Some good advice from Nancy above about joining an orchid society and sucking up. Golden Tang was registered by H & R in 1989 and that is why you would be lucky to find one at an orchid nursery where they are always trying to keep their stock up to date. Interesting that Jane said she had trouble with it in New York. Easy here, but maybe more difficult in some other climates. Perhaps the B. nodosa parent is the problem. Here are a couple of seedlings from the local orchid society gallery. Carmen and Peggy were Novice growers till recently. It is a nice orchid, but I wouldn�t be offering to pay mega bucks for one. Blc. Golden Tang �Carmen� Blc. Golden Tang �Peggy" One for Jane. Mari�s Song x Aussie Sunset = Alsaks Pattern

Hello, sorry about the time frame that it's taken me to respond back to the helpful people that were trying to help me reconnect with Mike LaForest. His Yahoo account isn't active, or is closed, but I have sent an e-mail to the comcast address and will see if he responds. I've changed my own address here from maddie_izalunygrdnr to maddie1953 as it's easier to remember, and we now have internet at the house we're living at here in Greeneville, Tennessee. If you want to patch my address over to Mike, I'd appreciate it. I had posted my inquiry at the library one day when I had been given the time to do so without restrictions. Thanks for the help! I look forwards to hearing from Mike if he gets back to me. I still have quite a few of the plants he's passed on to me, lost a few ones I'd gotten attached to, and was curious if he still had the tradescantia I'd given him (he correctly found the identity of it when I'd searched for a Latin name for it for 25 years!!!) maddie

caroleoh - Great point! I hadn't thought of that. I think I'm going to look around for something I have around the house, like a large tray, or something else shaped like that. I could tack it up to see if that might be an issue in the hallway. Not sure what I can find, though. Parma - I'm liking the mirror more and more, and I can't stop thinking about it - LOL! I have it bookmarked and open in my browser. I don't know if you read the review on it or not, but a decorator who bought it said it looks even more beautiful in person (and it's stunning already, if you ask me). I thought the exact same thing that you did about it picking up the same metallic effect on the picture. I love how it sparkles and the details of the tiny flowers painted on it. I agree that it will look best as a solo piece, which, as you mentioned, may be the way to go anyway. I measured it out on the wall, and at just over 32", it will be slightly larger than half the width of the bench. It's substantial enough, I think. What do you think about Caroleoh's point about how it would look from a side angle in the hallway?

I was in exactly your situation two years ago. We weren't really looking, but then found a house that was unique (it had won a major architecural award), and was perfect for us. And we knew it was not going to stay on the market long. We put in a full-price bid contingent on selling our house, and lost out to someone who made a full-price offer with no contingency. A week later our realtor called and told us the successful bidder had left the country on a business trip, and had not completed the deal before leaving. The seller was willing to cancel the winning offer and let us have it...if we went with no contingency. We decided to say 'yes,' even though we did not have our own house on the market. The only saving feature was that the house was being leased and the lease had 3 months to run before we had to close. We put our house on the market on November 1st and got an offer in the first week...that fell through. We got another offer in December...that fell through. We moved into the new house in January, with our old house still on the market. Even though the market was hotter 2 years ago, Thanksgiving, Xmas, and the first months of the year are not a good time to try to be selling. To make a long story short, it took 2-1/2 months after we moved to sell our old home, and it only sold because we agreed to come down in price by about 8%. Fortunately, we had no mortgage on the old home, but all of our equity was tied up until we sold. We had to take out a humongous interest-only bridge loan, and had about $2300 going out the door in payments each month for the privilege of owning two houses. In addition, we had utility payments and property taxes to pay for both houses, and had to drive across town to check on the old one a couple of times a week to clean up muddy footprints, clean sinks that had been used and left dirty, lock doors that had been left unlocked, and turn down the heat that had been cranked up. So how do we feel in retrospect? Great! We are really glad we did it, and still love the new house. It was nerve-wracking to have a huge (temporary) mortgage that we had to pay for out of savings, and it was annoying to have to keep checking up on the old house. But it was worth it. As long as you know what you might be getting into, go for it. Just have a backup plan. If the seller doesn't take a contingency offer, are you prepared to make another offer that's not contingent? (You could make an offer that is not contingent, but gives a closing date several months off.) And how long are you able to handle having two houses, both financially and emotionally?