I swore to myself yesterday that I'd evoke all the power of positive thinking I could muster and this week would be GOOD. I NEED a good week. I DESERVE a good week. I overslept this morning. No big deal in light of last week when nothing went right. Work was a disaster every single day. My Christmas vacation was canceled and I was told I will have to work every single day straight until the 22nd. I barely made it out at night in time for DS's basketball games. Thursday night, I left 10 minutes late and assured him I'd ONLY be 10 minutes late. And I would have only been 8 minutes late if it wasn't for the fact that some idiot ran a red light at 50 mph and creamed me in the middle of a busy intersection and then left. As I was talking to the 911 dispatcher, he came back...he had to drop his buddy's girlfriend off at the mall. I'm afraid to take the truck in for an estimate for fear they'll total it, I LOVE that truck, even if it does legally belong to the XDH. When I finally got the XDH to answer the phone, he gave me a blow-by-blow play of the game as it happened while I dealt with the other driver and the cops. I made it to the game in time to watch the team score the winning basket. As I left the game, I ran out of gas in front of the gas station. Lucky for me, there was a Sheriff Deputy standing by to give me a ticket for driving an "unsafe" vehicle. After explaining what happened (ok, after getting irrate and then explaining what happened...), he let me go with a "you're lucky, this time" warning. On those words, I bought a lottery ticket and went home. Haven't checked the ticket yet, but no one won the big one so no hurry. Friday and Saturday were bitterly cold and I got to work in a building with no heat. One of my employees took pity on me and built me a cardboard igloo and equipped it with a space heater. I'll probably catch on fire in it, but when it was 25 degrees inside, I didn't much care. Saturday morning, a Lieutenant Colonel I befriended a few months ago drove 22 miles to bring me a hot cup of coffee. And I wonder why I do this job? He's getting ready to spend a year in Iraq but still takes time to think of a lowly civil servant. As he got ready to leave, he told me "Maryanne, the one thing that makes you different from anyone else is that you found your calling..." Maybe. Maybe not. Saturday night when I got home from work, all I wanted was a bowl of soup and to curl up on the sofa. The house was a little chilled so I turned up the heat a bit, heated up some soup, threw on my pj's and curled up under my security blanket. Woke up about 2 am freezing to death. Went to turn up the heat...nothing. I had no heat. Not much one can do at 2 am except throw on more clothing and crawl into bed. Thank goodness for down duvet's! Woke up around 8 am Sunday and decided that I wasn't going in to work until the heat was repaired. Tossed a load of laundry in, made some coffee, took a shower (Note: Do not use a hot shower as a means to thaw out if you have no heat. It's twice as cold when you exit the shower!), hung the laundry on the line and started another load. After getting dressed, I called the repair guy and left a message. As I went to get the second load out of the washer, I was greeted with a flooded laundry room. The motor pump decided it was a good time to go out and all that soapy water went all over the floor. It was at this point I sat down and laughed. And laughed. And laughed. When I regained some control, I called the XDH and pleaded for help. He was going to pick up DS from a camping trip with the scouts so we switched...he came and bailed and mopped, I went (in his heated van!) to pick up DS. Of course, DS was an hour late in arriving back. By the time I got home, my dryer was sitting in the driveway and the XDH had his head under the washer. It was then I mentioned that I had no heat either...he wondered why it was so cold but thought maybe I was really turning into an "ice queen". Twit. After condemning the washer motor, he went to work on the heat pump. Seems a bug crawled across the circuits and fried them. And himself. It was 3 pm by the time he found some new fuses and got the system working. We were all starved so I took them out to dinner. It was the least I could do. So, now I have heat but no washing machine or dryer. The Volvo broke down again 2 weeks ago and now the truck is a mess (since the bed of the truck is slightly off kilter, I get to "crab walk" down the highway at 60 mph!). I haven't even begun to do any Christmas shopping, but I did drag DS out to the tree lot last night and told him that come hell or high water, I was going to have a Christmas tree! So we picked out a nice one, drug it home and put the lights on...nothing else. DS will spend Christmas with his father this year. I'll spend Christmas with my head under the covers, shifting position only to refill my mimosa glass. You don't honestly think I'm going to touch the stove, do you? Oh, and I have an $1800 property tax bill due in 2 weeks. Ho Ho Ho. DS said to me last night "Mom, I've been thinking about the Army..." Sweet Mother of God! I held my