Hey guys, nice to hear from you. I have wondered where you were many many times myself...I am glad to hear its just a busy life keeping you away. I miss your friendly posts and non judgmental attitudes. You were always positive and yet still honest in your posts when us gardeners needed it..and yet real..not just sugary sweet, positive and encouraging, but not blind. Great qualities to have...post when you can..share when you have time. We need posts and gardening friends like that here...but most of all, take care of yourself first...after all, in the end, that is what matters most in life. Life gets in the way sometimes but you are missed..your a great assest to the forum and to the delicate balance that exsists here. I personally have missed your presence and influence. Gardeners, even "net gardeners" are real people too..life gets to busy sometimes, and our gardens or beds get weedy and unkept sometimes...that is life in a REal GARDENERS world..I find that makes you more real, more believable and better respected in my book, than constant magazine like pictures that dont show how a real garden lives and functions, pictures that make it hard to live up to for the normal gardener with a life outside his or her garden who does not have that picture perfect garden and the dollars to back it up...gasp...it makes you normal.. :) Post when you can guys.....even short posts...we need you around here..and when your busy with life...we understand that too..but we might still be missing you then thats all...

Wow, you've all given fantastic information. Thank you! I wish we had a month to visit all these lovely-sounding spots. I've traveled through Germany but not Berlin; however, I think we'll save that for another time. We haven't purchased our airline tickets, so we can do outbound to anywhere and return from anywhere. We could therefore start in one location, head to Vienna for work/pleasure and then continue on. I think I can covince my hubs to do Vienna plus 10 days ... so 13 days total. I don't dare say 2 weeks or he'll say he can't be gone from work that long (even though he totally can). I'll say 12 days. Ha. Maybe something like this: Depart US Morning arrival in Prague - stay 2 nights? Drive to Vienna (direct route shows 3.5 hr drive which we could do in the morning; if we stop in Cesky Krumlov and the other small towns suggested on detour route, we may need to allocate a full day. Hmmm) Vienna - 3 nights? Drive to Bled (4 hours) - 1 night? Drive to Split/islands (5.5 hours) - number of nights? Drive to Mostar (2 hours) - stay overnight or continue on? Depart from Dubrovnik (2 hours) - number of nights? Return flight from Dubrovnik? What do you think? Specifically, we have to be in Vienna mid-afternoon Sunday through Tuesday evening. We probably would stay overnight Tuesday for a total of 3 nights, and then drive to Bled (or wherever) Wednesday morning ... unless we should spend more time in Vienna. Our 2.5 days will include great sightseeing and fantastic dining with our business hosts. Sochi, how much time would you allocate to each location? In the time we have, should we try to fit in more? What would you do? We don't mind a bit being on the go go go. lizzard, I had no clue Budweiser is a Czech thing. I do have a beer lover, but despite the historical significance, one Budweiser tour in a lifetime is really all I ever need. Ssshh, we won't tell my husband.

I hate wasted space. I know you covered the blind corner wall cabinet above, but what about the base cabinet? It needs to be a blind corner or a corner base cabinet with Super Susan. Either will work. In your case, I think the blind corner base might be best. Remember, bigger drawers will give you better utility. IMO, anything less than 27", especially, by a range or range top, is getting to be questionable. It will be less expensive if you reduce the number of drawers, but make them bigger. There will be fewer drawer faces required and this will result in some savings. You pay extra for every door or drawer face, plus installation, plus hardware, plus pulls. The layout looks good to me. I do worry that you are losing too much prep space with the wall cabinets resting on the counters. It's a great look, but make sure you have at least 36" on each side of the range. I don't know if you are planning on replacing the Bluestar. If not, consider a 3" spacer on each side to reduce the likelihood of heat damage. You don't need a 48" hood with a 36" range. Unless you are reusing something. For capture, 42" is optimal. Why not use that 6" savings for wall cabinet space? Can't help with the sink. Given that a prep sink doesn't seem to work with this plan, two faucets at the sink might be something to consider. Can you increase the depth of the island? It seems a shame not to put some storage under the outer side of the island. The pictures look great. We can't see the damage. That's a kitchen I would have been happy to use. Good luck.

This is how it worked this time. I hadn't checked any matches for several months. Last week a guy that I've "known" for a couple of years did the test and came back matching me but not my aunt. So I knew he was from my mother's side. I had made a tree using possible parents for my great grandfather. On paper it was pretty darn good but I didn't have any document to connect them. Getting his DNA match gives me hope that someday I can find something that says, yes, you have the right ancestors. But anyway, since he emailed that news and then asked if another name was in my list I went to check and while I was there saw that my match list was huge and they were 4th cousin matches. Close enough to work with! So I emailed 2 of them and they both answered right away. One I was able to connect and the other didn't have her tree back far enough for me to work with. Our "in common" ancestor is very dead! We use GEDMatch and FTDNA to match. It seems like the people who really want to trace their family upload their DNA there and they answer emails. ancestry.com not so much. I was "talking" to another cousin about my good luck and she said check hers at ancestry to see if any of my new matches were there. Of the first page of 50, 22 had no tree, 4 had 2 generations, 4 were locked. So that's 30 out of 50 that we can't even look at. We could contact them but I suspect they won't answer. If you have done a DNA test but you don't have a tree, your tree is locked or you have you and your parents......?? What can we do with that? After you get your test results back your work is just beginning. That's when you have to look at both trees and go backwards until you find the same person in each tree. The match I had from the guy I already knew was easy because we had discussed it at great length for 2 years. We both had an extended tree so it was "easy" to go backwards and find a family name we knew. We had done that already. Getting the DNA match was proof that I was on the right track. The new guy I really had to work at finding the match there. His surname was my maiden name so I knew there had to be an ancestor in common. It took me all day but I got it. I had to build my tree out more on that branch but once I got the first lead it was pretty easy, just time consuming to add another 100 people to my tree. Findagrave had almost everyone linked and when I saw that name I was looking for I knew I was almost done. It isn't always that easy. It's hard. Experience does matter. Practice pays off. The gal who didn't have her tree built out far enough to show 4th cousins will have to work on her tree before I can find anything. Building to 5th or 6th would be even better. You need everyone; all the siblings, all the spouses, all the kids and their kids.