Even our lawyer IS concerned about their death and infirmity contingency. In all his years as an estate and realty lawyer, he said he has NEVER seen that kind of contingency. Especially their infirmity contingency. He wanted it defined. It was defined by their lawyer mostly as a loss of the ability to make a decision. So NO, I am not heartless when I pray for them to live and be healthy up until our closing. I only wish them to last until I sell them my home.... I wish to close without having to worry about putting my home back on the market once again!! I don't think I could bear going back on the market again if anything happened to this sale. These people may be paying cash for the sale of our home, but they only put down 1k as a good faith gesture to purchase. Paying cash for full amount.. with only 1K in cash as a deposit could mean they could walk at any time until closing! They would not be out much if they did so. However, I doubt that they will do that, but you never know. Still I will not really RELAX until we officially close a month from now. Rental agreement is now in place, they didn't budge much on their rental price but we don't want to rock the sale of our house at this point. They only made the offer to buy because they knew we could rent the house back to them. So they will be making a nice profit on us from renting it back to us for 3 months. And we are alright with that... considering we actually were better about giving them a good price for our home.. we didn't dicker as much as we could have. In the meantime, our house inspection turned up with no major problems (which I assumed would happen- but who knows if there is anything lurking beneath the surface) although we are still being tested for radon... which who knows what that will be??? Never had one in all the almost 30 years we have been here. Hopefully, we will pass that. The building inspector will be picking up the containers on Monday at noon and said he will be able to get the results before the time expires for us to go under full contract.

Thank you again for all your help, everyone. These are great ideas! I have a whole different concept now. My computer crashed completely. I'm having so much computer trouble neither one of us can get any new photos in but here's an old one already in the computer. This is one of the terraces which go up at each side of the flat space in the middle. We've since stained the wood a very dark brown, and replanted the terraces with brightly-colored perennials, and ornamental grasses, which are doing well. The concrete has been replaced with a more natural stone-like look. There is about 20 feet of space between the patio floor and the top edge of the rocky slope; that area has woolly thyme groundcover and low perennials with stepping stones. On the right-hand side we have a very large bowl fountain with two Asian-style herons standing in grasses near it (all taken in for the winter now). porkandham, bleigh, teacats: I didn't think of putting colorful plants on the deck that can be seen from the road. I love the notion of railing planters. They'll have to be very well secured because of the wind, but I think this will be an amazing help. And I think one large metal art piece will be just the thing for that empty spot on the wall, teacats. We're both art lovers. It will be fun looking for just the right piece. jterrilyn, we hope we won't need a new roof for another decade or so! lynxe,cyn, lolauren, oakleyoak, teacats -- I hope the second photo helps. I get your point about staggered heights and placement on the slope looking better than a solid mass of one plant. We don't want to plant anything very tall because the view is the major attraction, but we could plant several large shrubs in a natural-looking pattern. We had the slope shot with wildflowers when we first built the house, but for a variety of reasons they didn't make it. We have irrigation to the slope that we're not using now, so we can reinstitute that. annz, you're right. Because of the wind a row of pots won't work. I love the idea of a retaining wall "bench", but the outer edge seems to be holding fine, and now that the flat space is all planted people sitting on the wall would probably step on the plants getting there from the patio. livewire, cyn, judith, we did have a structural engineer and the County okay the deck. That was when it only had 4x4's. We changed it to 6x6's for the aesthetics, and it really should be okay now, I think. The deck is 24x12. jane, what a gorgeous yard! I love it. We can't replicate that here, as the climate just isn't right, but thank you for the gorgeous photos. I had to laugh at the deer going swimming in your pool. Nobody here has pools, so they don't get that upscale experience! suzanne, we have bears and mountain lions here, so we'd rather not make it even easier for them to get to the deck. Bad enough we have racoons climbing the posts all the time. We're just a bit too low for aspens to do well here; we have some in the front yard, and they're not very happy. madeyna, we thought about cross supports earlier, but it would obstruct the view. So, thanks to you all, we've been able to look at this freshly, and here's the plan: We're going to plant a tree above the right-hand terrace (as you look at the house in the photo view) so that it will appear to be at the corner of the house. It won't be where the view will be obstructed much. On the left side we'll do a similar placement with a large evergreen shrub so that the tree and shrub don't "match", but harmonize. We're going to get some substantial planters which will hang on the deck railing and be planted with colorful annuals. On the slope instead of that green blanket of junipers I was imagining we'll plant a more natural landscape with a few large scattered shrubs, using a drip system and leaving the rock as is. This won't be expensive, as we have the irrigation still in place that we used for the wildflowers which didn't make it and can easily convert the spray to drip. We'll either block in the posts to make them more substantial-looking or perhaps plant a climbing vine on one of them for color. Everyone, thank you again! All of this will be doable, not expensive, and will make us happy with the way our back yard looks. And thanks also for your concerns about erosion and the safety of the deck; I think we have that handled, but I very much appreciate your caring enough to point out potential problems. Now I can't wait until spring!

One of the bigger problems (among many) in my old kitchen was drying plastic bags hanging from two round plastic lingerie dryers on towel racks. It made for quite the mess. I now have so much counter space behind the sink that this process goes much better. I leave the bags propped open on a wooden "V"-shaped rack with just two levels and sometimes once they've dried a bit just on the counter. I can do that; there's space to. They dry fast and then they go away fast because there is a place to put them. The pots and pans are supposed to be going away more because they too now have a space. But as before, they get used almost as fast as they get cleaned, so they're starting to sit around more and more. There's more stovetop for them to do so painlessly now. The new DW definitely using less water than handwashing, at 0.7gal per load, means that I run the DW more frequently. This in turn makes it easier to put away because there is less inside. I used to hate emptying the DW and it would sit, sometimes until nearly everything just got used again. It's so easy to swivel and pivot everything away now, this happens and then guess what? There's a place to put the dirty dishes in the sink: into the DW. This is kind of like a revelation. I thought I was so inherently messy I could never have a clean sink. In actuality, I abhor emptying dishwashers but this new system permits throughput: very nice! There's also acreage above my DW (which at 90-degrees to the sink turns out to have been a stroke of brilliance. I was *really* nervous about this configuration but it turns out to be better than any I've ever had before). I use the acreage to ... air dry all that !#$^ plastic that came out of the DW! I never use the heated drying cycle which is no problem at all for ceramic and much problem for sure for the plastic. Now I have room to set the whole load, one-piece-high, across the top of the DW on the counter. It's dry very quickly this way and then ... I've actually been putting it away. Don't know how long this will last, I think I'm still in the novelty-honeymoon. But things seem promising to me. Acreage is key for me, as it turns out. I hadn't realized this before, but with it the contrast is striking.

Hi, O. J. That was supposed to be 10:00 - 12:00 for the Book Club. Just goes to show you exactly how frustrated and tired I really was! LOL. If it's taking so long for tomatoes to ripen, how about some fried green tomatoes added to the diet. Yum. I am lucky to have so many choices of stores within a reasonable distance and actually there are three others that I didn't even hit. It's one thing to visit a number of them to shop the sales, (not my M. O.), but it is frustrating to have to visit so many stores to complete a grocery list of about 15 items. Particularly when you're pressed for time!