I can say that this year's shipment of BB (at least to my area) was extremely goofed up. Something tells me the grower for Bailey didn't overwinter them correctly or used a bad potting mix or something. The gallon pots had tons of foliage, and in the ground quickly grew leggy stems to 3x3, but will NOT produce buds. To boot these are in the same soil as T&S, regular ES, and Forever & Ever's, all of which bloomed and continue to bud. Since I put 2 in the ground back in May there has only been a total of ONE new flower bud, and that took 2.5 months to form. It's weird to ask "where's the blooming?" let alone "where's the reblooming?" A good winter of my BB going commando should set them on track next spring. White Out isn't practical enough for my large beds. The reblooming mophead family definitely has room for some larger white specimens that behave differently than either of these.

And it smells like suntan lotion. I run a school in my house and I keep telling the kids, 'this is what Hawaii smells like...' They say, 'Yum!' I think they want to eat Hawaii!

I'm quite certain that some family members were mortified when I hung a brass chandelier in the dining room. And to add insult to injury, I've added a whole slew of brass accessories to that room. There's another room in the house that's turning all brassy, as well. I've started noticing more and more brass colored finishes in lighting, frames, accessories, hardware, etc., but they've renamed it "aged gold" "antique gold" or some other similar thing...anything except calling it that "B" word. I think many people's only exposure to brass was the faux antique brass of the '70's, followed by the tinny extra-shiny plated brass of the '80's. I know mine was, and when I had enough adventures that I had seen actual solid brass in all it's various stages of patina, well, there's just nothing else like it. I passed up an old brass candlestick lamp at the thrift the other day (I already have too many lamps) but now I wish I had bought it.

It reminded me of Jonathan Adler..a very colorful guy in all senses..rather, him saying in one of his books he doesn't like neutrals-unless they're from nature, like clay, or yarn, or stone, or wood, or.. When in nature-whatever it might be-we're deeply touched by very different settings ..I don't know why but let's pretend that's because there's invisible hand of the Master that put it all together, and we don't know another worlds, not yet, so we are touched by ours. When in home-if one can get one seventieth of that Master's touch..it changes our general connotations. Because there's texture, variation, light, all this, yes-plus something made by hand, taking this natural things, clay and wood, etc, and working on them, and loving them while working. Simple things-yet they all get to sing. I know this because for example I also have variated terracotta tile in the bath-and it's less variated, just three colors..and it's textured custom too..and we were there when the guys from the shop were working on color and texture , working on samples, showing them to us..we waited with them, we were witnesses to that process, and you see the real excitement and passion that goes into creating and playing with things like that. (they liked the pallette themselves and made a sample of it for the store, and called it "April's". lol) And this excitement, passion and patience is what probably makes what was clay and wood shine under that light. It brings together what they are-natural materials-and what people with passion and patience wished them to be, and got them to be. So. That's why I love my grays and my browns.. Even though my house is pretty colorful-no one will call it neutral It's true, they remind me some scenes from my childhood which I percieve as happy. And all sorts of things. The juxtaposition. Of course I prefer certain grays and certain browns, that's normal. For example I love mostly very warm grays. And (surprize) mostly warm browns)) But also because some of them, I witnessed to be made, I knew them to be painstaikingly made, or I knew nobody made it, it was created like that- and I was just lucky to spot it, like a piece of gray marble with golden rusty streaks..and it makes it a bit more magical. Sense of discovery can come in many shapes. It can be quiet and subdued. And nothing we generaly like even maybe. Yet it still will be a sense of discovery. I would love to do truly neutral room one day, just like a challenge even. yet I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to pull it off..