IÂve been in listening mode as well (can you hear me listening..?) Woohoo  Deanne, you do everything with flair! I bet Doug was scared to death  and you gave yourself a shiner? how terrible  adding insult to injury w/ the flu  I do hope you take it easy and rest  youÂve got a lot of entertaining to do soon w/ your Idyll guests! I do love that butterfly  and leave it to Marie to know what kind, etc., it was. Your party sounds like a wonderful way to break up the winter doldrums  Im planning to go to the Phila. Flower Show in early March  so thatÂs what Im using as a "break-out" of winter event. V- glad to hear youÂre feeling better and cannot be held responsible except via Âweb to have passed that flu along to Deanne  I hear you about the coughing though  I had severe flu about 20 years ago and coughed and popped a pelvic artery  landed in the hospital (it was a close call). . . .for Xmas because of it (they didnt know what was wrong til they operated). So I must confess I am extremely paranoid about hard coughing of any sort now & have been ever since that happened  weird things do happen. I confess on the health front I continue to be totally puzzled by all the conflicting reports  low fat, high protein, no protein, high fat  whatÂs a person to believe any more? I think your attitude is probably the correct one, Marie  celebrate with food  after all if we donÂt have fun with it, whatÂs the point? Honey, I meant to tell you that I truly love the red also (I in fact love all bright & deep colors) and am amazed that you pulled that all together because of wrong furniture fabric! One would Never know  youÂre an artiste. Mary, I imagine youÂre starting to count the days til the big trip  it sounds glorious  you and your entire family will have a blast  a trip to paradise, how neat is that? I imagine the children will remember it forever  and it will be a nice memory to make for Annie to put next to the loss of her dear friend  a good memory to overtake the bad one in this year. Michelle, - I ordered the Cl. Laura also  it looks gorgeous doesnÂt it? For some reason I ordered mostly Type IIs this year  Im probably crazy to do so  but my others have been doing so well that I am getting bolder I guess. Of course, if this is a failure and they all croak this summer or get horrible wilt, IÂll be going back to sticking w/ the IIIs I guess  but I wont know until IÂve tried. I ordered a total of 6 clematis this year (altho my list was much longer, but I tried to restrain myself & limit to a budget $$). I know thereÂs other stuff to comment on but I better get to work. Im hearing that 4-letter word in our forecast this weakened (S***)  ugh  of course, Im planning to drive to Phila. to check on the parents  it never fails  IÂll probably wimp out if it really says itÂs gonna happen  I donÂt know how you do so much intrepid driving, Martie, with your...

Oh My Goodness! I got my BOX today from Miss Wendy!! Holy Cow!! First, lemme tell you...she put my address on a large ORANGEcolor> sheet of paper. With googly eyes!! The kids liked that. :O) Then, as I opened it up...the kids looking over my shoulder...they all screamed..."A BOX FULL OF CANDY! CANDY CANDY CANDY!!" To which I said...with large stick in hand..."DOWN DOWN DOWN, YOU JACKELS!! It's not like you've never gotten candy before!!!" (ok, maybe not with a stick...but I sure needed one!!) So, with kids climbing over me, on me and around me, I *tried* to write everything down as I found it in the box. Please forgive me, Wendy, if I missed anything! ~An orange & black rubber snake (Adora took off with this) ~A multi-colored skeleton light set ~A LARGE LARGE bowl of CANDY, puzzles, pencils, rubber skeletons & bats, halloween jewelry, whoopee cushions...Just TONS of stuff!! ~A bag of spider web (decorative, not real..LOL..) ~Bottles of Pumpkin bubbles ~Iris- "superstition" ~Mini mugs- pumpkins, kitties & ghosts! ~An IV bag of blood (cherry liquid candy...but STILL GROSS!! ICK!!! LOL) ~Ghost & pumpkin tealight candles ~VANILLA BEAN ORCHID!!! Yay!!! :O) ~Seeds!! Tons and tons of SEEDS!!! Some in cute halloween bags! Let me try to list them all..... corn-bloody butcher pansy- black devil eggplant-ghostbuster white cosmos-psycho white blackberry lily bird's eye sunflower-black oil sunflower-autumn beauty night phlox- midnight candy dahlia-black beauty watermelon-white wonder bachelor button-boy midnight scabiosa-black knight chrysanthemum-court jester viola-bowle's black blood flower snapdragon-black prince maltese cross tomato-black prince batwing acorn squash cup plant black peony poppy carrot-atomic red carrot-cosmic purple cauliflower-purple of sicily pink popcorn beetberry strawberry spinach german strawberry tomato bloomsdale long standing spinach majoram watermelon-desert king asparagus-mary washington banana melon huckleberry rhubarb ground cherry dianthus-spooky sunflower=cherry rose hollyhock-red dahlia-early bird mix pure white poppy lion's tail sunflower-dwarf teddy bear apple scented gold pompoms catchfly black eyed susan-goldilocks scarlet flax schizanthus butterfly orchid zinnia- carousel mix clematis-kilian donahue bells of ireland red sun sunflower gloriosa daisy poppy-drama queen soapwort-bouncing bet pink gas plant carnation hollyhocks oriental poppy partridge pea mg-sunspot tartarian honeysuckle coreopsis-early sunrise hollyhock-summer carnival cosmos-ladybird lemon calendula-mixed mexican hat old fashioned lilac WHAT A BOX!!! Oh! I forgot the wind-up chattering teeth! The kids are having so much fun with those!! :O)

