I think I have gremlins or something. :(

Very Cool Chele.. It has a nice ring to it! Do you have a logo yet?

Yes welcome Cathy, please do show us pictures, you place looks wonderful.
Sandra

Oooh! Chelle, I have designed a couple of logos. If you don't have one yet, maybe I can create one for you...unless you already have one in mind..... Maybe mirror images of two plants with the name below it as the 'pot' they are growing out of?

I have not really decided on anything right now. I have been in too big of a hurry to get plants ready and get my website up. Then I had the gremlins. I still have a bunch of pics I need to get added as well as prices and buttons. There are never enough hours in the day and I am really busting my buns!!

Well, I am a Gemini...... Ack and have another birthday coming soon. I've decided to start going backwards. LOL

Stop that! I need to get back outside. LOL I have a couple hundred more elephant ears to pot up....I played around with a near mirror image of two hems then didn't use them. I even considered buy Gemini or Gemini Jack hems but thought the creator may not approve.

You can get to my website through my member page. If you can come up with something that fits the color scheme or if I love it so much I replace it, I'll send ya something purty. :)

I like the wallpaper, but you still need a logo. I've already started working on it. You will love it....LOL!

Your website is a little hard to follow. On your daylily page you have a picture of a flower, then to the right of it you have a name, then under it you have another name or two or three...I assume the name to the right of the flower is the one that is pictured...but it is a bit confusing. It might be better to put thumbnails by each name...and if you don't have a picture, make a thumbnail that says "Camera Shy". Then the person could click on the thumbnail for a larger picture of the flower. I would use tables or hidden tables to keep things lined up properly. Just a couple of suggestions that would make it easier to follow for people like me who tend to get online late at night when their brains are on autopilot.....

Thanks!
I need to go back in and add pics and buttons which will seperate all the pics. I couldn't work on it anymore until hubby transferred my pics and the website from the old hard drive to the laptop I am using right now. You never know how much you use your computer until you don't have it. LOL I even had to pay the monthly bills with this one which meant having to manually hit in everything for each payment. What a pain!!!

The box arrived today which will take my computer back to HP to be fixed. Now we just have to figure out how to get all my stuff off the hard drive. It doesn't fit the other computers here and my computer won't run for more than 5 minutes. ARGH!!!

On a good note, I just met another neighbor looking for something. Seems everyone in the region has sold out of onion sets! How crazy is that?!?! Off to find onion sets...........

Hey, chele
I haven't set any onions yet. I need a few! I planted a late garden yesterday and forgot to buy onions. I only like them when they are very small and tender so I don't need a long growing season.
Your daylily business will pick up when they BLOOM. A friend of mine says she sells most of hers only if they are blooming. Last year the rose society came out and made several purchases.
Teresa

Oh you poor thing! I hate HP computers except for the laptops.... because they are not 'functionally repairable'. If you have to replace the hard drive in an HP, even though it takes a Western Digitial HD, it has to be an HP Western Digital HD or it won't work...that way HP gets your money when you buy the darn thing, then they get more money when it breaks down. Our computers can't be down for more than half a day, so I have to be able to replace anything on them with available parts. The only computers I will buy for the business is Gateway. Now, for my son's college laptop, I didn't mind buying an HP because I can't repair a laptop anyway. But on a desktop computer, I can replace anything except a mother board...and I don't do those because if I am going to spend that much money, I might as well just go ahead and get a new one.

OTOH, HP makes GREAT printers! I have been using one of their all in one printers now for five years before it finally wore out. And you know what wore out on it???? The darned ribbon that the print head travels back and forth on! In any case, I went ahead and bought one of their new all in ones (printer, copier, scanner, fax) because I needed to copy my medical records and I could not stand over the printer all day copying one page at the time. The new all in ones will take a stack of pages and copy them just like a big fancy copy machine. Even so, it took me about four hours to copy my medical file! And I only kept the pertinant documents and didn't keep redundant labs, etc.! A few years ago, I had one doc get mad at me one time because I didn't bring my entire medical file to my initial appointment...I told her I didn't have the money to pay for a storage unit large enough to warehouse my medical file...and that "beep, beep, beep" noise? That would be the truck backing up to dump the medical files on her doorstep! Needless to say, she flunked the 'doctor interview' and I kept looking till I found one compatible with my personality and style.

