Try Tide with bleach. I used to have nice white clothes when I was younger because I used Oxydol with bleach. As I aged, I started to itch and thought it was the harsh detergents. I kept trying different detergents for a long time before I realized it wasn't the laundry powder that made me itch. A few years later my sis came for a visit, she pulled out a snow white pair of jeans. I asked her how she did that, she said Tide with bleach. I was one upped by my "little" sister. LOL Now my whites are snow white too.

#$LL YES, I CAN! I put away a total of 97 ears of corn from our own garden. About 27 jars-pint size only- of tomatoes, not just canned tomatoes but also salsa and tomato sauce. (I quit canning maters early 'cause my left leg suddenly started swelling up when I stand too long. Never happened to me before.) We only did about 17 jars of green beans 'cause we took lots to MIL. Froze squash until my hands started to look yellow. And PICKLES! Geez, my DH took care of those. We have bread and butter and dill pickles to last until the next crop comes in. We are currently waiting for turnips, carrots and MORE GREEN BEANS! Not sure what he thinks I'm gonna do with them 'cause I am done for the season. Currently we are getting our pumpkins out of the patch. We planted BIG MACS and the regular jackolatern pumpkins. I will post a pic of the kids with the pumpkins! We are most excited about those pumpkins! I plan to have apples next weekend. I LOVE cooked apples. We freeze them. I have never made jam but I think I would like to try. I do make some red pepper jelly, but it just never seems to be as good as my SIL does it. DH loves his garden and since he works so hard getting it going each year, I feel compelled to "put the food up" as he calls it. His parents always canned. I don't mind it too much. As you stated, it's good to know where your food came from. Ours is totally organic. We don't put anything on our plants. We do have beetle traps at various places around the yard though. My friends tell me I'm a dying breed. Don't know about that but I don't know many people, especially my age, who can anymore.

Here I found several people that do that. There are several "historic" districts and so there is a market for restoration, perhaps. Also we do not get cold winters, so an absolutely perfectly tight seal and modern double or triple pane glass is not so urgently needed here as in Ohio.

We just finished remodeling our kitchen and the product I liked best was a Mannington sheet vinyl. I am a Realtor and am in and out of a lot of homes, and have seen AMAZINGLY life-like vinyls. I decided I wanted vinyl as we have another home that has tile, and I wanted something warmer and softer in this house...but I wanted that look. The product that we used was called Mannington Sobella Supreme Guadalajara. (The samples on the web-site don't look a thing like them...see the real samples if you can.) When I had a guy out to give me an estimate on our tile backsplash he reached down and touched our floor and said "OH! This is vinyl! I thought it was tile..." And I told him I was so happy because he was a tile expert and he couldn't tell. The other night we had some neighbors over and the husband looked at our floor and he said "Your tile floor looks nice but do you find that it is really cold?" And I said "It's vinyl." At which point he also reached down to touch it. Anyway, to each his own, but they have come a VERY long way with vinyl sheet goods. Good luck with whatever you choose, Cathy