I think you are making a lot of assumptions about the weather of a couple of seasons. Yes, I think climate change warming is occurring (hate the verb 'believe' being used here as it almost implies something theological). I understand too that the warming is linked with a general increase in precipitation (but perhaps not in all regions). Further, precipitation events and the lack thereof, will also get more extreme (periods of drought and then flooding).--Hardly a net advantage for agriculture ,or horticulture for that matter. I am not convinced that the precipitation differences you are seeing will necessarily be sustained as a new pattern. Funny, thing about us humans, we always want to see patterns in nature (whether it's faces in the clouds or rhythms in the local climate. At this point, I'd be hard pressed to discern a local pattern to my climatic area. Last year, we had over 80 inches of rain (part of which came in the form of both record, repeated winter snowstorms, and a summer hurricane. This year, we had almost no snow (or an anomalous/ freak Fall snow event). This year, we are deficit by 7 Inches of rain while most of the country is in moderate or severe drought. Sections of Texas that saw severe drought last summer were just flooded out with record rainfall. It seems to me that the climate machine is still in flux and it is too early to assume what the end state will look like. I compare it to the transition of the seasons in the North in earlier, normal times. You'd have cold snowy days, then rainy ones, then mild days, only to be followed by late frosts. Eventually, the weather settles into the more stable, warmer state. And in the USA, this transitional time is often associated with severe coastal storms or tornadoes in the interior. How this plays out in the end, I don't know. Warmer generally, yes (in both winter and summer), but are the freakish cold spells that have occurred in recent winters at temperate and subtropical latitudes temporary or something to continue? Many areas seem to be experiencing more overall rainfall per year but it seems to arrive in increasingly severe, erratic storms of destructive potential. I hope the changes do bring you benefit, but so far I am not seeing it. I was going to mention Alaska as a potential benefactor, then I remembered this past winters record snows measured in the hundreds of feet! Time will tell. In the meantime, enjoy the fruits of your harvest. Njoasis.

Terrific message, Moni! My first business mentor once told me that admitting defeat in public is humbling but is character building. Similar message here. Thank you.

amcofar/wodka: Appreciate your input about the plantation shutters. I do have bronze panels on order for the dining room. The windows won't look so barren when they arrive. DH is the one suggesting shutters and I guess they will look fine but somehow I am concerned having them in both rooms but know they won't be right in only one of them. amcofar: The server cabinet in the LR window is 16" wider than the cabinet pictured between the window and sofa. I did try it but it looked crowded, and a chair really restricts access. Appreciate your thoughts about matching chairs. I've looked at some with open, black distressed arms and legs, upholstered backs and seats (linked below). I may give in and order them. By the time they arrive the room might already look dated LOL. tracey_b: I thought I might miss the wallpaper - even considered repapering the same walls - but glad I didn't. We purchased the paintings of the angels in Miami several years ago. Was a Cuban artist. We thought a "stained glass" effect in that high space might be interesting. The artists' name may be on the back but I have no way to remove to them to check. DH used scaffolding to hang them - very heavy. As to the wet edge, DH isn't traditional. He cuts the corners and ceiling either first or last. He began rolling at the top and reached down but did not fully cover at his end point. Then he was able to work from the floor using an extension overpainting the partially covered area and working to the bottom. His edge was no longer wet when this happened. Everything is 2 coated and there is no indication of this break. He was using a scaffolding to work at the top of the foyer. He also has a Little Giant type of ladder he purchased for this project. Thank you again to everyone for your comments and questions.