Thanks again everyone! I was sort of underwhelmed finishing this one; partly because the "thrill" of remodeling isn't as great the 2nd time around, and partly because it didn't feel like a "new" kitchen because the cabinets and floors were basically the same. You all are helping remind me that it is a new space. And don't get me wrong, it's not that I think the kitchen doesn't look fancy, as but that's only b/c I put a few "bling" items in to make it look fancier than it is. The sparkly chandeliers, sink, and wood hood and backsplash (hopefully) draw the eye away from the older cabinets and older floors. Igloo, I think you could still pull off a farm sink. You'd LOVE it! Celticmoon, I thought the same thing about the FKB! What do you do when you have 2 kitchens listed under your name? (Aside from getting a therapist, that is.) Chiefneil, I can see where it looks like the stacked crown is thicker over the sink, but it's the way the carpenter made the hood. It's constructed as sort of a box, then the box indents down to the arched part. The way the crown is sitting on the upper part of the box makes it look like it's really thick crown. And the hutch height was designed solely as the "clutter zone". I learned a good lesson from the last kitchen; the busiest corner in the kitchen will quickly become the "drop zone" for daily mail, keys, cell phones, etc. I raised the height so that there would be no chance of that corner meshing with the cooking part of the kitchen. Socalthreems, I LOVE the actual stone. DH was super nervous about using dark counters, as we had light granite in the last house, and it never looked dirty. He was afraid it would show everything. But there's so much white, gold, etc, that it doesn't show any dirt at all. I don't see fingerprints or smudges either. I really really like the stone. Nellie820, I'd LOVE to see your plans! Now that I'm done here, I need to find something else to channel my energies into! amck, I hope you like the range as much as I do. I LOVE it! muscat, the floors are so weird. I really like them, but a lot of people don't. I wanted the kitchen to be a "refined rustic with a nod to the traditional". I just don't think any other flooring would give me the same look. rmlanza, I found the sink at a local builder's supply warehouse. Since I'd wanted a copper farm sink, and knew their price tag, I was shocked to see the prices they had on their granite farm sinks! I normally hem and haw about such purchases, but I bought it on the spot. It ended up being the star of the kitchen! caminnc, I think all together it was around 2-3 months. We started before we lived here, and were trying to get it all done before we moved out of the old house. That didn't happen, but we at least got the major stuff done. We were simultaneously selling our other house, and had LOADS of projects we were finishing over there as well. For about a 2 month period, we were working non-stop. Ugh. Don't EVER want to do that again. And thanks all, for the kind words about the backsplash. I'm surprised at the responses about it, and I was surprised that I picked such a simple color/design (esp. after my last backsplash!) I only recently realized why I kept gravitating toward plain white. The upper cabinets are *so* close to the countertop. My tile guy said the normal height b/w counters and upper cabs is around 18". My height is only 14.25 inches. My coffee pot barely fits! Somehow I think that I kept wanting white to help visually extend the cabinetry, so that it didn't look choppy. Claybabe, I loved my last house, until my kids started getting bigger. We really outgrew it. And I mean it when I say I *hated* cooking toward the last year we lived there. 'Course I'll probably say the same thing here, when the kids start leaving home in a few years! LOL!

Thanks, roselee! That last one made me giggle a bit -- it's as if he was staring straight at me, saying: "Are you quite finished yet?!" I didn't want to get too close right away, so started snapping pictures 5' out; then got closer and closer. Must have taken 30 shots of this little guy.