The question of light is a hard one... no easy answers. Being a windwosill and under lights grower my whole life pretty much where you almost never have enough light (except for phals which are shocking how they can bloom with such little light, if you can get everything else right that is), when I started growing outdoors i found out that orchids can burn very easily with just an hour of direct sun... and another curve ball, it was interesting to see one year when i was in mexico I saw some schomburkgias (whatever their name is now) growing very close to trunks in trees fully covered by the leaves of the trees... and if you didn't know, schoms are known to handle the most light of the orchids. I was just reading up on dendrochilum tennellum, a grassy orchid from philippines, and I saw images of this plant growing in full full sun at completely exposed branches... researching, knowing how these plants grow en situ becomes insightful, but you have to consider the total scope of things... on one hand tropical rainforest situations often have cloud over even in exposed situations, whereas here in southern california there's never ever really any cloud cover so of course that explains why orchids will burn in full sun here... and on other hand, certain orchid species, and especially hybrids can grow in a seemingly wide variety of conditions... hence, growing by trial and error is that much more significant. and on the third hand, growing on windowsills is tricky because even in heavily clouded forests there is light at all directions for the full length of they day. In the house, there's only light when the sun is at angle to enter windows... let's go back to consider en situ notes... if you grow species/miniatures like i do you read things like such and such is a twig growing species... what you can take from this is that, yes they are small and can grow on twigs, but twigs generally are up higher and away from trunks of trees therefore they will probably be more exposed to consistent all day light, whether high or low... and then you read such and such species grow on trunks of trees, which you can gather these must be ok with having sunlight only at parts of the day and like having lower light rest of day, afterall trunks shade the plants for at least half of the day... many phal species grow on trunks, if i'm not mistaken, many bulbophyllums being another... these are the types then that potentially can do well on windowsills. For those found on trunks, on branchs, high and low, you have more adaptability, also candidates for windowsill. But for me I've almost done much better growing under lights when yes you can extend daylight hours of lower light to compensate for lack of duration of natural light indoors. and one more note, in regards to understanding light levels through leaf color... certain orchids will get purplish/reddish spots/coloring in higher light levels, having those around are a good natural meter.

Last week I finished Laurie Graham's Gone With The WIndsors, which I chose because of discussions about it here at RP. Thank you! I loved this book. True, much of the book is funny, mainly because of dear, ditzy Maybell's telling of the tale. But it is also a great commentary on the culture and values of Britain's elite at the time. And underlying it all is the approach of WW2, with "Mr. Hitler" being the subject of casual dinner conversation. Graham has created deeply lovable characters in this story. So am continuing with Graham, now reading The Importance of Being Kennedy, told from the standpoint of an invented children's nanny. This is a more serious book, with a startling castigation of Rose Kennedy and, to a lesser extent, Patriarch Joe, and a lot of sympathy for the downstairs folk, the "help". Graham is an unusual writer, and she depicts various cultures - British, Irish, American - with tremendous skill. I'll be looking for more from her.

Last night I finally finished Paul Murray Kendall's famous biography Richard the Third. It was a fascinating, sympathetic biography of a controversial figure. I found myself agreeing with Kendall's hypothesis that Richard was defeated at Bosworth, not as the result of some sort of poetic justice, but rather due to the betrayal of self-serving nobles, who in turn found just as much to grumble about during the reign of Henry VII. I found it poignant how hard Richard III worked to cultivate and favor the very people who meant him the most harm. Fundamentally, Richard seemed to have an inability to maneuver and pirouette through the politics of court life. Kendall finds countless examples of traitors whose were left off easy by Richard, only to redouble their efforts to conspire against the King. Kendall raises many interesting points, but often lacks the objectivity needed in the biography of such a complex subject. In an afterword regarding whether Richard was responsible for the murder of the "Princes in the Tower", Kendall argues that the boys may have met death at the behest of other figures at court, most likely the Duke of Buckingham. Though ultimately unsolvable (mostly due to the Tudor historians who apparently destroyed countless records portraying Richard in a positive light), I still feel that he had the most to gain from the murder of his nephews.

I am leaning towards an oak wood floor, traditionally these homes used either oak. cherry, or pine, but the other two don't seem to feel right, I am leaning towards an auburn oak, and a slightly more subdued matte with a grayish tinge. We plan to install an off white shaker kitchen with a farm sink in white, with rustic hardware, I believe the counters will be a dark slate gray, so should the floors match?