You might want to post this in the regular Florida forum. This one is just for plant exchanges and lots of people don't check it.

It all started with a good sized frog that we would see in and around our small garden tool shed at the pool. We live just north of Orlando and recently moved. When we moved, the shed went into storage - for 4 1/2 months. When we finally moved the shed from storage, guess who was there, healthy as could be - and with a friend, no less! We had no idea the 'poor things' were in there, much less how they could still be alive in that heat, with no food or water. And boy, can they hide!! Now the 6'h x2'x2' is home to as many as eight Cuban Tree Frogs every day! I think all but one are female, that's how they roll, one guy with his harem! They sleep all day and hunt all night. Our daughter volunteered to annihilate them for us. Those darn frogs have decimated our green anole population. Our backyard has many brown anoles, but only ONE green left. He cocks his head watching me, then goes back to licking the sweet base of the flower buds. All my life living in central Florida I have adored green anoles. Never even knew about or saw a brown one until vacationing near St.Pete Beach as an adult. Now they've moved farther north and browns are everywhere, and greens are scarce. Brown ones are much more aggressive, especially in mating season. I'll try to attach recent pix I took of 2 males fighting to the death. Over a girl. Not a pretty girl. Little eggs they buried are currently hatching and we have tiny brown babies all over the place. How I wish they were green... STOP WISHING - GET RID of the___ FROGS !!!!!!!

Dear all--thank you so much for these responses. I knew I could count on GWers for wisdom. This situation is ripe for overthinking, something I am much prone to anyway...it is really fascinating to me how these issues of home, personified in the kitchen, are really so deep and wide. I want to respond to each individually but everything seems to be intersecting--so this is for all of you--an I'd love to keep the conversation going-- first things first--jaeedwards, you are absolutely right, and one thing that slows me down is this guilt I feel that I sometimes lose sight of what really matters. It is hard to tease apart materialism from practicality from real need sometimes. But something you said really made a practical point to me--one of the main things I want IS a table!!! Right now we usually sit crammed around the island with our knees squished, and everyone leaves too soon because we're uncomfortable--so that is in my top three--because that IS where memories are made. The more practical I can be, the better. I am trying to say to myself, we are so blessed, this is a wonderful house, life is good, a few changes would make things a little easier, and sooner or later we will move because it's practical and life will continue to be good. As a friend of mine said to me recently, we have privileged problems. Pbris--yay--okay, I think I'm going to use that copper hood, darn it! Seriously, after reading what you said I am fairly certain that most of the changes we want to make are really just for us. That's why the giant bids stopped us short. I think this house is just about maxed out in terms of value, and spending $220K (yes, that's what the bids were!) makes no sense. So--Bmore and cooksnsews--we need to figure out what we would spend on ourselves. (This is where DH and I might have some problems--he is an ascetic Yankee and I am a hedonistic southerner, LOL) Actually, when I think about it, if I just painted the cabinets white I would be so much happier! Farmhouse--what you say makes a lot of sense--unfortunately the two bids were quite close. That's why I got so discouraged--I assumed the first one was just insane and the second would be more realistic. What I am thinking is we should do minor things, and make sure that nothing we do precludes something bigger later, if we decided to really stay. It is weird though when you suddenly start thinking about moving...your heart isn't in the work as much. Mamadada, you understand these crazy MA prices!! We are lucky in that our home has basically held its value (down a little from the crazy inflated values of a year or two ago, but still a lot more than we paid for it). About yards, I am actually a fan of small gardens...they are much less overwhelming and I can be sort of OCD and pluck every stray blade of grass :). But my ever-larger sons really want room for the pitchback and a basketball hoop... I did go to some open houses on Sunday. It was educational. One of them was this lovely Victorian but walking into it just made me tired...I could just feel things breaking as I stood there! I think our next house (if there is one) might be of a more recent vintage. That or already COMPLETELY overhauled (dreaming...). Thank you all again. This forum is wonderful.

We have a veritable orchestra of Cuban Tree Frogs frolicking under our bedroom window. The vocal evidence of amphibious love is deafening at 2am!! While I do NOT want to obliterate them, I would LOVE to discourage them from using this garden space as their little private Club Med. Help, anyone??????