I hope HP gets your 'puter fixed quickly and gets it back to you in a timely fashion. I've never sent one in to them for repair, so I don't know how good their service department is. I assume it was under warranty and that is why you shipped it back to them?

ugh.. HP,,, Actually my only complaints was that even though I was very familiar with computer innards and used to get into my old one so often that I finally left the screws out, when I got an hp and opened it up to do something, it was impossible to get to stuff. most annoying

We use HP laptops at work and Dell for everything else. We bought one Gateway, it was broken when it arrived, their customer service stinks.

Stay away from Averatc too. It's made in China, the customer support stinks, and you aren't able to make basic adjustments that you can easily do on even the simplest Dell or HP.

We have used mostly HP's here at home over the years (PC's and laptops) and have had no problems. Bought our college bound son a Dell for graduation and the hard drive is totally fried. Of course, that didn't happen until he finished his term projects but hadn't bothered to back them up. But thank God for warranties!

Ok..Back to the Gremilin's .. Are they gone Chele?? I hope! ALso I meant to say that I thought you had a nice set up there by youre drive..regardless of the destroyed cabana

I've never had a single problem with Gateway customer service. ANd beleive me, I have talked to them a LOT over teh years. Of course, ti was better when they had the gateway stores...our first Gateway came with a five year warranty...I'd just walk into a Gateway store and plop it down and pick it up the next day, free of charge. Or if we had to have the computer that day, I'd go pick up the parts and fix it myself. Now that they don't have the stores, though, I don't worry with extended warranties. WHen somethign breaks, it is easier for me to just go pick up a new hard drive, sound card, video card, modem, CD/DVD drive, etc...and install it myself. And Gateways are a piece of cake to open....unlike some computers. It has these really cool slide locks instead of all those darn screws. You just slide these two locks back and the case pulls off.

I did have a sound card go out as soon as we bought the first one...and they went ahead and shipped me the new sound card and told me when I got the new one in, to send the old one back in the same box. I have bought two computrs from Tiger (well one was a gift from my dad). The first one came witha broken monitor. I had to send the monitor back beofre they woudl send the new one....so it was out of function for somethign like two weeks. The second one was right after I amrried Davdi and I bought a Tiger and it arrived broken. they would nt send ut a new one till we went them back the old one...or they said we could buy a new one and when the recieved the old one, they would credit the money back to our credit card. How many small busness owners can afford to charge two high end computers on their creidt card at one time???? Not us! We sent the computer back to Tiger and bought an HP locally. Taht was when we learned about HP parts not being compatible with any other parts.

We still have the first Gateway we bought. I bought it with the latest, fastest CPU avialable at the time...and they thought I ws nuts when I ordered it with 512 mgs of RAM...LOL! "What in the world will you ever do with that much RAM?"...to which I replied witha sly smile, "Trust me!" That computer is now about six years old and it still works. It is slower than our newer computers...and the USB ports are not fast enough to run a lot of current peripherals....but it is a good back up computer....and it has 512 megs or RAM...which is more than a lot of computers you buy today! Of course, my newest Gateway has over 1000 megs of RAM, hyperthreading technology and is so fast it will give you whiplash....and it was just a moderately priced computer compared to the old Gateway sitting in the corner wishing someone would come play with it....

Hey Bama,

Do you sit at your computer with your legs crossed? There are many transposed letters in your last post and that's what happens to me when my legs are crossed. lol

I have a Gateway. It's was my first computer 6 yrs. ago and I've only had one small problem with it. Dh and I are not real computer savey, so we either have my SIL help us or a computer fixer guy.

Donna

Naw, I type too fast. I am a very fast typist, but not very accurate, as you can see. When I am typing fast, I make a lot of typos and I'm used to my spellcheck program catching them, so I forget to go back and correct them. I love spellcheck...it would be really embarassing if I sent out emails for my husband's business and called him a con slut ant. (consultant)

Well, this is not in the gremlin catagory, but I have had Gateway computers at work, and when I retired, bought a Gateway, got several years of use out of it, and when it was time to be replaced, replaced it with another Gateway. I have never had problems with their service or tech support. I rate them a "10" company.

On the gremlin subject, If anyone has the power to direct them, please keep them away from Kentucky. Things are going well, and I want to keep it that way. I couldn't believe some of the stories here, I feel sorry for you all, but I don't want to interrupt my life right now to deal with the stinkers.

