Thanks you guys for the Tiny Pic site! This works great! I am enjoying all the posted comments - I am green with envy. Among others, I am pleased with how my roses have recovered since the rains finally came and the Bayer 3-in-1 kicked in. Healthy leaves and beautiful rose buds and blooms. Blooms are huge and fragrances are filling the garden air. Here are just a few of my roses that previously had diseased leaves and not-so-perfect insect ridden blooms: Rosa, Perfumed Delight and Provence Lavender Iceburg Rose in the Statue Garden after the rains came. There are now lots of new healthy leaves and blooms. Rosa, Golden Showers (cl) Peace Rose - full bloom Perfumed Delight Rosebud Tiffany Rose with new healthy leaves. The newest blooms are twice this size! Rosebud, medium yellow that ages to a pale light yellow (I forget the name of it and can't find the tag for gosh sakes.) Statue Garden again from opposite end - Nicky Phlox (magenta color), Iceburg Rose and Naked Ladies Everything I was watering all summer thus far in triple digit temps, to keep things alive, is now thriving with cooler temps and several days of rainfall. Many other flowers and grasses are blooming and everything is starting to kick in. My lawn is filling in nicely and is so green. Hopefully this trend of getting rain will continue and the garden plants will put on more flowers and more produce in my vegetable garden too. Happy me! ~Annie

Dadereni, it was largely a matter of time spent with them (which we paid for !) and messing with designs. At some point, it became obvious that "he wasn't getting it". One architect put together a lovely house plan, but he missed the view entirely. Then, when we said we wanted vinyl siding, he paled and said had he known that, he might not have worked with us at all. One guy was going to charge us very little and essentially wanted to draft up our floor plan and send us on our way....he didn't see it as complex or aesthetically challenging...it felt like he was a step up from what a custom builder would offer. We could tell he wasn't willing to put enough of himself into the place. Another put together a plan that might have worked based on what we were asking for at the time, but it was out of our price range in terms of what we wanted to spend to build it. Another architect was very focused on energy efficiency and we learned a lot from him about layout for solar design, but his floor layouts...and we went through a lot of them... still missed the mark, despite our sitting with him sketching for several hours at a time. Another architectural firm, we spent very little time with...when they started talking about custom cutters to make their own custom designed woodwork, we knew they weren't for us. Then there was the other guy who we also spent only a meet and greet with. (I loved him...he was Greek....I've never met a greek guy I didn't fall for....must've been a past life!) He was going to design our house for us and we were going to like it! He was going to pick out everything including switch plate covers and our job was to enjoy this lovely home he built for us. Definitely not our guy. So we ended up back with Uncle Joe. I think our first go round with him was a disappointment because we expected to walk in, describe what we wanted and get it. It took awhile for us to learn that that wasn't going to happen, no matter who we went with. After we left Uncle Joe and went through these other guys, fate had it that we ran into each other in the mall, so we sat down and had a nice conversation. He said, "You know, I can build your house for you." Something in the way he said it told us that he "got" where we were going and that he was willing to stick with us for as long as it took to get there. Well it took several more years and lots of designs, but we got there. (I chalk that up to my "tuition fees" as it took awhile for me to learn what's necessary to make an exterior and interior work together to create a lovely house, to think in 3d....and control freak that I am, plus with my interest in interior design, I was not willing to let go of the interior layout as that's where we live and feel the house on a daily basis.) So, from my POV, the most important thing is, (in addition to obvious core competencies and licensing) can you collaborate with the person? Can you duke it out over various issues while both maintaining your focus on your common goal of creating the perfect house for you? Can you see enough creativity and vision in the architect that stumbling blocks and trade-offs can be worked out? Does s/he have enough pride in their work and is s/he willing to put themselves into the project to make it their own as well as yours? As you collaborate, are you finding your visions converging or diverging? Below is a link to a thread where I talk about how we turned our inspiration into reality. Here is a link that might be useful: From inspiration to reality...

It isn't true espresso but pretty close. Really hard to get that at home without spending some pennies. I don't think you would ever regret having one. You will have it for years and always have a good very close to espresso cup. Look at the brikka 4 cup. Spend your money on a good burr grinder and experiment with quality beans. Might need to fuss with it a bit the first few pots. Medium heat and bring it up slow. (a sloppy house guest actually burnt the gasket on mine and it got so hot it nearly exploded when the coffee came up...i was not home but guessing she also must have left it on the gas burner after brewing). She burned alot of things. Here is a link that might be useful: bialetti brikka

Hey Tuesday..I stripped the table and chairs by hand..it is a bear of a job ! I used my electric palm sander with some sand paper I got at the automotive shop and then I used gel stripper. I got a lot off but wow..it is a horrible job. The glider was sandblasted and then given a gray base coat. He was not cheap..$150 and after a couple years the rust is back in some places and I can see where he did a poor job when I turn it upside down. He was in a hurry..sigh. I am hoping that with the multiple coats of this great new Valspar paint that I have it under control. When I look back at the pics of it when I got it I should have just painted it myself. It only had the original cream on it...sigh...would have been way cheaper and done better than letting him at it. So my suggestion is to be sure the person you get is going to do a great job or else sand and strip as well as you can and then get a gallon of the Valspar oil base paint for metal. They only tint a gallon. Good Luck and let me know if I can help...uh...LOL..with advice :) Here is a pic of the chairs when I was stripping it years ago...ugh.. this is how they looked when I bought them...a layer of black undercoating over all the old paint..uhg.. this is after sanding and stripping... this is how they looked in 2009 when I finished..not bad and I used spray paint by Rustoleum...they faded over the 4 years so I am hopeful the Valspar will be better.