Now to the long story I had written yesterday.......... We arrived in hot muggy Fort Lauderdale just after Halloween and took the day to unpack. We hadn't noticed that the phone hadn't rung once that day. We were too busy but the following morning I tried to use the phone and there was no dial tone. We kept trying to get SUPRA our phone service that Bill had switched my Bell South for. It saved a few bucks on the bill but not known to us, wouldn't do anything if a tree had taken the wires off the pole; which is just what had happened during the summer while we were up in Michigan. My lawn man had cleaned it up for us and we were not aware of this until we saw him a week after we had returned. You see we were still without any phone service then and for another 3 weeks after that while Bill fought with Supre about the dial tone and service missing. FINALLY he came to the conclusion that the phone would never be fixed by Supra and he switched to Bell South. They then sent out a lineman and got us back up and running. Yippee it was now into the first week of December. I felt elated that I could once again get on with my old dial up computer and check out my email!! I had had to spend every day during the month with no phone running across the street to my neighbor to check my CCNOW for my Christmas Stocking orders. The old computer hummed to attention and I was online in no time with my webunited but when I went to open my Netscape 6.2 and go for my email I got a message saying that I had to update to get my mail. I guess my netscape 6.2 wasn't as secure as today's internet requires. I reluctantly hit ok and watched file after file download. When this all finished I had to reboot which I did and I felt NOW I will be able to get to that email. WRONG!!!!!!!!!! I went to the netscape short cut and tried to open it. NO WAY!!!!!! Error message after error message kept popping up about some conflict between netscape 6.2 and 8.0. Neither would work and in that vast cyberspace world my address book and bookmarks are lost to me forever. Then there was the Explorer I tried didn't download many sites for it was old and my windows were ME. Everything kept freezing up the old puter......... Bill set me up on his old computer and uses a router to connect me in his wireless unit. I had to get on the phone to my techs in webunited to get them to set me up with a link on this computer to the mail server for webunited so I am into one of those 8383 mail servers to catch my mail. I have been hoping you would write for I did not have your email address nor your phone number [as luck would have it I had inadvertently left my phone numbers little black book in Michigan]. You saved the day with your email for it is now one of the prominent addresses in my new address book now. I couldn't even get to your newsletters for that link vaporized with my old email inbox. Please send me another link. I am such a pest!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't get to see anything about the contest you referred to nor the photo. Darn............. I bet it was great!!!!!!!!!! How did it go?????

I had a very interesting bit of contract work this summer. It was to copy a very special stocking that Gerry Laybourne, the president and CEO of Oxygen.com and the cable TV Oxygen network. The stocking was a full panel of an Olde Santa and tree with embellishments over the full body of the sock. I copied the stocking stitch and made a pattern from which I made 5 stockings for her. I am thinking of putting it on my site and asking sixty dollars for it. The labor on it is so much more than on the regular pattern I offer. I did get out my old box camera and took some photos of it. When I find someone to scan and put it on a hard disc for my I will send you a photo to see. All my photos and other files I have saved over the years are: [you guessed it] on floppy discs. These new fangled computers do not have a slot for them. I have a shoe box overflowing with them and no where to stick them............ I wonder how many other people are in this boat I am in.. My old computer will read them but it will not save them to a hard disc. I am just going to have to try to figure out how to get them out of that old computer into this one. I used to have a file transfer system program but it will only work for windows 95........ Young people today wouldn't know what win95 is...... lol

I am walking on egg shells around here with Bill. His temper is worse than a grizzly bear just out of hibernation......... Bill is a terrible pack rat... He is old and set in his ways... He is used to being the CHIEF not only in the fire service but the military, navy....... He expects to be in charge, the boss, the one who talks and all stand at attention and listen.. He would never make a good minister making a sermon for the minute anyone would sneeze or say amen he would throw a hissy fit and stomp out in an uproar and make them pay for doing so.... Now I am in a phase of my life where I have to clear some of the clutter out of my life to be able to cope with my health issues. It is hard to try to mop around boxes of junk to keep a house clean. Dust makes it hard for me to breathe. I have all this ancient clutter around me gathering dust and molding. His piles of newspapers are yellow with age and covered with layers of old age........ I am not allowed to touch a hair of his mess. I came to the decision that it was high time the floors were restored to make it easier for me to keep house as it should be kept. We have all the floors in terrazzo but they need to have the nail holes, cracks and carpet glue removed and the stones ground and sealed so I will have smooth surfaces that will not mold. As it is now I must mop every week with clorox to keep my lungs safe. Bill was told by the people that will do the work that they will move the furniture but all must be empty before they will do so. Talk about a rabid dog. He is like living with a time bomb right now and the schedule to do the house has been pushed back from the 2nd of Jan. to the 16th. now. I have all I am allowed to touch gone through and junk ridden from my life but his STUFF is still waiting. I am beginning to wonder if the floors will ever get done. He has over half the house crammed with his STUFF. He just sits around gripping about the fact that I am stupid to do the floors. My lungs think otherwise but I don't dare tell him that. RIght now it depends on whether or not the marble restorer can take what Bill dishes out. Will see when the 16th gets here.

Here is something else to share with you. WHen we arrived in Michigan I discovered that I had left my dear scrubbie back on the sink in Florida. I love that thing so I popped into the JoAnn's there while we were out shopping and got myself a yard of nylon net in a beautiful robin egg blue color. I made Scrubbies for all the family and their friends and our neighbors out of that net. It works great! Dries quickly, doesn't scratch and really works hard on a crusty baked on mess. It dries fast and doesn't fade nor stain. Tell Scrubbie lady she would love this stuff. It works great.

We have been having a whole lot of muggy rainy and hot weather here. I still see the blue tarps on rooves around here and a lot of damage still going on as a result of Whilma. I have been wondering how your roof faired and if you are getting closer to moving into that new home of yours.