Laid back - you can't imagine! True 'dat! If the sun would ever come back out, I would do something with these plants besides walk by them very quickly. Haven't even investigated to see if there's a species tag for the Plectranthus, guess I assumed she was a Mona, but maybe not. Probably just good ol' peat in the pots. Until I look, we can fantasize there's some special, magical juju in there! On our way home we stopped at Gulf Islands park in MS and saw an alligator! Up REAL close, I could have touched it. Forgot to say anything about that the other day. Still haven't seen one in AL, but finally, after living down here 6 yrs, I've seen a live gator.

I just ordered Woodfield hybrid Lupines at Bluestone. I haven't seen them anywhere else. Placing them was a challenge as they are somewhat tall. But I thought about it overnight and went out to the spot I had in mind today and realized that yes, it would work. The clincher was that the plants were on sale at half off. So I ordered nine of them. They are going in the wider bed in back of the garage. They will go in front of that very back row of serviceberry shrubs that are back there and in back of the two rows of daylilies. So they will be inbetween. It will actually look very, very good. You know I have these lupine cazies really bad. And I know that this will not be the end of it.

Unfortunately, there is not something like the FKB for finished houses. Starpooh is the one who came up with the Kitchen gallery and she spends a huge amount of time keeping it up. No one really uses the Gallery here on Building a Home. If you scroll back through the regular postings and look for subject lines that say "I'm done, Finally Finished, Home pics etc" You'll see quite a few but it's not easy to pull them all up at once like the FKB. I wish there were such an option but I don't know anyone who is willing to take on such a huge responsibility like Starpooh did.

Susie, is that house a repo? I forget how much you said it was listed for and I know you said they had just come down. The reason I ask is that from your pic's I can see a lot of maintenance that needs to be done and usually people do that before trying to sell. But then I'm not at all familiar with homes in your part of the country and their values. I'd figure out the cost of all new flooring, all the repainting and bath update. How old is the roof. furnace and water heater? I'd hesitate to even make a low ball offer until your house is sold. Keep looking in the meantime at the new listings that are sure to pop up after April 1. That's usually a time when people put houses on the market and I think we are going to see a big turnaround this spring. From my experience, you are better off not letting the selling agent know you are really interested in a home they have shown you, at least not until you are in a position to actually make an offer. They have a way of just making you worry that it might get sold before you're ready and that's when the buyer cam make the biggest mistake in their life. Play it cool in other words... :) They'll just try to wear you down otherwise. Besides...what is meant to be...will be. There will be other homes and maybe even better deals. Nancy