"Seems contradictory, pain and numbness but believe me it happens." I know that feeling. I was sharpening a large chef's knife with a steel and dropped it. Stupidly I grabbed for it and cut my ring finger to the bone. The Dr's at the VA performed micro surgery to tie the nerves back together but the feeling you describe us still there. No needle sticks for blood tests on that finger as it is very painful in a weird sort of way. Hope the specialist can sort it out and relieve the problem. Sounds like some sort of nerve blockage or pinching. Just leave the shovels out and tell people it is an old native remedy to ward off storms.

What positions are you interviewing for? Are they true entry level positions or are they more than that? One thing that often gets overlooked in this industry is that there are great numbers of people who have been interested and self educating in it from very young ages. You are one of those, but you have to know that you are one of many. It is very easy to look at your own experience and view it as a strong background as it may well be. But, it is easy to forget that hiring choices are made by comparison with others looking for the same position. You are still only an entry level job candidate as are the many, many, other candidates with similar backgrounds. These are non-quantifiable resume items with the exception of the Associates Degree which you do not yet have. Hiring is more about matching a person to a position much more than it is about counting points on a resume and awarding the job to whomever has the most points. If you are emphasizing skill sets and knowledge that is for a position that is unavailable, there is a posibility that you would not have the prefered working relationship to the person(s) in that position. That isn't good for anyone. Think about what those "40 year old women" might be bringing into the job as far as experience goes. You want to count your own non-professional gardening experience as being a strong background, but would you not count the same for these people with 16+ years of experience. You don't know if any of them have Associates Degrees, Master Gardener's Certificates, Bachelor's Degrees, or Phds. Finally, every work place has its own culture. Some of those evolve one way or another to have a certain makeup that makes for a comfort level for those who work within it. If you or I don't seem to fit into that culture it may be disruptive. Work is often the biggest social interaction in a person's life and disrupting that can be devistating sometimes. Employers are very aware of this.

Donna, thank you for cheering me up! What will you be doing for your birthday? Yesterday I did go to the supermarket again and to the florist. DH helped with the cleaning: dusting the living room, vacuuming the couches and scrubbing the bathtub. I swiffered the floors and did the rest of the dusting, mopped the tile and terrazzo, cleaned the living room balcony, changed my DD's bed and did another load of laundry. We had maybe an hour to rest and were on time for my brother's engagement, were we had a great time. (Oh my new SIL has a so different style in her home! More glamorous and much more loaded than ours. That was interesting to observe - hope gift giving will not be too difficult!) Today after coming home from church, feeding the girls and putting them down to nap, I'll have to finish polishing the kitchen (that counter/tile thing), do some touch ups, clean the balcony again, change our bed and bring down the bedspread, also tidy my nightstand and bookcase, bring down the rest of the couch pillows and put them in place, and, finally, bring out the nice tablecloth/napkins/flatware and arrange them on the table along with plates and glasses. We'll order in pizza and salads. Oh, I'll need to go and pick up the birthday cake too. After having the girls, I don't feel like cooking for a crowd anymore (we'll be 13 people altogether). After our guests leave, we'll have to mop the whole apartment, as we are a no shoes home but we'll be making an exception this time due to the new additions to the family... end of a long day. The previous night I didn't sleep much or well (got up and came here at 6am) due to excitement and I expect the same for tonight - then the work week begins. Sorry for writing a book and THANK YOU ALL for letting me come here to vent and think in writing. Maria

Earlier this year we bought a dryer vent cleaning kit from Amazon. Our dryer vent run is about 16 feet. It used to vent straight out the back of the dryer but when we added a 24x26 cowboy den we had to reroute the dryer vent. That was 20 years ago. Vent run was a lot cleaner than I thought it would be. He used a leaf blower after using the cleaning kit. My husband said he wanted it more as a preventative. Our vent has a flap over the end of it to keep critters and other unwanted vermin out. I remember he had to manually remove some lint where it exits the house.