lol, I picked her up from school yesterday and we went back to her class to get her backpack & binder. I asked, 'you have everything?' and she said yes. Later, after 5pm she tells me she forgot her spelling words in her desk. Well, Wednesday is the night they have to put spelling words in alphabetical order and write them three times each. She knew this but I wasn't thinking about it, we had been at the doctor's office & radiology all afternoon, but she brought it up. She said she guesses she can't do her spelling since school is out. My first thought was she did it on purpose and I wanted to call her on it. I didn't. I thought about it for a while and a couple miles down the road, I said that when we get home, she can call her friend that's in her class and ask for the spelling words. She claimed she didn't know her phone number but I told her I do. When we got home, I double checked her binder and the usual spelling list wasn't there but the spelling words were. I found a loophole... the teacher sends home an optional sheet on Fridays. It's an activity they can do over the weekend and at the bottom, it gives the next weeks spelling words so they can start practicing if they want. Well, of course she was bummed that I found that and proceeded to write them out three times each but not in ABC order. DH had her redo it in ABC order. Then we watched TV for a while. She had a great attitude. Her mom sent DH a text message an hour after she went to bed to have SD call her. He wrote back that she was in bed and if she wants, she can call in the morning before SD leaves for the bus. She called before any of us were up and wanted to talk to SD so I went and got her up. I heard SD telling her about going to the doctor and say her arm doesn't hurt anymore. She started to ask BM how she was doing and then abruptly says ok, I love you too. Bye. BM apparently didn't want to 'chat'. That is the FIRST time BM has called SD in a very long time, I can't remember the last time she called her. The doctor called me a few minutes ago to say the X ray shows no break. He said she probably pulled a muscle if she fell on her hands playing on the trampoline. There's not much to do for it, he said to apply heat and showed us how to stretch the muscle. It will resolve itself in a few days if she rests it. and I do agree that some lying... about school work or brushing teeth, etc. are common at her age. I don't know if it's normal or alarming, and I understand the lies she tells her mom to get mom's attention, but she is old enough to understand that there are consequences for those kinds of lies when mom gets CPS or the police involved. There could be great consequences for DH and me. I was more concerned with her lying about injuries, being hit, and things she complains to her mom about but doesn't tell us. We don't find out until BM calls DH to chew him out or now, until she calls CPS. SD never complained to us about having to eat foods she doesn't like and when she told DH about her arm, she only mentioned it once and he didn't see a reason to go to the doctor and she never complained to us about it again. And we don't know if SD complained to her mom or if her mom is the one that is asking her if she was seen by the doctor but I don't know why BM would put it on her daughter to get dad to take her to the doctor if SD isn't saying it hurts. I'm probably overly cynical of BM, but I'd say she knows SD fell on the trampoline and got hurt and didn't want to pay for a doctor visit so she told SD to tell dad her arm hurts so he can make sure it wasn't hurt too bad. SD told him a couple of days after coming back from BM's, after she got off the phone with her. BM might have reminded her to ask dad. DH looked at it, and didn't think it was broken and considering SD had gone to cross country and was swinging her arms around earlier, concluded it wasn't too serious. SD never told him she fell down on the trampoline. I'm sure she didn't want to get mom in trouble, although we don't know exactly what happened so it could be an innocent **stuff happens with kids** accident or it could be she was not being supervised and got hurt. We don't know that and we already know BM isn't going to tell us if she did anything wrong. But, when SD came home this last weekend, she did tell DH that she collided with her sister on the trampoline and cut her lip. She said her teeth went into her sister's leg. That was on Sunday and on Monday, she didn't call BM but she did call BM on Tuesday and after she got off the phone, she again told DH that her arm hurt. On Wednesday is when CPS went to the school so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how coincidental it all is. I'll admit that I am pessimistic when it comes to BM. But, I've never been wrong about her actions.. not yet anyways. I have been surprised that she has done some things I've predicted because I honestly was fooled at first and she presented herself as a GREAT mother. But, maybe because of my 'control freak'ness, I noticed little details that went unnoticed by my DH about her. I mean, she did things that I found odd being a mother myself. I went through custody issues with my son's father and we would fight over who gets him more, not who has to take him. She was always asking him to take SD on her weekends but if he ever offered to let her make up the time, she said she was busy. She never asked to makeup the time either. Then, when she refused to help her daughter do a school project, that pretty much sealed my opinion of her... she actually told my husband that if I want to do 'mom' things (like bake cookies, which I guess really upset her) that I can help her with her school project too. Hearing her say that shattered my image of her being a wonderful mom because I can't imagine saying or doing that to my own child. It's been downhill since then and she has aspired to new lows as a mother, in my opinion. The only one I did not see coming was her moving away and giving us custody, that blindsided me because we had just spent several months (and thousands in lawyers) to fight for custody and she fought it so fiercely, I never imagined anything would cause her to give up her daughter so easily. Maybe that is why SD was so affected too, she saw how fiercely her mom fought to keep her, only to be discarded two weeks later for a stranger. (so, yes I have had a hard time not resenting and hating BM for doing that and I need to learn how to let that go, but it's hard)