Well. This really ticks me off. Here i've been calling him Simon for years.... I have to find out where my daughter got him from, which nursery. I know it was labelled 'Simon Fraser'. Just went out and checked and he doesn't have a medallion like my other roses do. Sheesh. Well, in spite of everything, the problem may be solved. I talked to dh yesterday and he'll ask his friend with a bobcat to first dig a hole for the bush and then dig it out and transplant it. I'll be able to do Miss Sunrise myself (hopefully with help from my son because the ground is awfully hard). I'm really upset about this. I've gotten attached to this rose because my daughter gave it to me - not that i'll like it any less, but, well, you know....

Sorry if this is more detail than you would like. We've been using the kitchen for a little more than 2 1/2 years now and I'm thrilled with the flow. The use of the 2 sinks is an important factor. Here's our layout. The prep sink is at the top and main sink at bottom. The mudroom/main entry is just off to the right and the dining area is off to the left, just past the fridge. The baking cabinet is the tall cabinet to the right of the prep sink and stand mixer is on the counter there. DW is just to the right of the prep sink Prep Sink: on main corridor through kitchen, near dining table, refrigerator and next to dw and baking area. Size (inside dimensions): 13" width x18" front to back x10 deep--perfect size for us: large enough to do anything I want with it but small enough to limit amount of counter taken up. Uses: drinking water (since close to fridge ice and dining table), wash and peel veggies (compost bucket is at this sink and easy access to veggies in fridge), hand washing (easily accessible on main corridor through kitchen), and clean up scraping of dishes before going into dw. Also used to clean out containers to be recycled since it is also the closet sink to the recycling center in the mudroom. This was our only sink for a while and the size was not at all limiting. The prep sink's position relative to the dining table and fridge can be seen here. Main Sink: off the beaten path neaar the range, coffee maker, and mw and in the main food prep area. Single bowl 30" wide, 17" front to back, 10" deep. Used for any cooking water needed at range, coffee maker, and mw, for draining food in colanders (i.e. pasta, lettuce), for washing things I like to wash by hand (cooking pots that aren't all stainless steel, plastics, wooden items, wine glasses). I stand at our peninsula and do most of the food prep with the main sink at my back. Whenever I need water for prep or for quickly washing off my often gooey fingers, it is handy. The flow of the kitchen is such that while I'm cooking I'm separated from a lot of the noncooking activites by a peninsula. The fridge, prep sink and the mw are more out in the open to be used while setting the table, cleaning dishes and food off the table, or getting snacks/washing up. I'm able to leave pots and pans soaking in the main sink while using the prep sink as the main clean up area from the dining table. So I feel as though the 2 sinks gives 2 cooking zones (veggies can be prepped at both sinks or one person can be preparing dessert in the baking/prep sink area and the other person in the actual cooking zone), and 2 clean up zones (one person can be at main sink washing pots, pans, cutting boards, wine glasses and other person can be putting food away and putting dishes in dw in other zone) or a combination cooking and clean up zone (one person unloading dw while other person cooking.)