breath while waiting to hear what he was thinking. "I was wondering...if I joined the Army, would I get to spend more time with you? Or would they deploy me? And if they deployed me, would you deploy with me?" I wasn't sure if that sound I heard was my heart breaking or if my blood pressure spiked and I ruptured a blood vessel, but I did my best to explain to this child that while the Army is an honorable career, I wanted him to go to college and follow his dream of becoming a vet. I apologized for not being able to spend more time with him and promised him I'd work hard to fix this, but sometimes we must make sacrifices for others and that sacrifices such as this are always rewarded in the end. And, of course I'd deploy with him if he deployed! But, we still have 5 more years to figure this out. A lot has changed in the past 5 years, a lot will change in the next 5 years. Especially me. Starting today. I WILL have a good week, even if I oversleep in the morning. At least I left work at a reasonable hour, picked up my child and cooked dinner for him. I got him to scouts, made sure his homework was done, helped him study for mid-terms, and baked brownies for his band party. So what if we're the only house with a dryer in the driveway and a mountain of laundry piled up. So what if the car is broken and the truck is off kilter. Who cares if Christmas will be slim and I have to call the tax assessor and ask for an extention. It will all change. We have each other and nothing can be better. Yeah, it's going to be a GOOD week. Maryanne

sorry i misunderstood sounded like you were planning a 30 foot lift every cycle. the type of buildings will have a good deal of influence on practicality. mexico is mostly concrete structures. USA is mostly tin over bar joists styrene and rubber over that. Have you priced renting bare ground? Not trying to be real negative but i can't imagine anyplace but downtown tokyo having valuble enough land to justify the added expenses of making a rooftop available for that type use. You may get universities or other experimental type buildings to give it a go when the project has no need for financial viability.just for referance in my locale a 20x20space in an office building will probably start at 3-4oo a month. A year of rent will buy you a bare acre suburban lot with electric available. i would expect the building manager to want at least that and likely much more to grant use and access to his roof top. If you do find a building that will allow you to experiment what will you grow and have you developed a market already? when you present a new idea it is always better if you can show at least some production and sale history to help sell the idea. Also if you have spent time on roofs you already know light heat and wind can be more intensified on rooftops than on the ground. Some roofs such as theaters or clubs get bottles thrown on them a lot. It is not that Iit is not a good idea or use of space but i just don't think land values are any where near high enough yet to make it financialy viable. Another concern is that even in areas of higher land values building values also tend to be rather high so it may still cost too much. when you search for possible places to place you may want to be prepared to show how many years experience you have producing and selling what plants as well as know exactly how much per square foot or unit it is going to cost to install and produce one season. will you be planning on daily tending several times or will you use expensive sophisticated equipment that regulates its own temp and ventilation? when you harvest and clean up how will you get up and down through the typical ladder and roof hatch? drop the produce by rope and bucket? I have been on a lot of rooftops servicing ac units and most of thm you either lean up a ladder or climb a permanet ladder through a hatch we use ropes and buckets to get our material tools and parts up and down seems rather awkward to handle any plant matter that way. Anything that weighs over 100 lbs or so such as a new unit we call a crane for. Most roof hatches are 2ft x 2ft aprox so will your materials fit. If you drag them up over the side you have to make sure you don't skin up the walls or break anything. Have you ever been on rooftops? some you have to walk only on the rows of screws and some you have to be careful not to step on air bubbles. Some have rubber mats layed out you have to stay on. some are slick when cold and you have to make sure you don't slide off and fall. some buildings like factories are so concerned with liability they require fall protection(harness and lanyard) to be on their roof even a flat roof with 3 ft parapet wall all around. I have never been on a rooftop the owner or manager was not extremely concerned over roof damge. Roof repair is quite costly as is roof damage and rain leak damage. In usa i would say your only chance would be some type of experimental or plant related type building a botanical gardens buiding a university a science center something like that and it will not be financialy viable but done as an exhibit.

