Amester, my yarrow hasn't started blooming yet and I've misplaced the plant identifiers so I'm not sure. It's just been soooo prolific. If it comes out white, I'll know it came from you now. Sounds like Skybird is my columbine donar. I'd love to stop down at your place sometime and see your place and maybe dig up a few starts. With that many bees and butterflies buzzing/fluttering around your place must be surrounded in flowers! That's good to know that the bees love catmint. The patio area I was going to have them, others suggested I use the May Night salvia. I might just try catmint in a more obscure place. I read that butterflies like the salvia, what is your experience? I also read that it likes moist soils (which was why I initially wanted the catmint being more drought tolerant). Again what is your experience? I used to have valerian and loved it but I don't remember having very many butterflies. I wonder why I didn't have that many because I've read that I should have. I took a walk around my neighborhood and noticed most/all of the iris had already bloomed and mine haven't even started. They look extremely healthy so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll give them till next spring.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and photos! Much appreciated. Some things I forgot to mention about my kitchen - first, it is small. Secondly, there are two windows, but there is a covered porch outside of them, so it doesn't get a ton of natural light. I don't mind the pine cabinets, but I prefer more of a rustic look than a country look (if that makes sense). The hardware on the cabinets now is a dark pewter color and the tile on the counter tops has beige/peachy/terracotta tones in it. I would totally redo this kitchen if I could afford it, but it isn't an option at this time financially. I do currently have two rugs of decent size that have warm reds, beige, sage colors in them in the room. I should also add that I'm considering selling my home in the next 6 months, so I have to take that into account when choosing a paint color. I took some additional photos tonight. Forgive the quality of the photos - I had to turn off the flash to get a more accurate color representation. Here is the tile countertop, with the pine floor color: Here is my wall of colors. I've tried to label the ones you've mentioned Colorfast (thank you so much for your detailed thoughts!). Here are two additional photos showing the island after I painted it. The Kittery Green Point was too dark for my taste. So was the Shagreen. The Sagey was too light/minty. Palladian Blue I liked, but it was a bit dark and the shade seemed to clash with the sage green sofa in the room next to it. I forgot to mention that when I tried Rainwashed and Tradewind, I did them at 50%. The "MI" in the photo is Mellowed Ivory. "GG" is Guilford Green. Colorfast, I looked up the colors you mentioned from Devine on their site and I did like them. I will try to swing by the store on my lunch hour tomorrow to take a look in person. Thank you!! I'm starting to think that maybe I should just forget color on these kitchen walls and go with a cream/ivory/off-white (although I'm not sure how that would look with my white trim). Then bring in color through accents. The frustration has become paralyzing! :)

When I was a young adult and invited to a family wedding, I often contributed to a group gift from my family. When I was invited to the wedding of a peer, I often could not go because it involved travel, but when I did go I did bring a gift that was affordable but not insubstantial given my finances at the time which were fairly dismal. Same for showers. I probably gave modest but thoughtful gifts then, where now I am pretty much cash only except for the closest of friends/relatives. I think when I was young it was hard to remember that not being able to attend the wedding or some of the associated festivities wasn't grave insult but is just life. I'm now much more able to pick and choose the activities I want to attend without guilt. for those in more modest circumstances I don't think it's ever needed to cover your plate. I've been to weddings myself even recently where even $1000 wouldn't have been enough to cover our plates and we gifted much less than that. However I also think it is kind and generous for older people who are well-established to view a wedding as an opportunity to set a young couple up well in their future life together. This is how I now approach weddings of young people myself. I think the cover your plate guideline sort of helps the newlywed couple start out at less of a financial disadvantage particularly when their parents are not contributing substantially to the wedding. In our case we asked for donations to the food bank as one of our gift ideas and we certainly were not raking in the dough from our guests, my extended family is generally not wealthy and there are a ton of them, I would never expect them to cover their plates nor would they feel pressured to do so (some lovely thoughtful gifts from them of course).

Re. frost line: Since what my mason is doing is basically a dry stack wall; from here: http://www.doityourself.com/forum/lawns-landscaping-outdoor-decor/451549-frost-line-retaining-wall.html#b A dry stack wall does not matter. The joints have enough space to allow this heaving movement. The large spacious joints in a dry stack wall are like expansion joints in other strucures, they will take movement.