Just going to stand on my soap box for a bit. There are 34,256 discussions on houzz. I do not read them all and only post on the ones I am interested in. If Julie and others are not interested in our discussion on gray hair and jowls, then they can skip us and read 34,255 others they may find more interesting. In regards to privacy, nothing is private on the internet. Period. I live in SC and our state department of revenue was hacked into and every state taxpayer's name, address, SS#, bank account and if you paid by credit card, your credit card info... are now known by person or persons unknown. Julie or jen-jen's comment that someone knows if I've gone shopping really doesn't feel as much of a threat after that. I usually let these haters slide by without comment, but this one time, I feel a need to speak out against this unkindness. I have a feeling you were 'shot down' jen-jen because you expressed the same unkindness before. I really don't understand why people feel a need to attack others. There's so much unhappiness in the world, why be a part of it? Why go out of your way to add to the ugliness when it's easier and feels so much better to kind? Thank you for your time and I am stepping off of my soap box now.

Hi to all; I'm not sure how to thank someone on this format; I do not use the computer too much, but I am trying to learn how to respond when someone says something to me. I realized as I was thinking more about the quake , what came to my thought was that because of the phone lines, I could reach my sister in Portland, OR., but could not call my Mom in Los Gatos from Belmont. The one call that reached me was my husband, who did not have and couldn't get enough gas in the car to get home from San Francisco.Now we always fill up at a half a tank down! Because of a gas main leak, Mom had been evacuated, and had I not been able to reach my sister and know that she was safe in San Jose with my niece, I would have been a wreck. Last, because all my Mom's cabinets had pull-out ball bearing drawers, the quake made all the doors fly open and everything slid forward, hit the end of the drawer and were catapulted onto the floor. It made me ask the question whether or not child-proof mechanisms would have been of use. Also, using floral clay to stick small objects down is something she did with the things that were left. I also recall how helpful people were. Stores gave water away for free, neighbors whose power had been restored cooked for others. Mom went and got two elderly friends in the Santa Cruz mountains. They were not hurt but very badly shaken. They lived with her for some time, but the house had to be demolished.

Margo, if you see this can you please start a new 'Random' discussion?? This one is getting to where my computer won't load it right half the time! :P Thanks!! P.S. Sorry about your kitty, but 17 years is a good long life!! My first cat only lived to age 10, and my last cat was a Siamese and she lived to 16 - half of her life with a dog that she tolerated only because Molly is warm and she liked to sleep on top of her while Molly was underneath the blankets. Like a live heating blanket. I refused to board either the cat or Molly, though when we went out for my brother's wedding back in 2002 I did board the cat - for whatever reason the cat always came home sick after being boarded, and Molly acts like I'm leaving her forever when I go to the store, so boarding her was always out of the question. I'd rather just bring her with me, even though she's 12 now, she's most comfortable when I'm there. ***** An update on the family and household - everyone is happy for Spring, happy that we haven't had any flooding in the house, the neighborhood, or school - the store where my new sewing machine was purchased is only just now opening this weekend, they had a mess to clean up as they are located on Main street in Fremont (which is about 40 miles north of us and had quite a bit of water thanks to ice breakup and a bridge, plus the farmland out there is low lying in comparison to where we are). I've been working some and when not doing that I've been cutting out fabric for quilts. Once everything is cut out then I can start sewing, I prefer this method because I know what I've got in terms of materials and can move things around with a visual reference to go by. Trying to cut out a couple fabrics, sew them into their blocks and then do the next ones from cutting to layout to block sewing gets too tedious. I plan to make D1's in these sort of butterfly blocks that use half triangle squares on the front, she's my girly girl and some of the fabric I bought to make hers with are actual butterfly print. D2 said she wants bright colors and "not too much boy stuff or too many/any flowers", and I'm probably going to do a pinwheel block pattern with bright prints and alternate with contrasting solid colors; blue, red, green, yellow, orange. I'm excited to see how things all come together, and will do the bulk of the sewing while the girls are at school and then while they're out doing various activities this summer vacation! The mister is very understanding and has been keeping them occupied so I can work and try to make the final results a little bit of a surprise!

If the builder is that cheap with the flooring budget, I HIGHLY recommend you look at the final layer of underlayment that you will be applying your flooring to. I'm going to guess this builder is going to buy the cheapest OSB board available. That will only allow you to lay carpet or floating laminate. Even some forms of vinyl plank won't work with OSB. If you (reasonably so) thought the flooring budget should be closer to $40K (and I think you are very reasonable on this assumption) then you have been looking at decent hardwoods, tile etc. The Builder Grade subfloor s/he has planned (bad OSB for carpet) is going to have to be revisited. Some of the worst solid floor installs START with OSB. I have huge issues with OSB under anything but carpet. Check to see what s/he has planned for the underlayment. I'm betting they are going to steer you towards the laminate/carpet option because the OSB is what they have planned. The low flooring budget just got complicated...because I think they are going towards carpet and are going to use OSB. If you want something else, you need to STOP THEM from laying the final layer of subfloor/underlay. You need to MATCH the underlay to the FLOORING. They won't want to rip out OSB if you want a glue down hardwood! That will get ugly very, very quickly. Not to mention the need to redo the hardwood because of full failure in a few years because OSB was used. If this is slab on grade install, it means they are NOT going to prep the concrete properly. Only carpet will work over top of unprepared "poured" slab concrete. To get anything else over bad concrete, it takes huge amounts of effort/money - which is exactly what the builder does NOT want to do.