Wow everyone, thanks for the input and the compliments, we are at that stage where we are just tired of remodeling, even though we are in the home stretch, so it's really nice to have positive feedback! Suero and Justgotabme, I really am liking the idea of the pergola it's something I hadn't really considered before. Thanks Suero for trying the cedar shakes on the gable ends, I'm sure it didn't do much since it just accentuates the low slung roofline and that's something we'd like to down play. Oceanna I completely understand what you are saying about painting. We do have a really good painter who has done work for us for years and is very reasonable so I could ask him what he would charge. Scoobyruby I hadn't thought about natural wood like cedar, I may have to think about that one, if we don't choose to paint the brick it could be really complimentary to the tones of the brick, but less cottage like I would guess. Socks and Megsy it's good to know that we don't *have* to paint the brick since it appears that people on here don't hate it, which is great. I do think better landscaping and shutters would go a long way in making things look better. I had to laugh at the white shutter/white sock analogy, we think they look like white socks too! :-) Kitchenkelly, I have long admired your kitchen and your photos of your backyard so your compliment really made me smile! One of the best parts of my job as a writer is that I've been privileged to write about some amazing homes, both large and small so I've been filing away ideas for a long time now. My husband loves my job and hates it all at the same time. I do a lot of designer and renovation homes so I come home and say things like "hey we can take that wall down!" When he gives me the "no we can't" look, I simply say, sure we can I've seen it done! I'm amazed each time I do a renovation story, I've found over the years that most of the time it's the homeowners with the vision. Few, if any, of the homes I've covered used high powered design or architectural firms to create their dream homes, most of them, like me, have just had a picture in their heads that they are lucky enough to make into a reality! I'm not knocking either designers or architects, if my MIL hadn't had either she would still be trying to make decisions and with their help she and my FIL have a lovely home! And like it has been said before, good architectural plans can often save you money and give you a more sound structure in the end. My husband has been playing around all day with Photoshop Elements to try and color the house, we just need to figure out how to import BM or SW paint colors, so far all he's been able to apply are crayola primary colors lol! Kat :)

I liked Leonie Swann's "Three Bags Full". At least the sheep acted quite naturally which is more than can be said for some of the animal detectives! Being winter and cold, windy, raining etc. (Like the UK Summer this year apparently) I have been curling up under my cheap misprinted Winnie the Pooh blankie and listening to tapes so that I can keep my frozen mitts under wraps. I bought a lot of them from the local library who are selling old and donated, almost new, tapes. I like books I have already read, I find them easier to follow. I also like women readers better as they can deepen their voices for male characters but men don't sound right becoming women! What do other listeners think? I have been trying to get Kate Fenton's two early books from the Australian library system but no luck so far. I enjoyed her books very much and was reminded of her from another thread. Almost Spring, so a lot of my reading will be garden catalogues!

Sheri, thanks to you and your daughter! That's the best explanation I've heard/read. It makes sense to me although I'm long past 'the window of opportunity' for most appreciating that sort of literature. Come to think of it, though, dystopian novels are 'popular' with many older readers as well -- I'm thinking about McCarthy's The Road, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. It seems the bleaker, the better for those readers who perhaps share with the younger cohort some of the same feelings of impotence. Whoa! Holidays in POW camps, etc. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that, but I have to admit going on 'murder tours' of the East End, for example, so perhaps I'm just as perverse in my way...although I seem to have a lot of company. Vee, those medical crises articles and books are perennially popular. We reporters used to joke about getting 'Disease of the Month' assignments, as I'm sure reporters still do. It seems to be natural to develop hypochondria even if one has never experienced it before. Annpan, my empathy and sympathy. I mistook shingles for a psoriasis flare-up until, like you, I sensed this was something different. Shingles be gone and don't come back!

I just finished While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart. 2.0 stars, and that's being generous. I only finished because a friend recommended it and I thought it was worth sticking it out, but it really wasn't. It's a story that goes back and forth between 1944 Paris and 1953 Santa Cruz, CA. A newborn Jewish infant is handed off to a kindly French railway worker as his parents are being herded into a train car headed for Auschwitz. Nine years later the Jewish parents, who survived, want him back. Coincidentally I lived in Santa Cruz at one time and it's not very accurately portrayed, other than being on the coast and having a boardwalk. At one point one of the characters takes a short taxi ride to the airport to fly to Paris and the nearest one at that time would have either been San Jose (only a municipal airport then), but more likely San Francisco, over 70 miles away. It's a lot of reading for not much story. The writer used "ironic" 8 times, enough to make the word go ding-ding. What was "ironic" about what a person said was never explained. The author used "play date" for two kids getting together in 1953. My daughter was born in 1976 and we didn't use that term. Google said it came into being in 1975, but I missed the boat. Anyway, I hate it when authors use anachronistic terms.