I put out Gremlin traps Thursday. I've had enough bad luck in the last three years to last me a lifetime and I do NOT need anything else going wrong!

Chelle, 'be thankful u have a foot' ! Oh yeah........ I took the CNA (nurse aide) course back in the early 90's and the nurse that taught the class was a great gal. She lost her mom young, around 11 yrs. old and as the oldest, got saddled with a lot of house chores. She felt extremely sorry for herself and over the years, had developed a HUGE chip on her shoulders (her words). She caused some major problems in high school but graduated and went to college. First night in the dorm, visiting with her new roomie, found out the gal had lost BOTH parents very young. She said it was the best 'slap about the head' she ever received and it totally changed her attitude. She said, 'God knows!' And I remember that story anytime I start feeling sorry for myself. :)

But I sure do hope things are looking up for u. I know adversity is supposed to build strength, but sometimes I think we're strong enough. :) "When u get to the end of ur rope, tie a knot in it and hang on!"

I used to see a shrink for depression. Between the chronic pain, which eats up endorphins like mad and does not leave anything for mood regulation....and being married to an abusive jerk and feeling trapped in the marriage because I was 'crippled'....I had a rough time for a few years. But most of the time when I went in to see him, I was laughing and cutting up, which is a great mechanism for avoiding discussing painful things! One day he tried to shake me out of my usual defense mechanism by asking me how I dealt with my bad marriage, my pain, my health problems, etc, etc, etc..... I told him about a study I had read about...which surprisingly, he had never heard about or read. Maybe it is just a story, a parable.... but it really stuck with me.

A group of psychlogists did a research project with a group therapy session. They told each patient to bring a backpack with them to the next session. They were to take a pad of paper and on each sheet, they were to write one problem...until they had every single one of their problems listed on a seperate sheets...then they were to stuff the backpack with their 'troubles'. The group arrived for the session and were told to drop their backpacks in the middle of the room in a pile. They all sat around and discussed the things they had put in their backpacks. At the end of the session each participant was told they had to leave with a backpack. They could take any backpack from the pile that they wanted...but they had to take one of them. As the participants left the room, they each picked up a backpack and walked out. After the session, they were interviewed to find out which backpack they had taken and why.The psychologists asked each patient which backpack the patient took--and one by one, they all admitted they had picked up their own backpack. When they were asked why they had taken their own backpack, each patient said the same thing....they had taken their own backpack because they KNEW they could handle their own problems...but they were not sure about their ability to handle the problems of the other people in the group.

I don't know if this story means that we are all more comfortable with the devil we know and are terified of the unknown....or perhaps the moral is a literal one...we know we can carry our own burdens because we carry them day after day, but we aren't sure we could handle some of the stuff we see other people dealing with every day. In any case, it made a great story to tell the shrink and saved me from having to discuss things I was not in the mood to talk about! (impish grin)

Defoecat, I wouldn't wish these little rascals on anyone but my DH's ex-wife. However, if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all, so as much as I'd like for them to infest her place and multiply like bunnies, with my luck, if they head even close to this way, they'll stop by here again because I am SO sweet and SO hospitable.

Has that volcano blown in Indonesia yet? They were evacuating thousands from around the sides and bottom of it and there was a trail of delicious looking hot red stuff running down a gully out of the crater. With everyone gone, there are lots of empty places they can hang out temporarily. Maybe if we let them know we're shipping over some tortilla chips and cheese they'll go looking for red hot salsa. Oh, Lava Sweet Lava, La La La La La. ;)

Chelle, you certainly don't sound like you need a slap in the head to me.... just keep on laughing girl! That's what I'm doing and it works. Well, most of the time.

DH was such a dear today. He went out and put manure and peat moss in all the perennial beds, the upper rose beds, Siberia, and the cottage garden, and tilled those babes with the Mantis. Then he took a weed digger to the skunk cabbage that came out of nowhere (although we do border a marsh) and was invading the rhodies. (God those dratted thing have long roots.) And somewhere in there he scrubbed out that durned freezer for me (God I LOVE this man). And he did all of this while I slept for four and half hours straight, which is why I couldn't sleep tonight and I'm up before the chickens.

