I use herbs throughout the flower gardens, but I'd love to have a defined herb garden like Natal's -- which is so gorgeous! My husband and I really believe that nepeta, lavender, rosemary and basil keep our place relatively bug-free (mosquitoes, houseflies and gnats). So, we use those plants all around the gardens. I have a container of spearmint and chocolate mint, oregano and parsley in the cottage garden. There are also lavenders (Munstead and Spanish) planted in the cottage garden. There are two nepetas and two rosemary plants (one cascading). In the fragrance garden where we have an evening dining patio, we just removed privet and planted agastache, basil, lavender, salvia. In the pot on the dining table, I have Thai basil and petunias. On the back of the waterfall hill, we also removed privet and replaced it with lavender, oregano, culinary sage and thyme. I grow bronze fennel in the butterfly garden as a host for BST caterpillars. Friends were recently here for dinner and during the garden tour, they kept pinching off pieces of fennel to eat! My husband told them if they hit something crunchy.... LOL I have chives growing in the rain garden along the path and lavender at the top of the deer resistant garden, in the sundial bed and beside the garage door. This year, I am growing basil on both sides of the front path, mixed with agastache, angelonia, purple sage, nepeta, stachys and salvia greggii and guarantica. I use a lot of thyme as ground cover as it suppresses weeds so well, but allows bulbs and perennials to grow through. It's growing along the walkways and paths everywhere in the garden and I keep digging out a trowel now-and-then to keep spreading it around. I do find that thyme does great with afternoon shade and under plants and shrubs. We can sit outside on our porch, patios or deck and not be bothered by bugs. But, if we walk out into the meadow or neighborhood, flies, gnats and mosquitoes are a problem. We have no explanation other than the use of herbs. Cameron

Alexa, I just read the course description & reviews of "Chaos". Wow, where else can I learn something from a cutting edge professor like Steven Strogatz? I surely can't enroll at Cornell. lol I'm still a bit intimidated by the science & mathematics department! Have to get over that... Jessy, I've not read "Who Wrote The Bible". As part of my outside reading for the "Old Testament" course I did read, "Reading The Old Testament", Barry L. Bandstra. Both Amy-Jill Levine (great professor, BTW!) professor of the course & Bandstra spent considerable time on the two Genesis stories. Gotta tell ya, these courses rattled me more than a little. So much so I met with my pastor to discuss it. Over lunch, he told me about his first six weeks in seminary, his dismay, & excitement about studying the Bible from an academic, archeological, & literature approach. I'll never read the Bible in the same way again yet somehow I've come out the other end of these courses with my faith intact & even refreshed. Of all the classes I've so far completed Amy-Jill Levine is my favorite professor. I watch a lot of the History Channel's religion programs & notice she's usually cited on the credits scroll. Sue, I've not taken Mythology either & it's definitely on my short list. The religion courses touched just enough on mythology to really whet my appetite. Might be a good spring/summer course? Thanks for the suggestion. Joanne, I also love ancient history. I took 6-7 courses in art school on ancient Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Crusades, Rome, & the Middle Ages. To understand the great art & architecture of that period you have to know something about the context of those civilizations. I'm weak on far eastern ancient history though & will probably take "From Yao to Mao - 5000 Years of Chinese History" from the Teaching Company. blueiris, I don't know a darn thing useful about Africa. How sad is that?! Your mention of the Middle East really got me thinking & I've decided to order "United States and the Middle East - 1914 to 9/11". It's probably well past time I learned more about this issue. Many years ago, I read a book on the history of Israel but only remember bits/pieces. So, thanks. I'm looking forward to the course. I read through the reviews for the course & Dr. Yaqub seems to be an engaging professor. Also found it humorous that some reviewers found him pro-American & other pro-Palestinian. :) It's a touchy subject & probably a course where everybody's toting their personal biases into Lecture #1. I still need to order one more class. I like to work on two at a time. Oh, in rereading my original post I noticed I left out one course I've completed..."History of the Supreme Court" (Modern History). I'm still leaning towards to US history class. After reading, "Lies My Teacher Told Me", James W. Loewen, & what I've learned from my genealogy work...I know my perspective of US history is far from accurate. A better more balance & truthful understanding of US history (including the warts) should make understanding the complexities of today's world easier. Any other classes sound interesting? I should also be looking at the economics courses!!! /tricia

I have two answers. For any appliance but the range, stainless, as you've noted, has been around and will continue to be around as long as commercial appliances are produced in stainless (which is unlikely to change). You're always going to see the high end kitchens mimicing professional to some point in the appliance arena, and that then flows down through the decorating magazines into everyone's kitchens. But when it comes to a range, which for many is the heart of the kitchen, I personally wouldn't do stainless. I put in a huge Lacanche, but I did go with a classic black enamel verses a color. We were just talking about it last night, and in my victorian kitchen, we'll probably do a colored Lacanche or Molteni because it would be appropriate in that kitchen. I am also doing another kitchen which will be more old world. In that kitchen I put in stainless everything (same as my kitchen) and a beautiful black Aga in a brick surround. Again color wasn't a great choice in there. The thing about a Lacanche or Cornue (not the "fe" but a real one) is that they don't have a bunch of fancy gadgets on them, so they're made to last 100 years plus. So if you've picked color...and you work well with it in your kitchen design, it's likely your kitchen will remain "stylish" for many years to come. Lacanche has come out with a stainless version by the way (I am not sure it's available in America). If I were to go "stainless" in a stove, I'd pick that over a Wolf or Viking any day! Mind you, these opinions come from a girl with chickens on the wall, in the chandelies and crocodile in the shower...so what do I know :oP

Way way too many to list, or even to bring to mind! My top one is probably Canon in D - My heart turns over when I listen to that song. Second, maybe River Dance. I love so many that are already listed in this thread. Someone mentioned Oh Danny Boy and in that same category is Loch Lomand, two ancient songs that I've sung thousands of times. Used to sing them to my kids when they were babies and still sing them to myself from time to time. I have some favorite hymns... Amazing Grace and This is my Father's World are a couple. Unchained Melody - Wonderful song mentioned above. Many others. I love country western and old time rock. My list would be dozens if not hundreds!