I also suggest seeing if you can get the DVD's. We missed a lot of the 1st season; hubby bought it for me on DVD.. wow, talk about being spoiled. It was awesome. I don't know if there is a way for me to burn it and upload online to share; I would gladly do it if I could.. I'm sure it's illegal. lol If you watch Grey's; you have to watch Private Practice too because you might miss something, like last season when Addison's brother had the brain thing and Derrick had to fix it. The men on Private Practice are also hunks. It's a great show, last season we liked it better the GA.

I really liked it! On some shows the background music is intrusive and annoying, making it hard to hear the dialog. Sara Ramirez was awesome and so were the others but I especially enjoyed her. The story was so tense that I think the singing helped calm me down. My DD's friend didn't like it but I sure did.

Thank you, remodelfla, for the soapstone comments and pictures. I don't think that the imperfections and scratches would bother me too much, but we know we will probably have to sell our house in 7-8 years, so I need to keep resale in mind. I love the look of it so much, but I need to decide if we can keep it looking good enough over the long haul. I do wish there were an alternative that had a similar look and feel, but that was harder. Granite just doesn't have the same look, and when a black granite is honed, as some friends of mine have in their kitchen, it shows every little fingerprint and oil spot. I recently heard that Caesar Stone is introducing a lot of new colors that are supposed to look more like natural stones, but I have a hard time believing that there will be any that really look like soapstone or marble.

Dear Johnny Dollar, My kitchen planner/cabinet rep was the one who suggested alder with this stain to soften the redness in the wood. I had initially wanted natural maple, as in our old kitchen. The light color of maple just was not right with the madre perla, the new oak floors, and all the other colors. The softness of the wood was never discussed and this is the first time that I have heard about it. We are almost empty nesters, so this kitchen will not get as much wear and tear as in a family with young kids. So far no gauges or dents or chips. The cabinets were made halfway across the country from where I live, so staining was not done on my premise. The finish on the cabinets looks very even.