Do you ever get the comment from repairmen, "You must be a teacher", or "Do you read all those?". LOL Even after heavy culling a few years ago we still moved hundreds of books. But they are my travel, my continuing education, solace and amusement. I've learned to garden from books, cook, do crewel embroidery and crochet (still amazed at what I can do with a curved stick and ball of yarn!), and so much more. I've a shelf of art books, diaries/memoirs, novels, history plus illustrated books on India. I''ll fix curry and hot tea and wallow in the Raj period for a few days every year or so. My fascination with India grew out of my interest in English political and social history .A few books on gardens and the early botanists and their travels led to still other books on sailing ships 'round all the continents and coaling stations on tiny ocean isles. Then to wonder how all those colonies fared...on and on. I don't want just a broad from the top historical overview, I like to read the novels or travel books written at the time. Strange to say, these type books aren't always available at my library...LOL And I'm hanging on to most I've collected. Other keepers are like E.F.Benson's Lucia stories or Trollope's many novels, John Galsworthy's work. The library may have a few but not all, and I want to read all by a favorite author. I do read some current fiction but rarely hold on to those books, (and even more rarely do I remember the characters or plot). My gardening books are probably less than300 but I still use them often. Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening in the mid 1960's was my first purchase after exhausting the library's shelves. I made notations on almost every page ...it's a 35 year record of my old garden...successes and failures. The others like Henry Mitchell and Margery Fish are like old friends Still make out wishlists from A.B.Graf's marvelous books on Tropicals...if I just had more windows!. I culled most cookbooks, kept Joy of Cookng, James Beard, Rene Verdon on techniques, Tassajara on Veggies and Bread, Julia Child, a few community cookbooks. A few interesting like the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook which has good recipes and gossip about the many authors and artists that hung out in the Gertrude Stein salon. And LaRousse Gastronomique which my Mom bought for me when I finally started cooking in my forties...LOL Actually, it's an interesting read, but I don't use it for recipes. Whew! But I do love books! josh

I keep a journal using a spreadsheet. It's convenient because it's the same spreadsheet that I keep all my maps in. By maps, I mean the layout of the garden, Jiffy Greenhouse Pellet trays and so on. To add to the journal, I just click on the "Journal" tab and type away, then it's back to the maps for more tweaking. Here is a sample: 02/23/09 Completed all beds. Prepped planting areas for tomatoes away from the fence on the north side with compost and bone meal. Tilled leaves into east side of north bed. Spread tomato fertilizer over north bed. The only thing missing at this point is some mulch. Purchased an additional 10 bags, but it was not enough to completely cover the fabric. Moved plants indoors for the cold nights and back out in the morning. Forecast shows no more frost for the next 10 days. Will see what it says next weekend. May go ahead and plant out all non-tomato plants to free up space. 02/24/09 Potted all tomato plants that were in the Jiffy tray to Peat pots. Watered Jiffy Pellet Tray as pellets were drying out. Watered outdoor plants as well in tray. Set watering timer. It went off as scheduled and watered for the appropriate amount of time. I believe it went off between 9:00 and 10:00pm and watered for 15 minutes. It is set to do this every three nights. 02/26/09 Watered all plants. The plant on the right end of the window sill was looking weak. We'll see if the watering fixes it. Planted an MP in the ground. If the weather gets cold, this one will get the third WOW. 03/01/09 Plants that were outside on the tray were severely damaged by strong wind. Moved them to the window and moved the window plants to the tray. All plants were dry, especially garage plants. Deeply watered all plants. Left all plants indoors overnight due to cold. Still too cold to place them outside in morning, plan on moving them back outside in the afternoon. 03/03/09 Two of the three WOW's keep collapsing onto the plants. Drained and removed those two and hoping that there is no more frost. Watered all plants and planted another MP and CC into the ground. Planted second MP where a BK was planned before, but the spot planned for the second MP was not ready. Hope to plant more tomorrow.

That speaks to the importance of equity, doesn't it? When you go to sell, equity is everything. People really go out on a limb when they take on a home where their expenses to maintain it max them out. And, if the market isn't appreciating, then the only equity they are building is what they are putting toward their principle. We all know that after a year of making large payments, you might own the doorknobs. Equity is the only portion of your home investment you have some liquidity with. How many of you who have purchased homes in the last ten years took out a conventional loan and put at least five percent down on your homes? How many have built up equity and then used it up with a Heloc, or refinanced because you bit off more than you could chew comfortably? I find it really scary to see the constant ads and billboards urging people to use the equity in their homes for debt consolidation. I also get uncomfortable when I see some of those shows on home improvement channels where an expert comes in to appraise a home's worth so that the owners can feel free to use up that cushion to spend more money on their homes and feel "safe" doing it. If and when they do use it up, their homes revert a more expensive home needing to bring more on the market to just meet the debt. I am nearing retirement. I have gambled on real estate for a long time now in a modest manner, but the whole goal in the game has always been to increase the equity I have in my property(ies). It has allowed me to work at a job I like, when so many of my friends who are as old or older than I "can't afford to quit" a job they dislike because they keep spending their equity like it were somebody else's money.

Yes, we have an E-lux undercounter drawers fridge claiming to have 6 cu. ft. Absolutely love it. I do put extra produce there. I bought it mainly for dh's cokes and I know that is a big splurge but he was always getting in my way digging his cokes out of the old miserable side x s. He also often complained that his cokes weren't cold enough and would fiddle with the temp and freeze the lettuce. A huge advantage in our not-large kitchen is that this uc fridge directs traffic away from the main cooking area-I tell guests to get a cold soda and they are out of my way. So it has an opposite effect from what your plan is. But you will love it for having produce near your sink. Too bad that you can't get the main fridge closer. Only downside is that it was $2000. Our main fridge was around $1500-1600. It's quiet 99.9% of the time. Cold. Capacious. Perfect.