Pete, I think that water is water, food, means food regardless of the language. If you love roses, you will have no problem admiring them. The people growing them will, like most rose growers, be glad to share. As to our own country, people to tend to isolate themselves, which is silly. My AA sponsor told me to stop watching the news as it was making me nuts (at least more nuts than I am.) I was still able to catch the big stuff like 9/11. If you are a member of a local ARS club, what is a better way of trying to get new members. Our gerontic members are slowly dying off. Bummer! Not everyone is Jack the Ripper. Last night I was riding my motorpickle home and it was wind gust city. I have a large faring on my BMW. I was stopped at a red light with the weight on my left foot. The wind blew the motorpickle over to the right. I had a knot in the end of my shoelace of my John Deere boot. The wind whipped it into the float snap of the carburetor. I went to put my right foot down and I broke the carb trying to get free and rolled over anyways. I was unable to stop the flow of gasoline out of the carburetor, so I turned off the gas at the petcock. The engine had died as I had it in first with the clutch in. I was swarmed with well wishers. The bike was "up" in no time. Fred, a stranger just driving by with his son, was towing one of those low trailers and told me he would pull off at the next drive, we loaded the bike and he took me home. He would not take any money, but I cut him some roses I still had blooming for his wife. Yes, those "Just Joey" ones I had been babying covering at night. Thank God I grow roses! Foghorn

I got Johnny's seed catalog today and I might have been more tempted if I hadn't looked in my seed drawer. I have lots of old seed and probably it would grow if I had a place to plant it. I have been sprinkling poppy seed in the snow. That also makes me think I don't need seed. It is hard to find a good place to sprinkle the seed I have. I have a dug up place planted with hyacinths. If I put seeds there it will shade the hyacinth foliage and they may not return next year. I may sprinkle some alyssum seeds there. I am so hard up for places to put seeds that I am thinking of moving my burn barrel, raking that area and planting shirley poppies there. There is a nice bare area there but it isn't good soil.

Oh fer crying out loud - nobody's talking about "need" here - only "want"! And, I want Kathleen's new red dishes, LOL. I went to Marshall's today and they're not there and they're not in my TJM either - but I have another bigger and better Homegoods to hit tomorroow! I remember those dishes from Jain's blog where she used them under her Christmas plates - so I went and found the Christmas plates and found 4 and so I need 4 of those red plates, umm I mean I want them not need them.

That IS a cute chair, great score! Grandmotherly in a good way, if that makes any sense... that same feeling of enfolding cuddliness, I can almost smell the sugar cookies and Earl Grey tea. I actually like the matching pillow better, although it needs to be re-stuffed and really plumped up nice and fat - I think the chunky dark pillow breaks up that lovely feminine curve of the back, keeps the eye from moving smoothly over it. Wish the thrift stores around me had such goodies! Although if you don't mind my totally unsolicited random opinion which you are completely free to ignore or even tell me to shut my yap ;-) I wouldn't use a leather club chair for the other chair. I think with the partly-leather couch it could be a bit too heavy and make the yellow chair seem a little bit "all by its lonesome" as both the only all-fabric seating piece and the only pale-colored one (unless you did something like a buff-colored leather, which I just can't see working). I can imagine a small-scale wing chair - a low, almost squatty one to properly balance yellow chair, not a really vertical one (heck, if you lived closer I'd give you one we got as a handmedown that needs reupholstering. Comfy and sturdy and actually the fabric is brand new but but whoever picked that gaudy floral was stoned or something, and I do want a more vertical version) - in a lighter-colored, texturey, flecky fabric picking up colors from your tapestry couch fabric and a little of the red and yellow would be charming, IMO. Then pop a pillow on it that doesn't match anything at all, like an antique-type needlepoint one. If you were going to have two additional chairs besides this new-to-you one, I'd say go for it with one in leather and one in fabric. Oh, and I love the dog in the admiral's hat... is that a print? And if so, who is the artist? If you didn't mind I'd love to get one to go with my other "dogs in uniform" prints. :-)