Hi Rebekah! Saw your post on Lou's Shantung maple thread! We live fairly close to you in nearby Katy! I would second the suggestion about getting a Japanese maple for the shade spots. Take a look at metromaples.com - they have tons of pix - and you will see that they come in a wonderful variety of sizes as well as leaf shapes & colors. Too hard to tell for sure from your tree pic, but live oak would be my first guess, also. Your shrubs are definitely ligustrums - I can tell by the black spot on the leaves. Our neighbors were shocked when we pitched ours in the trash after we closed on the house, but I will only put up with black spot for roses! ;-) (And they don't really smell all that nice when they start flowering in spring either - though the bees definitely like it so you'll like it even less!) The flowering shrub is definitely some kind of azalea - I've grown rose of sharon & yours has azalea's leaves with a simple pointed end, not rose of sharon which has pretty lobed ones. I also agree about the last one most likely being an iris - daylilies straplike leaves bow out & downward not upright like that one is doing. It is reasonable to assume that it is something common since it came from your builder. Our builder gave everybody these weird heinz 57 assortments of shrubs - as if the grower was giving them everything they couldn't sell otherwise. All the houses on our street that are all facing directly south got two azaleas though. Idiots. We also got 2 ligustrums (blackspot) & 2 variegated pittosporums (scale) & a white oak in the front yard (which succumbed to borers not long after) Needless to say, we kept NONE of our original landscaping. -- No, I take that back - they also gave us 2 nandinas which I moved to 2 sunny background corner areas & they are doing very well (but then nandinas are one of those plants that you can only kill if you're reeally trying, lol!) Arborgate in Tomball is not all that close to us, but it is one of my favorite places to pick up plants that are different from the usual offerings. It's a great place to get advice as well. Check out arborgate.com for their location & info. I go there at least once a year & think it's worth the trip. I only buy plants from Houston Garden Center that I know are tough, low problem plants. Just for one example, one year I put out pansies in the fall. I bought several dozen on sale from HGC, but then got another dozen from Plants for All Seasons (Louetta & 249) because they had the particular color I wanted. The HGC pansies were sickly & struggled all winter - I lost quite a few. They never really looked good. The PfAS pansies - though they cost twice as much - were healthy, were twice as big with larger root bases, & took off almost as soon as I planted them. HGC doesn't guarantee their plants & allows no returns - there's a reason for that. Moral of the story - generally, you get what you pay for. Learn about a plant before you buy it. Between Google & forum sites like GardenWeb, the internet has been my biggest gardening ally. Look for the potential problems, how much maintenance, & how well suited it is to your area & your growing conditions before you buy. We also drove around nice neighborhoods looking at their landscaping to get an idea of what kind of overall look we wanted for our yard - that helped a whole lot. The return on investment for the time you spend now will be worth the trouble many times over!

Linda, I used to quilt all my quilts by hand, but now I machine quilt almost exclusively. This quilt I sent out to be longarm quilted by a member of my quilt guild. She did a wonderful job! I was thrilled with her work and I love my quilt. The fabrics used were 1930's reproduction prints, some authentic vintage 30's fabrics, and some plaids, checks and polka dots thrown in for a good mix. The 30's prints are what I call brighter pastels - very happy fabrics. I'm glad you like the quilt. It gives me such pleasure twice a day - when I make the bed in the morning and when I pull back the covers to go to bed at night. Teresa

I am the original poster and find it interesting that this has come to the surface. Since it has I will give you an update. My friend now has a 16 month old baby. I am going to make a very long story short and leave out a lot of details, but the neighbor has become ugly to not only her, but to other neighbors. He threatened them and they found poison meat in their back yard. Someone said they saw him back there but have no proof he threw it in the yard, so ....There are other things that happened also. She went to court and the neighbor cried and made up stories and told many lies. As they left court he made some comments to the effect about her dog being dead one way or another, and smiled. She has a court order to have a dangerous dog sign on her door and as long as she is in the state he has to have a muzzle in public. He is used to it, and it is a great compromise. The child rolls on the dog and pulls on him and the dog snuggles up to her and shows her off. They are still very cautious of him, but he has never had another incident and this person is the only person he has ever had an issue with. This person continues to taunt them, along with other neighbors, dogs and kids. It's unfortunate and sad. He looks for trouble and gets it. He is a bully. He has caused problems for others. People fear him and he knows it and loves it. He is one who manipulates and for some reason it looks like it's not his fault when he gets caught. I will say no more, you may have the idea. At some point it will blow up, if it hasn't already, and he will get his comeuppance in a big way. I am not saying it is right that the dog bit, I had a biter myself and had to deal with things, I am just saying that she is dealing with a sick individual here also who has made her and many others very very uncomfortable.

Oh Goodie!! Today's the big day!!! This week in our local paper they were featuring pizzelles.....now I know. They can be waffle-like cones filled with cream. Yum. Sitting in anticipation of receiving a gift in the mail! LOL Have fun Lou, and Good luck to everyone, and kudos to the lucky recipient.