Judy, I am sure i checked the seeds every half hour until they finally sprouted. or close to that often.... if i get it into my head that flower buds will be imminent, i'll probably go back to checking a dozen times a day ;-) so for now i just keep telling myself that they have to be *much* bigger before i will see blossoms. as for my advice on not keeping too many seed pods - take that with a grain of salt - i am just watching two wilt away on the same peduncle. two months old, so probably not viable. and there is only one more of the same cross left. now that is frustrating.... Karin

Wow, thanks for all the kind words! We tried to get some sort of reaction out of our kids and the workers but no one was saying much ;-) I should have known I could count on gardenweb! linb007, the floors are common 1 and 2 random width (3-5-7) american black walnut. I fell in love with some I saw at 32 dollars a sq foot (of course) and hunted them like prey until I found them for less than a quarter of that. We got them from Blackford & Sons out of Tennessee, unfinished with hand scrapped edges. My contact there is Luke Blackford. They are sweethearts there. I can send you his email if you want. kitchenkrazed, I am going to post this seperately (cabinet issue), I need the GW advice! The firm is a very reputable firm, HOWEVER, our designer left a week before we placed the order. So we are in a sort of odd situation and they never gave us a list of exact cabinets (I wasnt liking that but that is how they said it worked), they gave us 100 drawings and elevations and the cabinet type and finish, etc. but not a detailed BOM. So we are discussing it with them right now but I dont like that I dont have my original designer to clearly state that this is not what we discussed. honorbilkit, yes, we are surprised to find out that we are doing ok without the first floor. Esp since we always say the house is too small for us (we love our neighborhood though). My 6 year old said today he doesnt want to move back into the first floor. I thought he liked the closeness of all of us. Turns out he liked being able to watch TV while eating (basement set up, not allowed in real life upstairs). Rascal. Dinalo, yes that is stenciling, or as we like to say: entertainment for the onsite crew. Its one of my "Projects" where i experiment and stress out my husband. We had rich blue walls (faux sky) before so to cover it, I laid a TON of primer and ceiling white, and I COULD STILL SEE THE BLUE! So then I lugged 50 lbs of joint compound in (this is where the workers perked up wondering what the heck I was up to) and slathered it on. Then I color washed it with acrylics. Then I did a dimensional damask stencil with some of the bottom metallic paint mixed in. Since this photo I have added metallic highlighting to match under chair rail and then started distressed it with sandpaper (not done) b/c my highlighting was too "new" looking. Its like an 18 layer wall. I think I need to be committed if I make any starts towards 19. It's been sort of fun, Ive been cranking the ipod and putting movies on for the kids, but I think most people could skip 80% of my steps and get a similar effect! Lol.

This year I hope to make some progress on the basement. I am waiting for the quote from the contractor regarding my bathroom. I think I'll email/call him today. That will be done by summer. I took out one of the fluorescent fixtures in the basement and the stupid junction box is on a joist perpendicular to the floor, so no way can I install a new fixture. I'm not moving a junction box! A guy at work can though, so I need to clean up down there a bit and I'll get him to come over and move it. There are two more down there, so I assume those are the same. I am just putting in inexpensive track lights from Ikea until we can get things going down there. For the immediate future, I need to get the basketball hoop set up so another guy from work can help me put that up. I need to replace the one we have, because it's broken, and this one we will mount higher. Yard work is never ending of course, but the weather has been less than pleasant for that on my days off. Days I work are beautiful of course. I'm still training for my 15k in Toronto in 3 weeks. Yikes! I think I'll be ready. I have no grand illusions of finishing in a great time. I just want to have fun. :)

Yay for the violets, Nancy! And...you still have summer squash? The bugs killed ours long ago. Even the C. Moschata. I am pooped. So tired. We shopped today and I don't have to tell anyone that shopping is very unpleasant right now. However, Dillards allows you to try on clothes and I found a dress. It's not exactly the bohemian/fairy princess dress that I wanted. But it fits nicely and its a forest green color...and it's Robin Hoodish (not really), so I bought it. Paid more than what I wanted to pay, but it's done. DONE! Came home around 3 and sliced, breaded and froze okra. Then figured out how to use my pressure canner as a water bath canner and pickled some okra. On my own. The lids sealed so hopefully we're good. My house is getting to the point that I am very unhappy. I know a clean house isn't the most important thing in the world....but I enjoy a clean home. It just feels nice to me. However, a clean house isn't anywhere in my near future. I am hoping the robot vacuums are cheap this Christmas. That will at least help. We are celebrating Mason's BD tomorrow and that will be fun. It's at a very good restaurant that I haven't been to in a long time. Then grocery shopping and then maybe starting more lettuce seed. In between all of those things is animal care. Lots of animal care. There's always one of them doing something they shouldn't be doing or somewhere they shouldn't be hanging out. One of the fat buff orpingtons has figured out how to get out of the chicken yard. And she isn't swift. She is dumb--beautiful but dumb and wanders over by the dogs. So, I'm constantly leaving whatever task I'm working on to catch her or entice her back to the yard. And everyone is always hungry all the time. The 3 young pullets mingled with the main flock today. It went very well. Having a good rooster helps with that. They're roosting in their own coop, though. It will be a gradual thing as always. Momma Blossom will be tired of her chicks soon and those two chicks will need to move to the pullet coop at that time. Although, at least one of those chicks is a cockerel. Tom may or may not start doing meat birds and these two could be the start of it. They won't be THE meat birds, but they might be the parents of. I've named the one I think is a girl. Her name is Gwendolyn, which is sorta funny because Gwendolyn (actually related to Jennifer/Guinevere.) means white ...and Gwendolyn is a dark cornish. I'm simply rambling now.