Regarding Jonathan Louis- A lot of what Macy's sells are his designs. The reviews at Macy's rave about them. I have been looking at him too and I am also in the sectional market. What a long haul it's been! Regarding sofa's vs sectionals- Perhaps if design is your only consideration. We are a growing family that actually uses our living area. Design is very important to me but so is comfort and being able to enjoy my family. Many design elements in a room demand the need to consider a sectional in order to provide both comfort and function. I am not interested in the ability to re-arrange furniture since I have decided a sectional best fits my design and fits the function of my room. Perhaps if I was not confident in my design style and long term goals I would buy a sectional to fill a room, but most people considering a sectional have given the idea a great deal of thought since sectionals are limiting and a great deal more pricey than a sofa and a couple chairs. Hope that answers your question on why some people prefer to purchase a sectional.

I agree marie-ndcal, tough love is the only thing that works in these situations and I'm glad you used that approach and it was successful for all. I would never let any adult move into my home without rules and some sort of plan. My friend has a big heart and I think she just opened her arms and said of course we'll help you and we all know you can't be that vague, especially when the people who need your help are already very irresponsible. They're trying the tough love approach now and it's basically being ignored. They're being used, big time. I've known her son since he was born, I want to talk to him, but I don't think it would go well. An update on the cat situation, it wasn't said directly to me, but third person I heard that she said if anyone wants to visit them and has allergies to the cats, they can just take medication. Well that might seem like a solution, but anyone who has these allergies knows that over the counter drugs that work for cat allergies will make you extremely tired and groggy and unable to drive, not to mention other side effects. Apparently other people who didn't have cat allegeries before are unable to stay in her house for very long. She's become frustrated with people not visiting her, either for a few hours or for a few days. I think she's now ignoring the elephant in the room and looking outside her home to place blame.

