Hi everyone, I am in Columbus, Ohio dogsitting and housesitting for my son and new daughter in law. They are in Belize on their honeymoon. Fortunately, my box arrived on Wednesday before I left and I was able to pop all the plants in the ground before I left. My hubby is making sure they get watered although severe storms have been hitting there and here for the last two days. Carol included a list of the items she put in here fantastic box and I thought I threw it in my purse on the way outside the door. I now can't find it. I will wait to post everything til I can make sure I don't forget something. Thank you Carol for the great box and I am sorry I have not informed you it had arrived. The kids left here in such a hurry, I have been busy cleaning and of course, shopping. We don't have much access to many shopping places in Bowling Green where I live. Can't pass up a good sale. :) I will be stopping at a greenhouse on my way home tomorrow. I noticed coming here that plants are 1/2 off. I am sure the two teenagers in the car won't be happy but they know they have no choice. Will post the list of goodies when I get home.

Good job Karen! I tried to search for the very first segment, but it must be bumped off the site now. So this is only the story of Gomer and Margie, which have had quite the adventures of their own.

terrilynn, I am confused about what to do for the island and also the desk/coffee bar/bar area. I'm going back and forth on wood or soapstone for the island. I'm pretty sure I want wood on the desk and soapstone on the bar/coffee area. (just for maintenance purposes). I'm not sure if I do the base colors on the other areas the same as the island or different. We aren't doing any stainless except for the range, but that desk is pretty cool! Lavender, thanks, and I love the idea of red accents. I hadn't really thought that far, but that will be perfect and will blend with the rest of our house. I guess I need to figure out if I can really do the painted island and how much maintenance that will be. Here are my options, in case anyone else is as confused as I am: 1. Wood colored island with soapstone top 2. Sage/light green island with soapstone top 3. Sage/light green island with wood top Desk: something with a wood top....I'm thinking base should match the island, unless of course the island base is wood tone, and then it would either match the yellow cabinets or the coffee bar area. Coffee bar/bar: definitely soapstone top- either yellow cabinets like the rest of the kitchen, green, or wood colored. I'm even confusing myself, so if anyone is following this, I'm impressed, and thank you for any thoughts!

Ramses, I so appreciate your response. I never would have thought of a pashmina shawl as a table covering. What a great idea! Right now we're using eight wooden placemats side by side on top of a sheet of plastic--it looks barely OK to me, yet guests are intrigued by the look, go figure. We're in the market for an oriental rug for the sunroom, and the colors of that rug will drive the "palette" for the rest of the furniture and window coverings still to be purchased. Your idea about the shawl could be perfect to carry out the theme of the oriental rug. Thanks! Missopinion47: I don't think your question is off topic because, after all, you're asking about the decoration of our new kitchen! Most of the items in our collection of Middle Eastern metalwork (what's in the kitchen is just a fraction) are Persian in origin. We're uncertain of the ages of the pieces, so some might be old enough to actually be "Persian", and others are probably just new enough to be Iranian. On many of them there is calligraphy in Farsi or Arabic that we have yet to have translated. We also have pieces from Syria, Tunisia, and Morocco, and maybe some other countries we're not even aware of. Very few of them were purchased overseas. We bought most of them at antiques stores all over the United States. Also in our collection are lots more metal trays like the ones hanging on the walls in the kitchen, as well as inlaid wooden boxes, and Persian miniature paintings. We started collecting these items because we felt more comfortable with them than with more mainstream paintings or sculpture.