vacationland

We moved into a house 2 years ago that was owned by an elderly woman who obviously had a green thumb. I am a gardening newbie. I had a few Lupines come up in my flower garden last year--this year there are more than a dozen! I'd love to have more next year, so how I do store/prepare the seeds so they will come up successfully next year?

We did research on how to get rid of them, we tried the traps--they just ignore them. We tried spraying with a product called 7even on that side of the house, which is where our deck is. The deck makes it hard to access, but this product has a hose attachment, and my husband sprayed under there as best he could. We tried setting out the Borax and sugar, and they didn't seem to go for that either. I pulled all the appliances away from the wall and cleaned well, then sprinkled Borax back there. We've done everything we can think of, and still they persist! They are definitely coming in under the deck. Any other things we can try? Thanks!

Yeah, I'm frugal. I've noticed, when looking through hotel websites, that the 'corporate rate' is many times cheaper than AAA or any other discount. If I'm travelling by myself (not for business), or with my family on vacation, can I take advantage of these rates too? What would qualify someone to use these rates, and do I need to show any corporate ID (I do work for a Fortune 500 company, so I have that, but never travel on business)? I'll save whatever I can wherever I can. Thanks.

I've noticed that many scrubs these days use polyethylene beads as the scrubbing agent, but I can't seem to find a source. I'd really like to save some money and make my own. I've done searches on Yahoo and Google, but no luck. Any ideas?

I love the look of wooden blinds and shades, and they would look great in our living room. Thing is, the windows (a bank of 3 standard size) face the street, and it looks really bad to have an expanse of brown in the windows. The other windows that face the street have white blinds. I was wondering if I could somehow line the wooded Roman shade with white fabric so the brown wouldn't show. I've looked, and can't find any made this way. Here are the ones I'm interested in: http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?Dept...

I don't quite know how I would go about this, so if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them. Thanks!

Is there one good book, or website, to learn all about investing? I buy magazines, have a few books, but I think I'm suffering from information overload. How does one sort through all the info to find what will work for them? Where do I begin?

I have an old wing back style sofa that I'd like to re-upholster. I've tried slipcovers, but they never fit right and they slip and slide and just look messy. Is this something I could learn to do on my own, or is this too much of an undertaking for a beginner? I can sew, and have a sew. machine (a regular Kenmore, not a heavy duty). Any advice is welcome, thanks.

We moved into an older home last summer that was owned by an elderly lady who passed away. She had a beautiful garden on the side of the house with all kinds of perenials--daylilies, irises, daffodils, tulips, daisies, etc. We were too busy with the house to do anything with it then, but now things are coming up, and we'd like to bring it back to it's former glory. Trouble is, it's overrun with weeds, and we can't tell what's coming up at this point. How do we clean this garden up if we can't tell what's weeds and what's good stuff? Any advice would be really appreciated, thanks!