Allison - wine mentor? What a cool job that would be. I don't know. I've been drinking wine for years and ask questions all the time. Now that I'm selling it I end up answering a few questions too, but my suggestion is to read and taste. And if you ever get out to NYC, call me. That's serious incidentally. Anyway, I can offer a few suggestions for people. First, don't overlook Beaujolais. It's been producing wine for centuries, mostly for cafes around Lyon, where there were a number of silk merchants. They make a young wine for drinking within a few months and back in the 80s a couple British guys were drinking and made a bet with each other about which one could get the wine to London fastest. That set off a trend for about 10 - 20 years and increased sales of that young Beaujolais. Production shot up and a lot of second rate wine was made to cash in. Then the fad faded, the market crashed, and the area is suffering today. BUT - in the hills around Beaujolais they also have what are called "cru" sites and those are very much worth investigating. For education, bypass the young stuff and look for the crus - they will have a name like Fleurie, Julianas, Morgon, Moulon au Vent, Regnie, or something like that. This area is just south of Burgundy, and some of the winemakers in Burgundy work in both places and you can learn a lot and have fun. Find a producer, say Chermette, or Brun, for example, and sample the wine of the same producer from Fleurie, Morgon and Julianas. Even buy George Dubeouf wines from those places - they are great values and will show you the differences in the soils and environment and microclimates, which the French call "terroir". Because it is the same winemaking, you take that variable out of the equation and presumably taste only the differences that result from the terroir. It's a good lesson and the wine is wonderful, inexpensive, and not high in alcohol. And even try the young Beaujolais just to compare. As a rule it will be simpler, but quite nice. If you can start to understand those, you start to understand what people get excited about when they talk of Burgundy or Piedmont. You can do it with riesling too - they pretty much never use oak barrels in Germany for the rieslings, so you only taste the winemaker and the vineyard. For example, find some Prum - J.J. Prum, S.A. Prum, Weins Prum. They are related family and they make wine from the same vineyard. You can learn about the differences in winemaking. Or or St Urbans Hof and Zillikin who both use the Ockfener Bockstein vineyard and who are probably cheaper than the Prums. Or find a producer who uses multiple vineyards, like St Urbans Hof again, and try their Ockfener Bockstein vs their wine from Piesporter Goldtropfchen, looking at the same winemaker but different vineyards. Try to find Kabinett wines and don't mix Kabinett and Spatlese, etc., for this study, because the sugar will through you off. Write down the differences between the wines that you observe. You can do it in CA too - Andy Beckstoffer owns vineyards that produce really great wines, but those are going to be much more costly than those rieslings are. Schrader for example, is one of many people making wine from the Tokalon property, but you're talking $100 a bottle. The Prums have had their vineyards for years, maybe centuries. Beckstoffer moved to CA from Virginia, bought property, and sells his grapes at a price based on what the winery is going to charge for the wine! So those CA wineries, being pretty new and only recently opened by guys who became millionaires somewhere else and who paid $200,000 and acre, or else whatever Beckstoffer wants per ton, charge a lot of money for their wines, whereas Prum can sell a wine for $26 or less. I love the idea of Two Buck Chuck, but the wine isn't so great IMO. I'd rather pay another dollar and get a better wine and I think they could do it. What you won't have however, is the distinction you get from the other wines I suggested. That's because it is designed specifically NOT to have it. The idea is to create consistency, not personality. Again, no problem here and more power to him, but for me it would be boring to drink the same thing all the time, and I collect wine specifically to have variety. In 2005, the cabernet sauvignon harvest in Napa was pretty big and pretty good. People thinned the crop several times in some vineyards but the grape clusters were large so they still got more tonnage per acre than they normally do, although the wines are top notch anyhow. Prices? Not going anywhere good as far as I can see. As long as wines are selling for $100 and up, the prices aren't coming down. And about that thinning - in France and other regions, there are often regulations regarding yield per acre. They think that if you cut some young grape bunches off, called "green harvesting", the remaining ones will be more concentrated. That's becoming a basic tenet of winemaking. But there is some evidence and some opinion that this is BS. The concept was developed before there were adequate ways to measure. So a long time ago in France they thought they could improve quality by limiting yield. But maybe that's artificial, as illustrated by the 2005 vintage in CA. In a nice warm year, with adequate rain and no heat and healthy vines, the plants just might want to produce a little more with no drop in quality. In 1997 and 2005, that happened in Napa. If one were only to go by yield, we would have less wine but in fact, there was no reason to reduce production since the quality is fine. But as long as people are willing to pay, others will produce wine at $100 and up. In much of France today, they are trying to reduce production to keep prices high. You can figure out the economics of that, but IMO the idea is flawed because the competition is not simply air, it is wine from elsewhere. So if I can't buy or afford French wine, I'll buy Australian wine or Spanish or Chilean. It's a huge generalization and not 100% true, but you might say that in Napa the high prices are the result of extraordinary entry costs while in Bordeaux or Burgundy or Champagne, they are the result of production decisions designed to keep prices high. Again, that's not entirely true but its a shorthand explanation. So you look for areas like Beaujolais, Cotes du Ventoux, Cotes du Rhone, Languedoc in France, or the Rhine in Germany, or Umbira and Puglia in Italy, or Paso Robles or Mendocino in CA, or Walla Walla or Columbia Valley in WA and you can find much better deals. Or look at Argentina - some nice stuff coming out of there. And in the Texas Hill Country, they're working and in Arizona and in other states as well. Some people disparage those wines, but the people have to start somewhere. I used to disparage the wines from Michigan. Then I tried some. Taught me a lesson. I only knew the cheap sugary stuff but there are now some serious producers making good whites on the west of the state. Also in Ohio there are one or two - Kincaid makes really nice cabs down near Kentucky. I would never have believed it if I hadn't tried them. And in fact, they were in some pretty stiff competition - I had them at a dinner with people who brought some serious wine to the table and brought these just to educate us. So if someone is open minded, there is no reason to listen to wine snobs and you can find some great values out there, that are interesting, complex, and even educational if you care to go that way. Cheers all.

I think it's funny that I'm one of the few who actually use her name, and it's my real name - not my middle name, not a nickname, but my name. I guess that isn't prudent, but I've been on a couple of boards where I've done the same, forged great friendships, etc. kk: Please don't even hint that Southern's education is fictional. That's insulting. She is genuine - I have no doubts - I've enjoyed her take on some medical issues dealing w/ my family. I guess you don't believe me w/ my profession, either, as it could be 'made up.' Really, I'm sure neither of us would have the time on our hands to be able to look up answers to questions so that we could pretend to be something we're not. Sheesh! In fact, I was once on a board for moms wishing to add to their families and one of the other women called me at my office! I must have given my last name at some point, my city has never been a secret, and she felt badly about something and gave me a call. I've also met another cyberfriend who was visiting my area, and exchange Christmas cards w/ my email group of moms parenting only boys or only girls. I've had phone calls - actually once, late at night, of a cyberfriend needing dental advice. It was great to be able to help someone in rural Nebraska who would otherwise have nowhere to turn at that hour. I don't hide behind anything but the truth. I'm happy to help anyone in their hour of need, really - a real life person or a cyberfriend. I wonder if we were biomoms - would you accept everything we said as gospel? Dana