed and we - the three library techs - had to coordinate our cataloguing so that the cards would all match well enough and be easier to be put into the automated programme. I never realized how absolutely anal i could be about some things and there were a lot of emails flying back and forth about how things should be done! LOL Some things i refused to change! Awful, eh? Fortunately the three of us are still friends. We set up the new library too and had to put the barcodes on all the books. It was quite the job, especially as the new school was still under construction and we had to wear hardhats into and out of the school and if we went anywhere else in the school - like to find which washroom was functional that particular day. And no electricity for quite a few weeks too! What an adventure! Connie, we have links to all the school libraries on the Board's website, so we can see who has a book that we want. And we just email back and forth - "A teacher needs x number of copies of such-and-such book. Anyone have it?" I'd tell you to check my library out but my public catalogue has been down for several days - i screwed something up doing an update and the tech hasn't been able to come out and fix it. :D Syreeta, we've always had give-aways after a major weeding. Kids love free books - books they'd never take off the shelves otherwise! LOL

I posted a picture of the PODS after I filled it up, and will show it here. The driver will be here this afternoon between 3:30 and 6:30 to take it away. And then tonight we will be up up and away around 3 am. Get up at 2, then gone by 3. I warm up the car, load the parrots behind my driver seat and strap their carriers in with the seat belt, then plop the dogs in on the other side of the back seat, so they can cuddle down in the down comforter which covers the entire back seat and cargo area, on top of my ice chest and suitcases. Then they can roam a little bit, and we can take them out for a walk by lifting the top portion of the Explorer's back hatch. I have harnesses on them already, to make it easier to pick them up and deposit them back in the car. My DH is gathering his items for the "navigator" seat, like the atlas, the flashlight, the Kindle, his glasses, and easily accessible behind his seat will be the cooler with caffeinated drinks. And my diabetic snacks. On my side, I have the charger for my cell phone and the GPS, in a new thingy which can charge TWO 12 volt cig lighter things, and TWO USB port chargers too. All by sticking in ONE of my 12 volt outlets. It fits in a cup holder, low profile, and I put it in the one on the back side of the center console, so both of us can still keep a drink in the front cup holders. I have my Bluetooth earpiece charged and ready to fit on my ear. My sun shades are clipped to the sunvisor. My medications are in the console. My sweater is draped across my seatback so the parrots cannot chew holes in it, my down "Nanook of the North" long coat is on a hanger behind my seat, so it will insulate the parrots from the cold air next to the window. And it will not interfere with my vision anywhere on the road behind me. Supposedly it will be raining for most of Tuesday, so when we stop in Wytheville VA, about 950 miles distant from here, around 4 or 5 pm, we can sleep and rise to a morning with little chance of rain. I expect to leave the motel in Wytheville around 4 am, and that will put us in Chattanooga at rush hour, sad to say, but I don't think DH will be willing to rise any earlier than that. I personally love to go places in the dead of night, in the wee hours to be boogy-ing through busy cities when only a few cars are on the road, there is something so intimate about it. All quiet and sleepy and me wide awake and alone in the world. Except, of course, for my sleeping passengers. I do some of my best thinking at these times. So when I finish this, I am unplugging my computer and stowing it in a safe place in the car. I hope to be able to connect again, from Mobile AL, by WEDNESDAY NIGHT. Take care, friends, and have two great days. I hope your weather is beautiful and exactly like you wish it to be.

Modern builders seem to have bought into the idea that everything is DISPOSABLE. You use it and then throw it away. Even seashells (the original creatures in the shells) keep on adding on as the animal inside grows. Only the hermit crabs who live in a shell long enough to grow into it, and then abandon it for a larger one as the crab gets bigger, those are the disposable critters. But then our economy has put a hitch in our gitalongs, and the "starter home" that was OKAY as long as the new couple could afford to move on up as the family grew, well, they cannot sell that starter home, and it is suddenly a trap they will have to come to terms with. Because with TWINS on the way, they need more space, or suddenly one of them is working at home part-time, and they need room for an office. And they must have two cars but the garage is full of STUFF and only room for ONE CAR in the driveway. So they pave a narrow strip off the side, if there is room, and then the neighbor starts turning around on it instead of backing out into traffic every morning. Or, there is a problem with the garbage can sitting near the only entry for guests, and trying to hide it from view is an issue. Not a big one, but I mean it is not the most attractive welcome, is it.... I like multi-use spaces. Which is why I think a carport that is toward the back end of a driveway is a perfect place to use for a cookout, maybe a party can take cover there when it rains. It makes a great space for the ice cream freezer and a picnic table when the temp is hovering at 100 F. And a row of container plants can find shade there, and vines can grow up the support posts. It can look really nice, and give the illusion of privacy without too much effort. What I've discovered this last week as I packed up a PODS, and what my DH commented on tonight, was that the house is still not looking empty. True true. We got rid of about 7500 pounds of STUFF, and the house is not empty yet. I told him that it looks like the house has BREATHING ROOM. Sort of like a diner who has to let his belt out a notch or two after Thanksgiving dinner, the house is giving a sigh of relief to finally have room to relax. Not so devastating when something is out of place now, because it doesn't look so overcrowded. Mercy, it took me a long time to convince him to let me do this. You know, I'd still be carrying things back to Alabama in a "body bag" strapped to the top of the car otherwise!! And up here in MA, it is hard to dispose of things, but in AL I can have one hellashus yard sale you betcha.....I will be thinking twice before bringing new purchases home with me. Books, however, are a particular weakness of both my DH and myself. So I'm trying to convert to e-books as much as possible. Easier to find them that way too. But my picture books are still something I love to touch. Paper is so satisfying a medium for color prints. Gotta go to bed, folks. Keep up the good work.