The most impressive option on The Ultimate Home Site is the 3D Room Designer. After downloading the Design It file, you can choose which room to design, the appliances, countertops, flooring and all of the other gadgets and décor you need. You have the choice to design your room to your satisfaction and viewing your finished virtual room is made simple with the use of angled cameras and panoramic viewing.

As an additional link on the site, the How To section goes into detail about specific room design and remodeling. From bathrooms to home offices, Bob Vila and his staff continue to make home improvement interesting and fun. An interactive house is available to search by room, which includes individual home improvement topics. Advice on purchasing the perfect carpet, that elegant new light fixture, even the essentials of plumbing and foundation are readily available.

The Special Features page lists a variety of unique projects from Innovative Technology to providing your home with Green Building, an energy efficient design that helps in the preservation of the environment. Your search will not end here. With so many links and projects to choose from, you could spend an entire day surfing through the web site for the perfect home improvement project for you and your family.

A Bulletin Board is also available on the Bobvila.com site to help you Do-It-Yourselfers find the information you need. Ask a question or provide answers for others working on specific projects.

There are so many more options to choose from on the Bobvila.com site, it is hard to name them all. Bobvila.com is continuously being updated and numerous outlets for advice on home improvement will be added soon. If you are a Do-It-Yourselfer, you will not only find the information you need, you will have fun searching for it at http://www.bobvila.com.

Martha Stewart has developed a wonderful array of recipes, decorations, pumpkin carving ideas, costumes and much more in her Complete Halloween How To guide. With so many wonderful crafts to take on, why not start today? Either in the kitchen or decorating around the house, Martha helps bring in the Halloween touch.

If you're in the spirit of giving this Halloween, try this popcorn ball recipe for your gathering. And for the kids, Martha has extra special carving techniques for your Halloween jack-o'-lantern.

Halloween Popcorn Balls
Ideal for Halloween, Martha's popcorn ball recipe wears its own costume: a pumpkin. Popcorn balls are traditionally coated with a caramel glaze, but in this Halloween version, Martha uses marshmallows and M&Ms™.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for buttering hands
• 1 ten-ounce bag miniature marshmallows
• 1/4 cup light-brown sugar, firmly packed
• 3 quarts popped popcorn
• 1 cup M&Ms™ (optional)

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a large heavy pot over low heat. Add marshmallows and brown sugar, and stir until melted. Remove from heat.
2. Pour popcorn and M&Ms™ into pot and toss well. With buttered hands, shape into 2 1/2-inch balls. Next, set on parchment-lined baking sheet to dry slightly.

Decorative Jack-O'-Lantern
"Jack-o'-lanterns" were not always the smiling or spooky pumpkins associated with Halloween. Long ago, night watchmen carried lanterns because there were no street lamps. Jack was often used to mean "man", and as a result, the men who carried lanterns were known as jack-o'-lanterns.

The carving of pumpkins derived from a time when turnips were carved with faces to ward off evil spirits and were lit from within. Eventually, the term jack-o'-lantern came to refer to the carved pumpkins we now associate with Halloween. In the yards and windows of homes and shops across the country, jack-o'-lanterns light the way for the trick-or-treaters as Halloween night falls.

This next project combines the jack-o'-lantern and the haunted house creating an eerie glowing pumpkin. If you have several people helping carve the pumpkins, you may even decide to create a haunted neighborhood.

Ingredients

• Pumpkin
• Knife, for carving
• Spoon or ice cream scoop
• China marker or pen
• Utility knife, straight-blade knife or small saw
• Cheesecloth
• Toothpick
• Construction paper (optional)
• Wire (optional)
• Double-sided tape
• Small Halloween toys (optional)
• Fine-gauge or copper wire
• Votive candle

Directions

1. Cut the top off of the pumpkin with the knife. This will be the roof of the house.
2. Scoop the pulp and seeds out of the pumpkin.
3. Draw the windows and a door on the pumpkin with the china marker/pen.
4. Carve out the windows and door using a utility knife or another sharp tool. Keep cuts clean. The straighter the edges, the better. Remove any pulp hanging behind the windows or door.
5. Using a damp cheesecloth, wipe off any marks left on the surface of the pumpkin from the china marker.
6. To make the chimney, cut a rectangle out of the top of the pumpkin and pull out the piece. Break a toothpick in half and insert each piece of toothpick into the sides of the hole that is left by the rectangle. Replace the piece you cut in its hole, resting on the toothpick pieces so that it sits up higher than the roof and resembles a chimney.
7. You can add construction-paper cutouts, suspended by wire, to the outside of the pumpkin. Cut out silhouettes of bats or in duplicate. You can sandwich the wire between two identical images using double-sided tape, then stick the wire into the roof of the pumpkin. This will create the effect of cats roaming or bats flying around the outside of the house. You can also use small Halloween toys in the windows to create interesting silhouettes.
8. Place a votive candle inside a glass holder into the pumpkin. Light will shine through the windows and door.

You can create several haunted house scenes with a variety of shapes and sizes of pumpkins. Use your creativity to develop the ultimate haunted neighborhood.

The Martha Stewart Complete Halloween How To guide also provides the viewer with an easy-to-use on-line purchasing system. So, if you don't have the tools to carve the perfect pumpkin, you can buy the complete kit on-line. Or, if you need a specific blood-red shade of make-up, it's available on-line.

It's a simple and interesting time surfing the Internet when you are viewing ideas from Martha Stewart. The Martha Stewart site, www.marthastewart.com not only provides us with tasty treats, a variation of decorating techniques, costume designs and more, she has just about everything you can use to spruce up your home or gathering for Halloween.

This site is easy-to-use with a search of times by city, place, country and continent. Timeanddate.com lists several time and date categories, including the World Clock (http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/). This section allows you to check current times in other parts of the world and customize a version of the World Clock to meet your specific needs. There are multiple options to choose from when customizing your World Clock, including continent, time and city. You even have the option to show times in capitols or large cities in specific states and countries.

The Meeting Planner is also a very resourceful tool. If you need to make a phone call to someone around the world or arrange a video, telephone or net-based conference with several people across the globe, the Meeting Planner is the resource to use. This service will find the most convenient time to reach all parties. To plan a meeting for up to 6 cities and in a larger range of cities, you can also use the Advanced Meeting Planner (http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/advmeeting.html).

Timanddate.com lists time zone abbreviations, daylight savings times and a countdown to the New Year. If you are planning a trip or event, you can also customize a countdown to the specific date and time of the occasion. With so many interesting options to choose from, timeanddate.com is a valuable resource when planning a business meeting, event or simply dialing the number of a family member cross-country.

Mandy Calhoun
Vice President of Marketing

God Bless America God Bless America. Land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans white with foam. God Bless America, My home sweet home. My home sweet home.