LOL Both of you. I'm still trying to figure out "ALL THE CLUES" LOL I have no idea the what any of the answers to any of the clues are, Oh one was "Heart." Still trying. Dorothy

Sandy, I know you've been having trouble with the knees, but I also know you're not looking forward to the surgery. Think of all you'll be able to do with that "robotic" knee, LOL! You'll be even more of a Wonder Woman than you are now! I wish you would see some of the Nessus. They are diurnal. I see them off and on during the day, but mostly at dawn and dusk. You will fall in love! Had a Red Admiral female today, feeding on fruit and laying eggs. I have some kind of little black bug on my False Nettle this year, though, and I think they may be eating the eggs and tiny cats. I try to squish them, but they are incredibly fast. Once you nab one of them, they are on the lookout for you. I have so many different kinds of critters this year. I have these large dragonflies every year that hover over the garden. Since they are predators of butterflies, etc., I imagine they choose my garden as a home base! Today I saw a very long-legged wasp, or what appeared "wasp like" to me. The thorax is striped, longitudinally, with brown and yellow - it's pretty small. The wings, at rest, are tucked and folded over the abdomen. I have no clue what it is. I have another thing that looks like a modified, short, stumpy dragonfly, too. I need to take photos, but I am so unhappy with my camera, that I don't even want to bother. I have these gigantic black wasps that nectar as well. They are beautiful, but kinda scary. They are so black, they look blue in different light and different angles. The thing I have the least of this year, thank goodness, is the milkweed leaf beetles, the round, fat ones. I have found very few. Jeanie, my Cardinal Vine is not blooming yet either. First year I have grown it. Also have Cypress Vine that is not blooming either. I have what I know would be gorgeous blooms on a JP morning glory, but they won't open. They just bud up and stay that way. It's been really tough trying to water the garden adequately this month, with Jess having been in the hospital, and taking care of her and the kids several days a week. I hope I get some time this weekend to play catch up. I like to use the bananas. I buy a bag before I am going to need it, and let it ripen to black, and then put it out. This can be hastened by putting them in a plastic bag and tying off the end, and putting out in the sun for a day or so, if you need it quicker than letting them ripen in the shade or indoors. I find 5 lbs of bananas cheaper than buying fruit cups, but I know some folks prefer those over the rotting fruit, or meat as Cathy does. Someone last year said that they put theirs in the freezer and then take them out after frozen and let them thaw out. This will supposedly hasten the ripening process as well. You just need to get those ethylene gases do their job. Susan

So far I have liked a few of the small chips I've put up of off whites, but I don't think I've narrowed it down 100% yet.And obviously chips are not swatches, and swatches aren't quite the same as painting a full wall. I wasn't thinking of using the off whites and creams in my home at the time I picked up the sample pots a few weeks ago. I need to visit the local BM store this week and try a few more things out. I had a sample pot of palladian blue (to try in our bedroom) and put it up there (foyer and DR) just because I had it out. Oddly it seemed to work really well with the floor. Kind of a lighter version of what's on the floor (it seemed to read w/ more green in my house). It didn't look too terrible with the wood either since it has some warmth to it. I'm a tiny bit afraid that it might be oppressive with the carpet though? It is more of the look that the PO had (her walls were a more pastel, lighter version of the floor color). However, the Palladian Blue is not pastel, kinda muted/muddy, and more sophisticated than the more pastel blue that PO had up. Not sure if I want to go with it but I am considering it. It was not something I even thought would look remotely good w/ the carpet based on what I've seen elsewhere but it is one of my favs. Comfort gray isn't bad either, just a different look. DH think it wouldn't be too blue once we have curtains up, furniture in place, art on the walls, etc. When you enter you enter in the foyer and there is a hall straight back to the kitchen. In the foyer immediately to your left is what will be our study (PO's formal LR) and to the right is the DR. I'm thinking about using Palladian Blue in those rooms (DR and Study) and having the foyer be something more neutral like off white/cream. Both the Study and DR have the seafoam carpet, and the stairs (visible from foyer) have it as well. The rest of the house is more neutral (thankfully).

I might have been a slave to my kids, but not to a kitchen and I love my kitchen and what makes it a gathering place is coffee and good conversation, company of friends. I love my company, my kitchen and coffee and have several coffee and latte/cafe makers, coffee presses, coffee grinders, coffee pots, and I put them where they are convenient for my family and friends, our gathering place. I grew up as the child of a divorced woman who worked hard to own restaurants, a garden nursery, fishbait shops, a fishing lake, fruit arbors, who supported herself and her family (children, parents and occasionally siblings and neighbors) with whatever it took, and I know how important coffee and its devices are to our way of life. Businessmen, churchworkers, attorneys, judges and millworkers gathered in those small restaurants in that small town to discuss business over coffee and the pot often left leaks on the tables and leaks on aprons and many dishclothes were required to keep it clean, but it was the one common denominator in running the community from a community cafe. Should my mother have worried about those drips of coffee or the business of this little mill town where important decisions were made over a fresh cup of a java? The trial of the Dowdy boy who killed his family, the trial of the Janor man who killed the sheriff, the trial of old man Wilborn who was a CPA and found a way to beat the tax system until he was caught and whether or not he would go to jail on a confession or the man who worked as a postman and stole the money from the envelopes of the elderly to keep his wife's home decorated and her clothes perfect or old man Woodhead who burst into his lawyer's office and shot him dead in cold blood because he thought he was having sex with his wife to pay her legal fees. I lived in a town similar to the one from which "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the subject. All that was discussed over coffee. It was important then and the outcome is still important to many today because some of those trials are in lawbooks that determine our fate to this time. I could do without a new kitchen but I could never do without coffee. Give me an IV of coffee when I am in my final days. Don't embarrass your granite by suggesting that vinyl is more capable of handling a few drips of coffee than granite which has been around thousands of years. ;-)