Well I'm NOT a blue person. Indoors I have NO blue. My husband doesn't understand this. I have no idea why I feel this way. Outdoors things are different! I have a blue/yellow/white garden bed which I love. Yes, delphineums, catananche, campanulas, baptisia and more, are mixed with trollius, coreopsis moonbeam, peony Claire de Lune and low growing white clematis and aquilegia. It is a big mix and wouldn't be any fun at all without the blue! There are loads of clematis that are purple or blue/purple, but also some very nice blues I think. You do get into the question of "what is blue?" My husband and I think this could well be a male/female issue! Also, by saying a flower is blue, perhaps a catalogue gains more sales? * Posted by: coolbeans (My Page) on Sat, Feb 2, 02 at 13:12 This is my VERY favorite thread, and I totally agree with all those who feel that there is just "something" about blue flowers; they ARE magical, they ARE very special; and they make me happier than any other color flower. Don't know why...I just started a flat full of Bluebird delphinium seeds I saved from my one lonely plant last year. A bunch of them germinated, so now I can't wait to have a huge stand of them! Maybe they won't bloom this year, but maybe they will. And also "true blue" penstemons, I'm trying for the first time. I can't get enough of this precious color. * Posted by: Anne_Marie_Alb (My Page) on Tue, Feb 5, 02 at 17:47 WOW....... Did anyone realize that this thread started almost 5 years ago... on Feb. 15, 1997!!!!! I am amazed it has survived that long. Probably, the oldest thread still on the top page! I wonder if "Clare B" (who started the thread) is still an active member of the Garden Web!!! I personally love blue flowers (I mean blue, and not purple, which I also like). I can't believe how many blue flowers I am starting from seeds this year... and that was just a pure coincidence! I also love RED flowers.. Maybe, I should start a "red flower" thread! I will first check the archives! * Posted by: Clare (My Page) on Thu, Feb 7, 02 at 20:34 Yes, Ann_Marie, I am still here! I will be a bit sad to see this thread fade away when it hits the 100 posts mark. After that, the threads are closed. I don't think I have any true blue flowers still. "Victoria Blue" Salvia is the closest thing. I use it a lot. It is such a heavy, long bloomer, and about one in twenty of them will survive winter here. Just wish I could predict which would survive so that I could save seed from those alone and perhaps work up a more hardy strain. By the way, the Hydrangeas in Memphis, Tennessee are incredible. Some are so saturated blue that I'd have to call them navy. * Posted by: Dswan (My Page) on Sat, Feb 9, 02 at 22:37 I'm going to add to this extremely long thread only because there really is something to true blue. I grow from seed a very difficult plant to propagate called Penstemon cyananthus or Wasatch Penstemon. I cold stratify and plant these every year in hopes of gettting one or two in my garden every year. Absolutely gorgeous. * Posted by: Rosa (My Page) on Mon, Mar 11, 02 at 10:24 Did no one mention Gentians-now those are blue! (along with my favorite penstemson of course-some are indeed blue). * Posted by: pineshade7b ) on Mon, Apr 15, 02 at 11:02 i agree with gloria mc coy. i love blue and green , they are my favorite colors in anything. just look in my house and closets. blue..ocean, blue jeans, my own eyes are blue and my husband's are green. many reasons to answer -why blue. although i do not "hyperventilate" , if i should go into a nursery and ask for a blue -flowering plant and the staff looks down their nose at me, i'll know now that they are only doing it because they think I'M a snob. until i adopted gardening as a serious hobby i had no idea that blue was a "snob" color. i just naturally began to look into flowers in the colors i liked personally. you learn something new everyday. i would have been hurt and confused to walk into a nursery and be looked at like a pariah, what did i say? now i know, thanks clare. * Posted by: DesertGardner (My Page) on Fri, Apr 19, 02 at 12:38 Wow - I never knew there was such a controversy over the color blue in the garden. After reading all the posts, I now understand why some gardeners prefer the color. And I have to say that I've never met any gardeners whom I would consider snobbish. Most of them are really quite down to earth! (if you pardon the expression...) I recently tried planting a red, white and blue flower bed, with 'Victoria Blue' Salvia being my blue color. It's a little too purple and doesn't look right as a "patriotic" design. I will probably tear out the red and white and keep the "blue" (purple) since it seems to like this desert heat. Someone mentioned black flowers, and I remembered seeing black pansies in the most recent Burpee catalog. They're a beautiful velvety black with a spot of yellow in the center. I think I'll plant some this winter, and start an obsession with black flowers! (just kidding Clare...) -Kara [* Posted by: yeona_sky (My Page) on Mon, Jun 24, 02 at 0:37 I just bought a blue poppy and am nervously watching its progress. My success with blues has been an up hill battle, but that hasn't changed my desire to spotlight it in my garden. Why blue?, again it's a passion with me. Clare, I hope you get the last word on this thread, and I hope you understand Why blue, a little better. * Posted by: Duster (My Page) on Wed, Jun 26, 02 at 23:56 I agree with the many others about getting annoyed when purple is referred to as blue. Maybe that's why I take up the cause of truly blue flowers! 99% of my Delphiniums are the true electric blue ones. I'd love one of the Himalayan Poppies but just not right for my little yard. I like the blue flowers, rather than the blue foliage plants. And no, blue is NOT my favorite color - I have nothing blue in my home decor. I just like the uniqueness of the TRUE blue and my stubbornness to get people to stop calling it purple!!!!

lemonhead, thanks for picking up on the research paper/project question. I find the responses very interesting and informative. I'd bet that you still remember more about Bonnie Prince Charlie than many of us ever learned. If I hadn't had a brother who loved Sir Walter Scott's Waverly and anything by Robert Louis Stevenson, I would have gone through elementary and secondary school without hearing a thing about the Jacobites. I took an anthropology class in gender language differences and found it both fascinating and dismaying. For instance, females often have a 'voice' they speak with around other females, but if a male enters an otherwise all-female group some of the gals' voices change immediately (often becoming breathier), no matter if the females are eight or eighty years old. I already knew this from observation and often found it annoying; but that it is largely an unconscious thing on the part of some females irritated me even more because I had thought it was a matter of choice, a mere affectation or a bad habit. elliottb: I'm intrigued how and why myths come to be, though the myths themselves don't interest me much. I will take a look at the 'Unhistory'. I know what you mean about anything "that holds interest" -- so in furtherance to your dilemma and mine, I will respond to woodnymph: woodnymph, I would enjoy a nonfiction thread and I would certainly contribute. Nonfiction seems to get short shrift here at RP. I know you mention the NF you read, Mary, but I'd say the "What are you reading?" thread runs something like 70/30 or 75/25 percent, favoring fiction over nonfiction. I can never keep up with all the bestselling fiction -- sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm only one person while there are dozens of people here at RP (and multitudes elsewhere) following the fiction trends. Yet nonfiction is even wider than fiction, so it's hard to comprehend that reading through post after post and there's hardly a mention of it. Maybe a thread devoted entirely to NF would bring more of it out -- I hope it would.