HEY I lived!  Still in ICU, believe it!  tractor ran over my face, but what a much appreciated alternative!  See ya soon - thx for happy wishes!

Well Toni, This is day 2, right? You wouldn't 'just happen' to be ordering steak for breakfast? ;<

And how is Joe doing with his cook and 'main squeeze' on the sidelines?

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

The next release of Windows 8 has been released. It was a mere 10 hour download on my 'superfast DSL'. Setup for installation. I want to put it on a partition so I can also have access to the Developer's Preview. Where does it choose to install itself? Right on top of the Developer's Preview, that's where. There go all my settings, files, favorites and so forth. Am I upset? Nah. Am I mad? Nah. Am I furious? Now you're cooking.

Still,I am remiinded of an old standard of a song.

'What a difference a version makes, just one little number...

The changes are dramatic. This is pretty close to finished. Mr. Softee says he 'rethought Windows' and he certainly did. Anyone who uses a smartphone or tablet with tiles (or squares) to do things will feel right at home. I don't and I still don't. He did keep enough of the traditional desktop so I can be productive while climbing this new Great Wall of China learning curve. The Lock Screen has been changed so I no longer see the road going to the horizon. Oh well. More later.

Hi Toni,

So glad you've been released to the hospital, and excellent that you're doing "remarkably well" for day 11!

Do they have an ETA for when you get to go home?

I haven't seen nor heard hide nor hair of Carol.  I hope she's okay too.

I bought a kiln kit from Fuseworks that lets me fuse glass in the microwave.  This is probably the precursor to spending many hundreds of dollars on a "real" kiln.  I'm enjoying this, but man is it frustrating when I hear the "pop" and look in the little kiln and see that my glass blew apart.  Then I drag the kiln out of the microwave, sit it on my heat-resistant tile, and wait for everything to cool down, then start over with another piece of foundation glass.

I'm making glass knobs for the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  All in all, it's probably going to cost only a couple of hundred dollars for 23 knobs.   (I'm doing a lot of "practice" pieces, and have bought a lot of glass - only "their" glass works), so I'm going to have a lot of glass left over for other as-yet-undisovered proejcts.)

So glad to hear from you, Toni!  You're in my thoughts constantly,

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

I doubt the 'physical terrorists' will have any problem reteaching you to talk, Toni. Walking? People I've met who have gone through that therapy say it was the hardest work they ever did. Didn't Carol go through this about a year ago?

You take me back to 1950 or so Glenda. Mom belonged to a "Home Economics" club or some such name. (You are old enough to remember when you were a home economist and not a housewife? What other kind of wife is there? Fish?) There are two projects I remember them doing; upholstry in '55 or '56 and making 'glazed jewelry' circa '50. They put that glass powder on pieces of copper and heated it over the grill of a portable electric stove. Worked like a charm. I remember seeing the cufflinks she made a few years ago, where they are now only the soothsayers and psychics know.

Over the years I planted about a zillion croci (crocuses?) in the lawns. I had the most interesting spring lawn in the neighborhood with several species of spring bulbs. This year about 4 (count em) blooming in the back yard. Zip, zero, zilch, zonk in the front. I wonder if the (4 legged) squirels dug em up? Unlikely. Were the grubs hungry enough to eat the bulbs? My dwarf iris are doing just fine and look really good standing tall at about 4 inches in their intense dark blue plumage. I'll just have to wait and see how the tulip species faired.

Glenda - Martha's place is just over 3 hrs north of here. What you see blooming is what I have here, just not as manicured and plentiful.

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

srf – From a past topic, try this Google images search, use  For sale Jamesburg . I promise you will find many views to your liking. It is also in CA. I did see your prototype and tried to type a reply of bungee cords and it looking a lot like Kansas but it didn't go through.

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

Hey Carol - gorgeous pictures of croci (or is it crocuses?)

Toni and Carol, here's mid-March pictures at Martha's farm (her crocuses don't look nearly that cool):  http://www.themarthablog.com/2012/03/mid-march-at-the-farm.html

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Hi Toni et al!

How ya doin'?

Early spring around Martha's place:  http://www.themarthablog.com/2012/03/early-spring-around-my-farm.html

I've got the pond cleaners in my yard right now - and I think the tree-cutter-downers have just arrived at my neighbor's house.  They're down to just 2 trees in their yard; I hope they're not going to cut them down like they did the other 4 as we're running out of bird resting space....

There are about 20 fish in my pond; 5 babies.  And the big ones are just that - B I G. Not HUGE yet, but definitely BIG.

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Okay, here's my winter project - a stained glass bench:

http://glendamoore.org/temp/bench.jpg

Hopefully ya'll can tell it's mountains in the background, a row of trees, river coming out of the mountains into a lake, with a green hill and rock slide in the foreground.

I just put it out in the garden tonight.  I also put out a stained glass rabbit whose ears I just finished grouting a couple of days ago, and two stained glass clay pots.

This summer's project is to expand the 'patio' part of the backyard and build a 3-foot-high wall around part of it.  The pots will sit on the top of the wall.

I'll take pictures of them - and some of the knobs I did - and post them in a day or two.  And did I give you a link to some pages that have glass garden totems?  Well, I did some of them too; I think I have three or four out in the garden and four more in progress here on my desk. I''ll post pictures of some of eventually too.

My husband says, "when you get involved in a project, you really get deeply involved."  I think that is a comment about the sinks full of dishes for the last several months and the 3 inches of dust around the house.   Plus the fact that he has been required to vacuum the upstairs and downstairs - something he has only done twice, ever, since we've been married.

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Hi all

Toni's still having trouble getting logged in. Since she can still read and see pictures, I figured I'd post.

Martha's farm near the end of April:  http://www.themarthablog.com/2012/04/mid-april-around-the-farm.html

Here's the mosaic rabbit that I did for the garden:  http://glendamoore.org/temp/mosaic_rabbit.jpg

And here are 12 of the fish in my pond:  http://glendamoore.org/temp/12fish.jpg (they look cooler in person, honestly)

And these are some of the knobs in my kitchen and bathroom.  They are bits of colored glass, fused in a kiln that works in a microwave.  If I were to add up all the bits of glass I bought (that broke so I had to buy more, ad infinitum) and the two kiln sets I bought and the hours this project took, I probably could have replaced some of the entire cabinets, not just the knobs. However, it was fun and I enjoyed idoing a project from start to finish.  Note that the pictures didn't come out very well:  http://glendamoore.org/temp/knobs.jpg  The top and the bottom pair probably show the best.

I also made a couple of necklaces - one that was an accident but looks pretty cool, and one that didn't come out too bad.  No pictures of those, though.

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Hi Toni,

Martha plants a stone wall:  http://www.themarthablog.com/2012/04/planting-a-stone-wall.html

Where to plant a truffle grove:  http://www.themarthablog.com/2012/04/where-to-plant-a-truffle-grove.html

Hope you're doing well!

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.