It has been really fun reading all these comments: I'm glad so many people shared their ideas! Please note that I never said I didn't like white! I love white flowers, and have quite a weakness for white roses--'Mme. Plantier', 'Mme. Jules Bouché', 'Mme. Hardy', loving them for their great purity, coolness, and refinement. It was the question of how to use them that I was commenting on. White goes wonderfully well with cool colors, as in Alicia's photos above, and as in linrose's first photo (and all your photos are beautiful!). I love white in dark places and at dusk, as others have said: I used to have a stand of mostly white foxglove in the shade of my apple tree which was quite wonderful, and for a long time white was the only color I could tolerate in hyacinths--I still can't stomach the red violet kinds. I love pale narcissus, pale magnolias, mature pear trees with their massive white bloom. I like impure whites, along with other pale colored roses, to relieve the heaviness of more strongly colored varieties; I just think the balancing act requires a nice judgement which I don't always observe in gardens. I've certainly thought before, in a theoretical fashion, about how to design a white garden: the delicate and varied whites of roses would be wonderful with various deep greens of box and yew, and with the silver and steel and blue hues of mediterranean aromatic plant foliage. But there are ways to use white well and other ways that, for me at least, don't work, and that's what I focused on. About the Rosa foetida. Luanne, your roses are absolutely gorgeous, but I don't think they'd work: it's pure vs. impure colors again. Nor white. I like Jeri's combination too, but R. foetida is far brighter, far more intense, than the yellow rose in the picture. My own idea would be the same...what? hue? of yellow but paler, like in the paint store when you use the same combination and ratio of pigments but at lesser intensity. Same for the green; and in a different visual arrangment: that is, stripes versus the blobs of the roses, like an iris with variegated foliage, or perhaps a perennial with tiny blooms dotted through its foliage. Or a small woody plant with variegated leaves. Or one with a basal rosette and flower spikes. In violation of my own stated theory that pure and impure colors don't mix, I'm tempted to try a companion plant with pale flowers of yellowish cream--I can't quite visualize the color, but the thought is lurking. It's almost February! Spring is getting closer!! Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. Melissa

My son also participated in competitive sports starting at nine. His sport was track/field. He went on to become a 3 time Gold Medal Junior Olympian (plus one bronze). He attended a small, private high school & the principal & track coach convinced him to run high school track "for the sake of his school". He became team captain in his sophmore year & a couple of his indoor records still stand. He also coached Special Olympic track kids while still in high school. Coaches...OMG! On the competitive team they pushed so hard our son went down on the track & ended up in a cast from stress fractures when he was eleven. At age twelve, on the way to a meet in CA from CO, the coach stopped & had him run in Death Valley in July. He had to run behind the car for 3 miles. We'd taken the route from Las Vegas to LA because the kids all wanted to see Death Valley & Scotty's Castle. If I'd have known the coach would have DS run in that heat never would we have agreed to that route! DS ran the 4x800 relay for several years. Once, Dustin (3rd runner) dropped the baton trying to hand off to DS. The coach had Dustin carry the baton with him including the shower, school, in bed, everywhere for an entire week. He was ridiculed at school. They were 10 when that happened & preparing for the national Hershey's Track & Field event in Hershey, PA. That was the relay teams' first national qualification & they took a bronze. The coach also had the kids on a diet that was troublesome. It was just too much food even for growing boys running 20 miles +/week. We had frequent tummy issues & upchucking of meals. I honestly don't know if the competitive team or the high school team was the worst. There was lots of pressure from both. Punitive punishments were common & public. Overall though, DS hit the deck running after college graduation knowing & understanding rough competition. Now, he's a volunteer/parent soccer coach for my granddaughter. I haven't watched him coach but am told that he's like a pied piper for the kids. So, I'm guessing he learned a thing or three from his own days of having fiercely competitive coaches. I'll ask him about it over Christmas. It's also about time I took the boxes of medals so he can store them instead of us! /tricia

You've got some great advice above. 14 year olds are little hormone casseroles and I'm sure they must feel terrible about themselves when their emotions get the best of them. Just give them some slack on the little things and choose your battles wisely. Like others here, I was very consistent when my kids were young, in fact, I found out later that my sisters used to talk about me behind my back because they thought I was too strict with my son's behavior. None of my sisters had kids at that time and later one of them told me that she used to think I was too strict but that she realized how well my kids listened to me because they knew I meant what I said. I didn't give my kids warnings over and over. I told them what behavior I expected and if they didn't follow it, we left or stopped what we were doing. Sometimes I felt like I was punishing myself because we'd have to leave stores, resturaunts, even grandpa and grandmas house. It was exhausting, but so worth it. That said, I thought 14 was the toughest age with my DS. He seemed to think that because he was now physically bigger than me, that we were equals. WRONG. There were a few times when he spoke disrepectfully to me, thought he was smarter than I am and was just a pain in the butt. One thing that worked for me my son was disrepectful to me is my husband (his dad) made it clear to our son that not only was I his mother and it was wrong to speak to me that way, but my husband would not tolerate anyone speaking to his wife disrespectfully, he said "don't you dare speak like that to my wife, I will not allow anyone to speak to her like that and if it continues, you will deal with me" Now, my husband isn't mean or scary or violent or anything like that but it made quite an impression on my son. 14 was a struggle but the rest of his teenage years were mostly alot of fun. Teenagers are such interesting people and its so fun to watch the little person you nurtured grown into a wonderful young adult. It really helps to keep your sense of humor through this too.

Thanks brickeyee and Ron for this info! It really helps me learn what to ask the carpenter about. scsr5200, thanks so much for all of the points that you mentioned, especially the electrical one. There is an outlet in the baseboard that's about a foot from the right edge of the window, and on the exterior side (the enclosed porch side) is an outlet about in the same place. It's a good point to worry about how the wiring is going through the wall. The house was originally built in 1897, and I think the woodwork (baseboards, trim, etc) is from the original construction, but I could be wrong. Our house inspector, who knows old houses, said there are signs of remodeling circa 1950's, which is when the previous owners bought the house. Ron, my gut feeling was that the whole baseboard would have to come off, but the room is so long, that taking the whole thing off might cause more problems than cutting it in place with the sawzall. At least, thanks to you all, I can have an intelligent conversation with the carpenter about the options. :-) Thanks again! LA