Karen : I could only DREAM of doing Pergo "wood" in my house. Far to many paws come and go for it to survive very long. Earlier this year when we decided to do the kitchen, I found the really nice hardwood look linoleum at that big orange box store and loved it. It's tape down so simple to put down and no fumes from the glue. It looks fabulous and can withstand the amount of traffic we have here. I wanted to do tile through the house but that's just to cold for my liking in the winter so for all intentive and obvious purposes , linoleum wood it is in a light oak pattern and big area rugs. I of course know it's not the prefered or "trendy" thing, but we'll likely be here until we pass on so onward and forward. As to the other,I've found fostering is HARD but on the same hand, one of the most rewarding things. Don't kid yourself, I've failed (twice...lol) , but that doesn't represent the 5 (including an abandoned litter of 3 puppies , now that was tough to let go but I did) I've sent on their way to new homes with a different agency than I'm working with now. By next week I will have 6 here (4 are ours- YES, we failed and are formally adopting MICKEY because Hubs fell for him hook line and sinker..lol) so the house will be full of snoring energy and chaos but it's worth it all. Aside from fosters, we've had the neighbors boy, my Milos sister , my Remis brother & their parents, a friends 2 plus a coworkers 4 here as visitors so experience comes in paw loads [along with the fuurrrr , oh the fur!]. Ones like the next 2 are easiest for me because I CANNNOT fail, they are already lined up for homes in another state but have to be out of the shelter for 4-6 weeks before transport to prevent spreading kennel cough and the like with others on the same transport route.

I have had to do a lot of research on dog food related illnesses lately because of problems my 3 year old lab had with gas and an upset stomach. From what I learned it sounds like your puppy could have developed a food intolerance to one of the ingredients in the food; probably a preservative or the meat type. If its having problems still, I would feed it boiled chicken and plain white rice for a couple of days in several small portions to give its tummy a rest and then switch its food to something that may be more gentle and offer a change of ingredients. I have always fed our girl high quality, grain free and locally sourced foods but she still ended up having some severe tummy problems. The vet put her on Royal Canine Gastritus along with medication which didn't fix the problem and caused her to start having problems with incontinence. It was because of her spay they said but after 3 vets and 1,000s in bills we still had a dog who was so miserable and getting sicker, not better. Knowing something wasn't right I spent countless hours researching her condition(s) and finally discovered the root of the problem was that the companies making the no grain foods often use beans in the ingredients as a protein source and the beans were causing severe gas. Additionally, she was eating too fast, needed smaller portions AND as hard as it is to believe, it was actually the ROYAL CANINE for Gastritus (that the vet put her on) that caused her to become incontinent. Yep, I read lots of complaints about lots of dogs who experienced the same problem! I immediately took her off that food and all the medications the vets had erroneously put her on. It took some more research but eventually I found a grain free food without beans called Holistic Select and literally within a week of starting her on the new food, ALL of her health issues diminished. I buy it from Chewy.com for a decent price and shipping included, it's grain free, locally sourced and made in the US. There are two or three grain free recipes, Imget her the Anchovy. Salmon, Sardine Adult/puppy kibble and she loves it. I just feel terrible because after months and months of misery all she needed was a change in food along with smaller portions fed in a bowl designed to make her eat slower, (a flower bowl, also bought on Chewy.com). If I only new then what I know now! It's been 2.5 months without one problem and is healthier and happier than she has ever been. Please, before jumping to the conclusion the your dog had some serious condition, check the label of the food you feed her to see what is actually in it and do some research to learn about food intolerance in dogs, its much more common than allergies, and vomiting is the first clue. dogfoodadvisor.com is a great place to start. Hey bestsyhac! long time no see, hope all is well!