We moved in two days ago Kim :) It's taken this long to get the internet working (and it only works on the back side of the house LOL) More work to do I guess. Thank you :) We do love the house and grounds, although the sheer size is intimidating as you think about cleaning it LOL More so as we've moved in somewhat. Probably more so after we have 20 overnight guests next weekend. It was the oldest B&B in the pacific northwest, (35 years) prior it was an apartment building and prior to that a hospital, and then the original owners had it until their deaths. (early 20's) We are lucky that the folks who did the big restoration in the 60's and 70's didn't follow current fashion (painting all of the wood for instance) and they were sensative to the home. In addition, when the bathrooms were added in the last 20 years (another owner who was also sensative to the house) it was done incredibly well, taking a few feet of space from each room, but integrating them well (some B&B's cheap out and put the tubs and sinks in the rooms). They will be easy to upgrade to more victorian features (is that an upgrade backgrade?) There are three buildings on site. One is considered the carriage house (but really is the base of a 3 1/2 story water tower we will eventually rebuild). The other is the original gardners cottage. They take up one lot and the gardens take up the other. Talk about intimidating...too much garden LOL And on top of too much garden...I have 400 house plants (maybe not that but five or six per room). The poor things are doomed in my care. I'm thinking of a sidewalk give away very very soon to save their lives! Poor dears...even my husband feels sorry for them. I tried to convince my mother that they are guest gifts and that guests (her) must take one each time they visit but she hasn't gone for it yet (I sometimes think if she were senile my life would be much easier...) Today we turn the old office off the kitchen (our future family dining room after we remodel the kitchen, but that's a few years off) into a play room for DS. I hope this grand old home likes thomas the train LOL Oh here's a funny....we get about a dozen visits a day asking if we have a vacancy! It was funny but is getting annoying LOL They want tours and won't always take "private home" for an answer LMAO. "Oh dear...no rooms? Well can we just see it?" No go knock on the neighbors house and ask for a tour heh heh Oh let's see...nope not a B&B (I'm not nice enough since DS was born and keeps me up all night) :) And how many bathrooms? Sigh...12 Do you think the B&B potential guests might think that the tour includes a once in a lifetime opportunity to clean a victorian bathroom? I might let them in....

I love how you said that your garden is more than the sum of its parts. I believe that is so true for all of us. I am so sorry to hear that you lost your son. I cannot imagine the pain that results from such a loss, and I believe that the garden is one way to find peace and healing after suffering such a great loss of someone you loved so much. I never set out to become a gardening maniac or garden-obsessed, but I found it happened anyway. Gardening isn't something I do, it is all about who I am. It isn't a hobby, it isn't an area of interest, it isn't a way to fill time....it is who I am, and what I do. It feeds my soul. I suspect the same is true for you.

Like I said before, I'm voting for HC and I'm basing my opinions on what she says and does, not what someone else says about her. I've followed her political career for decades. Asking legitimate questions about judgement and competence is not equating the candidate to a "monster." I pay zero attention to the caricatured talking points on HC from her opponents. Asking legitimate questions about judgement and competence is not putting a qualifier on her or intimating that she is outrageously horrible. And telling a left wing democrat that they are part of that " right wing hammering away at her and hoping that negative force they've created around her sinks into the American psyche" seems a little bit overwrought to me to put it as delicately as I can. It is true, I have never heard HC ask someone to literally stop picking on her, but it seems to me like you are intimating Tibbrix, that I am picking on HC and asking me to stop. Forgive me if I am misinterpreting your remarks. It's not a particularly interesting discussion to me, sorry to say, because there is nothing true or positively impressive to me in that line of defense of HC. So if you want to shut down discussion, mission accomplished on my end.

Yo, Lilo, I know going to the theater is not really an option for you adn the video store is your venue. Hope you get your equipment fixed soon because there is a lot of great stuff out there!