Oh, I am stiff and sore!! Got the back yard raked, not that it is that large, but it is my first big job of the year. Two loads of laundry dried and away - so happy. Now it is raining, so I do wish I gotten some seeds scattered - maybe tomorrow. Well, you all guessed (or knew?) correctly. Most etymologists believe that barbecue derives from the word barabicu found in the language of the Taíno people of the Caribbean and the Timucua of Florida, and entered European languages in the form barbacoa. It has been suggested that both the word and cooking technique migrated out of the Caribbean and into other languages and cultures, with the word (barbacoa) moving from Caribbean dialects into Spanish, then Portuguese, French, and English. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first recorded use of the word in the English language as a verb in 1661, in Edmund Hickeringill's Jamaca Viewed: "Some are slain, And their flesh forthwith Barbacu'd and eat." It also appears as a verb in the published writings of John Lederer, following his travels in the American southeast in 1672. The first known use of the word as a noun was in 1697 by the British buccaneer William Dampier. In his New Voyage Round the World, Dampier writes: And lay there all night, upon our Borbecu's, or frames of Sticks, raised about 3-foot (0.91 m) from the Ground. When I first went to the Caribbean it was to St. Lucia. There most households cooked on a coal-pot like the picture here - no luau type feasts, certainly no alligator!! The top was a type of olla, or clay pot. We bought chunks of hardwood charcoal at the market, and actually used them to grill chicken and fish. So there you go!! the weather is so nice, maybe TM got his boat out? Perhaps he'll tell us later. So for Annette, Cynthia and Bobbie: Clever bunch - I'll have to try harder next week. See you then!! Nancy.

Kikuyu grass is probably the most commonly seen subtropical turf in older gardens here in coastal northern California and the inner Bay Area. It is also rampant along rail road tracks throughout the SF Bay Area. I personally like it better than Bermuda grass because it is a lot more drought tolerant and slightly less invasive, but it does not stay evergreen if it gets any regular winter frost of more than a degree or two for more than a few hours, or it will go brown. My neighbor across the street never waters her Kikuyu grass lawn and it is always at least slightly green, if not lush looking, but my part of Berkeley seldom freezes. Stripped Washingtonia robusta palms can look almost as smooth as your photos, but the trunk color is wrong, they would be a pale tan color with more vertical texture/grooves to the trunks, not smooth and pale white as in your photos. Mature Livistona palms are infrequent enough around here that I still wouldn't guarantee the naming unless you also had up close photos of the foliage and flowers/fruits, but the smoothness of the trunks doesn't correspond well with descriptions for Livistona chinensis.

Mindy - we need put a holler out for the real architects to look at this. I'm a bit nervous treading in their area of expertise & I don't have the right technical language, but this is what I see: I understand that you didn't do a wrap around porch because of the cost. I don't know how much it would increase the price, but if you just extended the porch across the whole front and added a teeny porch across the back at the master bedroom, you would be able to straighten out some of the "kinks" in your roofline. Even if you stayed with a hipped roof, you would now have one main, long ridgeline and it might be easier to build. It would raise the highest point of the roof by 1 - 2 feet depending on the pitch. In any event, it would give you a simpler roof which, I think, would better suit the look you are going for. Also, please, don't spec the windows with the lights as they are drawn in the elevations. Lights should be more vertical that horizontal. I might lose the sidelight by the back door. I don't think you are getting much bang for your buck with that. I don't know what your exterior back doors are like, but we just put in a new steel backdoor at our current house so DH could redo the doggie door. Anyway, it has glass in the upper portion which would probably bring as much light into your mudroom as you are trying to get with that sidelight. Again, I don't know how much cost the extra porches would add & I haven't tried to reconfigure the basic house, at all. I'm just looking for easy ways to make the roof plan less complicated. HTH - Jo Ann

My day started like any other work day. Alarm goes off at 6:15am. I stumble out to the sofa, pick up my laptop, check email and the KT. I add a photo to the daily "...Show me yours" post and then check my Facebook page. Might play a round or two of Spider Solitaire. 7:15am, I close my laptop and head to the shower, plugging in my curling iron and clothes iron before hopping in. 7:30am, dry hair, put on makeup, press clothes (after I've sorted through and rejected a number of options), dress. 8:00am, take vitamins, maybe eat a bite of something. 8:15am, head to work. 8:30am, work day and headaches begin. I check the KT and FB several times a day just as a sanity check and mental health exercise. :-) After that, it's anyone's guess. Work as a designer is so deadline and project driven that I seldom get a break of any kind during the day, and often have to cancel lunch or evening plans. Once home again (can be any time between 6:30pm and 10pm) I often shower and then settle in on the sofa again and watch TV programs I've recorded. And of course check all my fav places while watching TV. Midnight - 1:30am, head to bed only to start it all over again the next morning. ugh Jodi-