Thanks for your kind words @dswigle, as well as for your generous gift!

Sometimes I pause and ponder the fact that I sound more and more like my parents "I just don't understand how everything got so expensive!" It's sort of funny and sad, at the same time.

We have a number of house projects that "must" be done... like the heater, a new water heater, and we also want to oull out all the carpet and put in bamboo flooring instead. Which, of course, will make the house so nice that we won't actually want to leave! Catch-22!

All we can do in the meantime is take one step at a time and see where that leads us.