WOW!! Thanks everyone! You all say the nicest things. This forum is a blessing. I've heard that you guys may be in for a pretty fierce winter this year so I'll be mindful of that and post pics of garden happenings regularly. My Our Lady Gardyn has become an overgrown mess and you can't even see the paths anymore there's so much growth. I cut them all back last month but they've grown quicker than I have time to tend them. My GF was over last week and complained that all my wonderful paths were blocked off and I better get out there and do some work. She's right, but I hate cutting off flowering stems. But I want to see the paths again, too. Such a cunundrum! I'll tell you my secrets LOL. OK, they're not really secrets, just what I've finally learned about where I live. First is an open garden that happens the first weekend in November. These people sell plants and 'junk', too, at extremely low prices so I always do good there. Then there's the church rummage sale. Whatever they don't sell they give away to the charity shops and, because they'd rather have the money themselves, you can bargain sweetly with them. My other coup is having a GF that works in one of the local CS's who saves everything that's chipped or broken for me. But the #1 'secret' is having faith that our Good Lord is looking after me and, wherever and whenever I go 'junking', what is really meant 'for me' will be there at a really good price. What do they say, "Leave you hands empty so God can fill them"? Something like that. Anyway, the Salvia Group is meeting today so I'm off to check out what promises to be a beautiful garden. You folk really are THE BEST!!

Gardenia, it is. Ann, your description of it scrambling around are completely dead-on. In fact, the first photo I posted is a cane that's gone up a small cedar tree, is hanging down, and has sent out that glorious cluster of flowers. How do things get by the road like this? My guess on this one is that this is probably a very derelict old house site -- so far gone that there's no trace of the house. The rose is growing beside the service road, and there's cleome coming up in the sunnier areas. This rose had scrambled over and among the poison ivy and honeysuckle, and was heading for the road. The two little rooted pieces that I got were probably run over at one time, as someone pulled off onto the shoulder -- and they very happily healed that injury by growing roots and new little canes. Florence, your Gardenia looks just like this rose. The thing that seals it for me is how the petsla on the open bloom sort of droop. like they're too delicate to stay upright. Your pictures are lovely. What is the pink rose you're growing with it? Berrytea, from what I've seen of the photos of your rose, I'm not sure it's Mary Lovett. I just went down to check out the buds on my ML, and they're definitely white. This is a good time of year to do comparisons, since the once-bloomers will be blooming, and we can put our heads together and try again to come up with an ID for you. (I have just about every wichurana rambler I can get my hands on -- they're still small, but we can still use them for comparison.) Can you get more photos of your rose this year? Kathy, we have no tornado damage right here. The one you see on the news was about 5 miles south of us, just beyond Geico on Rt. 17. I came across the scene the other day, as I was hitting a back road route to avoid the awful traffic. It's surreal to see the walls of a house missing, yet clothes still hanging in the family's walk-in closet. There was a second tornado just south of downtown Fredericksburg that took down a farmer's barn and part of a warehouse, tore off a couple of warehouse roofs, and leveled hundreds of trees. That one missed my other house by about 3 miles. It's been a very stormy week around here. eibren, those photos do look a lot like my rose. I have Penelope, though she's still a baby. Aren't her flowers much smaller? The ones on my rose are 3" or so. I'm gonna have to check out all these poison ivy remedies you all recommend. Five years of warfare here on the farm has rid the place of most of it, but I still come across it from time to time (like when I'm rustling). It's good to know that there are things we can do besides scratch and whine. Connie

You are absolutely normal. Breathe in. Hold 1, 2, 3. Breathe out slowly. Do this two more times. Again, what you are feeling is normal. All of us have buyer's remorse at some time during the process. It will be OK. I went through this too and still have my occasional bouts. Remodeling is one of the most stressful things we can do. Make sure you take 5 minutes out for yourself each day and do something to take off the edge. Walk in your neighborhood. Book a massage. Give yourself a facial. Ask me how I know? We have all been there and done that. We all understand. It will be OK. Hang in there. Eventually you will come out the other side and it will be wonderful. BTW, you can let your KD and GC worry for you. That is part of their job!

I am so envious of you folks with ReStores! Since this is a very low income area there are a lot of junk shops, I can pop a spare backplate and the small rosette (since it needs a matching key escutcheon that wasn't on that door) into the glove compartment. Unless I'm really stuck, I'd prefer to avoid the architectural salvage guy down where I used to live because he is viciously overpriced - like $100 for a single doorknob that was one of about 50 matching ones, not exactly rare and unusual - and very disorganized. I may take more photos and scan rubbings and send them to some other places that sell old pieces and offer hardware matching. Kim, right this minute we're in the "this sucks this sucks this sucks this sucks i hate this house will someone please shoot me NOW" mode because it's slurping down money like a kid with a frappe - milkshake, that is. Between last week's and this week's disasters we're expected to hit $10k, all "WTF??" expenses, not the expected ones. We were counting on having additional expenses, but we were expecting to have some proceeds from the other house to buffer them. Right now I have a plumber (overpriced franchise plumber, but my regular plumber doesn't have the right equipment) downstairs snaking tree roots out of the sewer line, since we had a huge backup last night. We're also extremely peeved with our home inspector for how many things he completely missed. flyleft, we've already been up in the attic and down cellar to find absolutely nuffin in the "If Walls Could Talk" genre. I found traces of a hideous "country blue" wallpaper in the master bedroom - PO painted right over the electrical outlet plates and stuff so if you take the plates off, around each receptacle is a little border of blue wallpaper. Around a defunct cable outlet (no cable attached to it anymore) I tried soaking and peeling some back. No, it's stuck right on there something fierce. So, when we get to that room we'll sand off all the paint boogers and drips, spackle and feather off the seams, and then either skimcoat and paint or put up wallpaper w/liner. *gasp* DH is much more amenable to wallpaper in this house, since it "fits the house", as long as I choose monochromatic or unfussy patterns like most of Bradbury's "Morris Alternative Fills" line. But that's a ways down the road: we need working sewer, properly working electric, fully working heat, etc. before we get too far into "pretties". (I admit I have spent a little bit on "pretties" though: we got wood blinds for the LR because keeping DH in clothes is extremely difficult ;-) , rods for my cheapie eBay curtains, slipcover for my wonderful new couch which people were fighting over last weekend, and a couple of cheap secondhand furniture pieces. I'm still looking for a mailbox and the mailman is getting a little irritated with us!) We do believe that the large brass chandelier in the dining room is either original or very close to it - it's heavy as all get-out, can tell ya that much. If we take it down it'll be hung up in the attic wrapped in sheets for safekeeping. I did pick up, at a yard sale, two antique pan chandeliers: one looks very much like Rejuvenation's Belmont. The other looks sorta like this. I paid $15 for the pair. KGW had a chandelier restored for a surprisingly low price, I think at JF PeGan; I'm thinking about sending them over and seeing how much a complete restoration would cost. The little two-light would go beautifully in the entry. I'm not sure I like the large one as well, maybe I'll have it restored and sell it (depending on how much the restoration goes of course).