And NO, I don't loan him out.
;- )


Cathy

PS... Don't even let the gremlins know I'm asking this but does anyone out there have any experience freezing jelly? I'm making mint jelly because I am pulling up a lot of that mint that none of you want to take off my hands and I just can't throw it away. (We do eat a lot of lamb but does anyone eat mint jelly with anything else? I mean, how much lamb and how much jelly can one eat?)

I've already made 24 of these goofy looking little tiny jars that DH went out and got for me. (I don't dare ask him to go back and buy more – and this get the bigger ones please. He was so proud of himself for thinking these small ones were perfect because they’re just enough for a meal.

I've already crystallized a whole container of leaves and I still have wayyy too much. What else can I do with this mint (besides throw it away)….. my herb garden is all organic).

Weell, I have to be honest, I would have taken my back pack too. But only because I got it on the bargain table at L.L. Bean and I like it a lot.

Hey Bama, what are you doing up all night???

And go ahead y'all.... ask me what Sjberia is.... (in my garden)....

Cathy..I don't know how much this would use up but I just love mint tea. I heat a large pan of water. throw in about ten stalks. (You can put in more..it just makes it more concentrated) Then I pour it over ice..course somewhere in there i add sweetener. Sugar in my case.. it is the most refreshing thing!

Also Cathy. maybe you can ask the dh to go get you some "family gift" size canning jars so you can make up some to share? Esp since you are all out

Wow! This thread has certainly taken on a life of it's own. LOL We've been through bad luck, good luck, gremlins causing the death of appliances, trips to 'have our heads examined', the ins and outs of customer service and the who's who of the computer world. LOL Did I leave anything out?

I believe I am completely recovered from my tragedies. As my Papa always said "All it takes is time and money.". Were truer words ever spoken? The box is here to take my computer on it's trip to HP. The part has been ordered for the dish washer, I made two sales yesterday and have a woman returning today for some veggie plants and I am ordering onion sets for her too, my second daughter got to go play at a new friends house for the whole day and when I went to pick her up, I dropped off my eldest daughter at another house for a sleep over. The best part of the whole day yesterday? Nothing broke, no one got hurt, we were are reasonably happy and healthy, it didn't rain and the rabbits didn't eat *everything*!

Smile. Tomorrow is another day.

YEAH!! :D

YEAH!! :D ..(and I sure didn't mean to imply that u needed a 'slap about the head' ... sorry! did u take it that way?)

Well lets us hope this is a better year for all of us. I feel for you all. We lost everything in Hurricane Katrina and then it went down hill from there lol. Things are slowly getting better and I am getting a new habatit started in a new place up in the country thanks to many of you that sent me so many wonderful plants. No more ocean side living for me.

Chele if you ever get the rest of your rebates let me know. I got a new puter too in Jan. Only needed a CPU(took it with me) as I had already purchased the rest after they drounded. It was cheaper to buy the whole package with the rebates than to buy just the CPU. Now only 150 in Rebates have come through. Guess I had better be finding my paperwork on it.

Well, if it ws my garden, Siberia would be the garden farthest from the house...and I'd put some of that mint aside for Mint Juleps this summer! LOL!

I have really odd sleeping patterns...but you can usually count on me to be up till the wee hours and then sleep till noon...hwoever, today I ahd to finish some paperwork I had promised for tomorrow and I could not get back to sleep when I woke up to pee really early...so I got up and just now finished the darn paperwork.

Oh, I might be going out of town for a coupe of days this week. My cousin might be going to the beach..and if she does, she has asked me to come along and us hae a girls only beach trip. Her mom and my oldest sis are going down tomorrow and we are supposed to go down Wed and come back Thurs evening. Fortunately I kept my fat bathing suit (once you throw out fat clothes you immediately need them again, so I kept mine fat clothes last time to prevent the 'nature abhors a vacuum' reaction.....but this is because I quit smoking last year and gained 10-15 lbs). I need to pick up some sun block and some Rook cards.....Hope she decides to go down...it would be a blast. And right now, I could REALLY use a break.

Okay, I lied but it was not intentional. LOL I had told a lot of people I would mail on Saturday. Guess what?? Monday is a holiday and there will be no postal service. Argh!! Foiled again! So, if I owe you something, it will go out on Tuesday!!!

