Sorry to be so late with my notes to all of you! It warmed my heart and and made me tear up when I read your lovely comments and saw your beautiful photos! I drop in now and then to see what you are up to. I have missed all of you, too, but I don't have as much time to spend here as I used to. My family,kitties, birds and garden take a lot more of my time now. I send all of you love and hugs! Thank you Carol for starting this wonderful birthday thread and for you kind comments! It really made my day to read all of these lovely birthday messages! Your photo is beautiful! Thank you Patricia for your birthday message and lovely comments, you are so special! Your photo is beautiful, and the bees in your roses are so cute! Lori Elf, thank you for your lovely wishes! I am doing well and my garden is better this year because we have had more rain this spring. I will have more flowers, but I also have lots more weeds. ;-) Pam, I have always felt a close connection to you, too! I am looking forward to seeing you, your family, Kitty and wonderful garden again this summer! As I have said before, your garden is the most beautiful garden that I have ever seen! Your photo is gorgeous! Linda, thank you for your kind comments! I hope that you are enjoying your Hurdy Gurdy, I think that she is a sweet little rose! I am happy to hear that you like my Cecile Brunner bowers, I enjoy them more every year. Rosefolly, thank you for your birthday wishes! Yes, it has been a long time since we met in Pam's garden! I plan to visit Pam's garden with Andrea this year and I look forward to seeing you again! Thank you for the birthday wish, Carla! Your Lilly if gorgeous! I had a wonderful birthday. One of my friends gave me a bubble stick for my birthday and I was out early blowing bubbles in the garden. ;-) Thank you Jackie for your birthday wish! Your photo of your Eden is wonderful! I am happy that you are enjoying Eden! I love that rose! Patrick, I love it when you go on and on about my garden...hehe...it always makes me smile! I love the song that you ~wrote~ for me! ;-) Also, I had forgotten that you loved my charming spiders. I will do a post entitled Roses and the Spiders that own them, for you...soon.... Jon, I love you dearly and always remember you fondly, too! Youngster.... ;-)....hehe...I am still very young at heart, does that count? Thank you for your birthday wishes and your awesome photo! I will never forget how stunned I was when I first viewed pictures of your garden! Awesome! Your photo is so beautiful! You and Wanda (Rosesense) were my first friends on Gardenweb. Love and hugs...Missy Florence, thank you for your birthday wishes and your photo of Compassion! Yes, dear, we have been friends for a long time! I was so happy to hear that you are feeling better and will be able to spend more time is your beautiful garden this year. Ah, dear bodi, thank you for your lovely words! Thanks again to Suzi Wong for bringing us together on the Fern forum! I hope that we can get together sometime this spring or early summer! I love you, too! Hugs! Thank you for your birthday wishes and kind words, Melva! I hope that all is going well for you and your garden! Wishing you a wonderful spring! Olga, thank you for your birthday wishes and your kind comments! I have always loved your photos of your beautiful garden! Happy gardening this spring! Carol, dear, thank you, you are so kind! I hope to see you in Pam's garden this year. I don't remember the date, but I am really looking forward to seeing all of you dear people and that magificent garden! Dear John, thank you for your birthday wishes! I hope that all is going well for you and that your garden will be fabulous this year. Max...my dearest fur baby..... Here is a link if you would like to see some of my pictures....click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures. My Pictures

Oh my, I hope I don't receive any polka DOGS :) oops!! Thank you for the lovely birthday wishes ... I actually received a whole bunch of packages right on my actual birthday which was quite a treat. Marie/Wynative - love the fabrics with one being pink with green polka dots, and the other being the reverse green with pink polka dots!! Tara/TDSully - Thank you for the lovely block as well as the beautiful post card (that pieced mosaic quite is amazing!!) The touches of pink in the black and white polka dot block are whimsical and fun! Jackie/Jackier 123 - Thank you for the beautiful blocks ... 2 blocks, same pattern but very different colour schemes and both very nice. Thank you! Paula - Thank you very much for the beautiful disappearing 9 patch block, the colours are so fresh and vibrant, I love it!! Deanna/Faintheart - I love the birthday card, and the 2 blocks are lovely. Black/White and red are a classic combination and looks really nice. Thank you so much :) Melissa/HazelnutBunny - Thank you for the birthday wishes. The block is a beautiful black and white polka dots and I love the swirl white-on-black fabric you chose! Thank you. Eileen/EQuilter - Thank you for the birthday wishes as well, and the needle grabber is a great idea. I've never actually used one before, but have often wished that I had something that could grab a needle like that, lol! It will be great to use, thank you. And thank you for the block as well, the fabrics you chose are so light, summery and fun! Thank you. Vasu - Thank you for the beautiful block, the rustic colours and swirls are lovely!! thank you so much :)

We redid our master bathroom 2.5 years ago so I feel qualified to weigh in and ditto some of what other people have already said. We did something kind of like a pony wall but shower - it is just a bench seat in the shower that the glass then sits on top of. See photos below. In general here are some of my other tidbits of advice: 1. Do radiant heat flooring. We live in Atlanta and it doesn't even get all the cold here but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it in the winter time. And it really isn't all that expensive. We did small 2x2'' tiles on the shower floor and I like the variation it gives. Haven't had a problem with cleaning those - however, I also did 4x4 on the side of the bench and the grout between those can get grimy. 3. Along the same lines - do NOT do tile on top of the pony wall or the ledge where the shower glass will sit. We did and this is the one of only two things I would change about our remodel. The grout lines under the shower glass door get slimy. Do one solid piece of granite, corian, or cultured marble. We did the top of our bench seat in the shower cultured granite and it works great. Cheaper than other options but still looks nice. A remant piece of granite would have done the trick too. (On a side note, the other change I wish I had done was 4 rectangular pieces of cultured granite around the drop in tub instead of tile for the same reason more or less. I priced it out for one giant piece but you pay for the part that is cut out for the tub and it was ridiculous. I just didn't even think through doing it with 4 small pieces.) 3. If you are doing two shower heads, which I'd recommend, put both controllers on the same side, near the door. This way, you don't get wet when you turn on the "far" controller. 4. We did a small 28'' glass door which is slightly smaller than what most people do but it is perfect. 4. Lastly, ditto on the two shampoo niches. We have "his and hers" which means I can have 5 bottles of shampoo in my niche without annoying my husband. Hope that helps. Apparently I need to go check out the bathroom forum side and give my advice via expertise over there.

Happy Belated Birthday, Sephia! (Well, I guess it really will be!)