Thanks. I'll be watching! It's on at 8pm here on Nova with our DirecTV. Kim

I thought about you all last night. And Helen, I was up about the same time you were. The TV weather picture was a sea of red and boy, was there water coming down! I had just shy of 3 inches in the rain gauge. My car trunk in the garage is covered with plants ready to go out, and I had even planted a darling little Supersweet 100 tomato a couple days ago. I knew better-- She got covered with some loose straw and a pot over her this evening. Surely our drought has been broken. I wondered this AM if I should be boiling water, as the last time we had that much water, it was after the tornado. But I thought maybe Folger's would take care of everything, and apparently there wasn't an order out after all. Not one tulip bloom was shattered, nor were any dogwood blooms knocked off, so all we had was rain. The thunder and lightning was terrible, though. "Our" storm pushed off east and made some big trouble today. So sorry. And I'm real sorry I didn't mow earlier! Sunny

Karen, I got a chance to see the video and read the article a couple of days ago and just now saw your family photo album. What a beautiful family you all are! Each picture shows the love in eveyone's eyes. It's obvious you did a great job raising your children. Jason is such an inspiration to anyone who sees his video. He and Suzie show all of us what marriage truly is. The hard times that Alfred and I are going through now have brought us so much closer together. His accident makes me treasure him even more and I thank God for letting me keep him a little longer. We are blessed. Betty

thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. oaktown and writersblock, I love the idea of a projector! I hadn't even though about that. We're calling an AV person to see if they can help us with that. louisana, you're correct, the wall between the open kitchen/family/dining does not fully separate the living room, so there will be sound transfer. Actually, one of the bedrooms does not have a wall going to the ceiling so there is a lot of noise carrying around the space. Here's how the space is laid out (pre-remodel): ineffable, I'm a TV listener too. We have Sonos speakers we've installed in the house and I could be perfectly happy just listening to Pandora and watching Downton Abbey and SNL on my iPad, but my husband would be so lost without a TV of his own. tom_nwnj, thanks for the recs -- I will check them out. Good luck with the remodel! robotropolis, thanks! I like the idea of putting all the comfy seating in the formal living room and just making the den/space next to the kitchen just a "lounge" area -- for drinking wine, playing games, etc. I think it would significantly enhance our use of the house as we don't currently use the living room. That room is bathed in light most of the day and has the best views of any room in the house -- it seems like a waste not to utilize it. linelle, we were just visiting friends recently and they had a TV (LARGE ones!) in every room, including several of the bathrooms. The owners both work in the entertainment industry, but it was slightly overkill. karenseb, thanks for the nice words. In our upcoming kitchen renovation, we plan on replacing the double ovens with a pantry as we have no pantry and limited food storage space. A tv at the end of the bar is still definitely an option if we can recess it -- we're going to have an AV person come out to measure. If all else fails a TV in the master bedroom is an option, but I'm not generally a fan of TVs in bedrooms.