With the corydalis lutea, I'm afraid my seeds won't produce much in my climate. This is what I read about them: Blooming from May through September, Corydalis prefers well drained areas in full to part shade and will naturalize if conditions are met. Suitable for borders, rock, cottage and woodland gardens, this hardy perennial is intolerant of hot and humid summer conditions, and wet soil in winter that does not drain well. Hardy in zones 5-7 and reaches around 16 inches in height and will spread around 12 inches wide. Chances are not good for this beauty, since the prime characteristic of our climate is hot humid summers and wet winters. Well, all I can do is put them in the ground and hope for the best. Meanwhile, I have these columbines/aquilegia PLANTS, as well as seed (which are no problem), and I don't know quite where to put them now. Pot them up? They are in very small maybe 4 inch nursery pots squares, and look good, but of course not flowering. I like their looks, do not want to kill them just yet. :) Must download some photos taken this morning early. See you folks later.

Thanks Raven. I've spent some time looking at all of these and I'm not sure any of them will work for what I want. Lots of them capture video from Youtube, metacalfe, etc - but none of these mention capturing video from Hulu, or the major network's own sites. Two of them - video search and downloader and multimediawebrecorder might. At least their description and reviews don't rule out the possibility. And for the webrecorder one, folks mention it captures everything (of course, I don't know if they've tried the kind of shows I'm hoping to capture). So I've downloaded both and will experiment with them over the weekend. I already had downloadhelper - but it never helped with any of the sites I wanted. It has a long list of sites it works with - but there's no easy way to search other than scrolling through many, many sites- the majority of which mean nothing to me. Just doesn't seem very well organized - and it may just be outdated at this point. The MediaConvertor doesn't seem compatible with this latest version of Firefox. I'll report back if I have luck - but I'm not optimistic. Any other ideas still welcomed. Lynn.

My take: Why no closet doors? That's an expense I'd have to make right after buying the house. Why traditional stained wood trim in some rooms, and a modern look in others? Why are they hiding the sink? Is there something wrong with it? They've removed the upper cabinets. Now everything is on the counters or walls. Looks cluttered. Another expense for me--adding upper cabinets. Advertised as a 3-4 bedroom house, but only one tiny, awkward eating area crammed into the kitchen. Where will the family eat dinner? Where will I host the extended family on holidays? Bathroom is a very traditional style. Kitchen and living room are not. How will I make that work? Will I need to remodel shortly after buying? More expense! Shiny wall of cabinets in living room. Mostly, I'm in favor of the Big Wall 'O Storage, as built-in storage can be space-saving. But the shiny finish on these cabinets gives me pause. So totally not my style, yet a centerpiece in the living room. How expensive will it be to refinish the cabinets to something I can live with? A large part of this is that it is right in the middle of the living room. That same cabinetry in the basement family room wouldn't bother me so much. It would still not be to my taste, but I could deal with it better in a casual family room than in the main living space in the house, the space I invite family and friends into, if that makes any sense. No one of these things would prevent me from looking at the house. But put them all together, and I'm looking at a lot more money than just the price of the house to make that house *my* home. In order for me to look at the house, it would have to have some other massively redeeming feature--location, low price, fantastic school district--something that would outweigh the cost and time and energy needed to alter the house to make it work for me.

Doug - the trends you talk about in terms of decreasing buying power, shrinking middle class, etc are real and truly disconcerting. The slightly paranoid side of me made sure I purchased a home that could, if needed, be a mini homestead (enough space and the right light exposure to grow veggies and raise chickens). It's simplistic, because if the economy really does fall completely apart I can't farm my way to prosperity on a mortgaged piece of land. In my local market inventory is tight for homes at or slightly below the median because the available homes have some perceived flaw (too close to the highway, schoolyard, train tracks, busy road, other houses). Or they need significant work. Homes in good condition and good locations are quickly purchased if the price is fair. People are justifiably SO afraid of a house losing value that they are unwilling to purchase something with a flaw because they fear being unable to sell in the future. It actually makes sense, but it makes it almost impossible to sell property that is flawed - even for fire sale prices. There is excess inventory at the high end, homes in the top quartile are very slow to move and people aren't listing unless they absolutely have to. This is one reason that we decided to remodel earlier this year instead of move (it was a big remodel, moving could have been less if what we wanted was available).. Now, back to this issue of potential buyers being leery of homes with flaws ... I think that is what is holding back the sale of this house. There are probably buyers who look at it and, when they see the HOA issues, think to themselves, "Gee, even if the HOA issues are fixed, how long will this taint the value of the home? How many years until the stigma falls away? What if I had to sell in that time?" Buyers can't commit to this house on a long term basis because everything about this economy feels SO unstable right now. Is there a shortage of rental property (SFH) in your area? Because that was the other thing we looked at when we bought. I would have preferred to rent but we have a dog and SFH rentals are almost impossible to find in our area for under $3k/mo. With taxes and insurance, our 15 yr mortgage is under $2500/mo ... So, worst case we could rent this place if we had to move out and we would likely cover the mortgage with the rent (or come close to it). I wonder if renting is an option for the OP? I know it's an expensive home, but still ... It may be an option, unless the HOA forbids it.