As far as the gremlins.....My computer was shipped back to me day before yesterday so I should have it soon. I hope they really fixed it! If not, I am going to copy this HP bashing and send it to them so they know how people really feel! If hubby gets fired, can y'all send money? LOL

We found a way to get a new cell phone for free instead of $150 after discount but it will cost $10 a month for service until eternity. Now I will have three phone numbers and only two phones. Grrrr. Anyone have an extra phone that will work with Verizon? We are going to get rid of our home phone when our IP contract runs out and just stick to cell phones. The IP phone line is horrible! It's cheap but the reception is awful So I still need another phone that the kids can use on the local number.

Hubby bit the bullet and bought me a new weed eater. We have come to the conclusion that you might as well buy a cheaper one that will only last a year or two. The expensive ones have not lasted any longer.

The dishwasher part should be here soon. Then life will almost be back to normal......just in time for the kids to end the school year. I may be on nerve pills by then!!

So, in closing, if I owe you plants, I hope to ship them all on Tuesday. If you think I have forgotten you, please send me an email. My feelings will not be hurt by a friendly reminder. :)

I couldn't go with a cell based phone...between living out in the country and not being able to get a good signal part of the time...and having an old, old house with lead paint, my cell phone will only works inside the house if I am standing next to the refrigerator and nobody walks between me and the kitchen window. Otherwise I have to go stand out by the pasture fence or get in my car and drive out to the highway! LOL!

OTOH, our local land line phone company is feeling the sting of the IP phones. They have offered me bundled service...all the extras like caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, voice mail, star 69, call blocking, inside wire repair, etc...plus unlimited long distance all for $39.95 per month. There is no way to beat that price for a land line. The only long distance I have to pay for is when I call Canada.

Wish our cell phones would work at the place we are buying, as we'd use them and just have a land line for internet (no dsl nor cable available). We have to drive 5 miles to the interstate for a signal. Joys of living in the mountains.

Believe it or not, the IP connection is so bad, even with new phones with a different Ghz, our cell phones are far superior! Even though we are "out in the country" and surrounded by trees, they are far enough out that the cell phones get great reception!

Chele.. we are going to get new phones.. you can have one of our old ones if you want.. maybe I can trade you for a daylily! lol

We have problems with our wi-fi in the house because of the lead paint. THe sgnal will not penetrate through the walls in spots...depending on how many walls it has to pass through. I had talked to a network professional who had the same problem in his house (which is alos old...not as old as mine, but still old) and he didn't know why he had the reception problem in some rooms. Plus, as soon as he and his wife walk into their house, they also lose their cell phone signal. After our wi-fi was installed and we had trouble, it hit me that when I worked for a company several years ago, we had a room that was lined with lead to prevent signals from being sent from the room. It didn't take me long to figure out that the reason these old houses have problems with cell phones and wi-fi signals is because of the lead paint. When you think about how many layers of paint have been painted on top of each other over the last 116 years (well...for the first 70-80 years before lead paint was outlawed), that is a lot of lead. I think it is funny that these specialists and engineers couldn't figure out why wireless signals don't work well in old houses is because of the lead paint.

Incidentally, I read a couple of months ago that Rhode Island has sued several paint makers to force them to go into the state and remove all the lead paint from all the old houses and repaint them with modern paint. Do you know how cost prohibitive it would be for me to hire professionals to remove the lead paint from this house? As it is, we're going to have to strip a couple of rooms becaue the paint is cracking and creating chips from moisture (bathrooms and the office by the back door where the roof leaks). In order to remove the lead paint, we will have to wear protective suits, masks and respirators while we are chipping the stuff up and sanding it down. Man, I wish I could get the paint companies to come in and remove our old paint...and paint the house with all new colors...free of charge. I wonder why Rhode Island was able to win the lawsuit forcing the paint companies to clean up their state and other states haven't done the same thing. Maybe because Rhode Island is so small...if they had to clean up the old houses in every state it would probably bankrupt the paint companies. Oh well, for us it is bascially harmless...except for having to strip theose rooms. But I do worry about when I eventually ahve grandkids....

Okay, finally getting back on track! Computer is a bit odd acting but working, have a new weed eater, cell phone arrived today and made three sales on Ebay. LOL

Boxes went out today to:

Marcia Geiger
Irishbelle
MarylynTX
mudgirl
cicada

Whoa! That's amazing! I can't get that much done in a week. Sure glad the gremlins appear to be gone!

Cathy

Dadgum, you're good! If I did that much in one day, I'd have to sleep for a week!