Nope, you guys missed a VERY important step. The very first thing you do with new mail order bands after taking them out of the shipping box and taking off any shipping paraphenalia is to fill a garbage can to the point where the water will completely cover the whole plant and to submerge it for 30 minutes to an hour. The point here is to kill any critters that came with your plants, especially of the spider mite variety. It also rehydrates everything that dried out during shipping. Then I keep them in the band pots in the shade for a couple of days and then, when I have time, I pot them up to one gallon pots. No fertilizer in the one gallon pots until you see they are established and growing well.

This is a response to the post by lee676 Excuse Me!? You sound like a cheating husband to me. This IS the WHOLE story. At first, I wasn't snooping. But once I saw that he was having conversations with one of my friends, OF COURSE I AM GOING TO LOOK FURTHER INTO IT!!! I bought him the computer! Then fixed it up for him!! HE ALSO has access to my computer and information as well!!! I wouldn't blame him if he wanted to look into my archives!!! If I'm not doing anything wrong, then who cares!!! It should have been the same for him!! I TRUSTED him!!! With all of my heart!! Oh and by the way, if you have the hard drive, you have the information!! I had two different people telling me that they can extract the information that I need off of that Hard Drive!!! You need to think about what you say before you say it!! ( * Posted by lee676 (My Page) on Sun, Jun 4, 06 at 6:17 So let's see, you snooped on your husband's computer ("without even thinking"), and found a short letter he wrote to an ex-friend of yours, whom you don't like in part because of her overactive sex life and in part because she doesn't look pretty enough (why else would "not being the prettiest thing in this world" be relevant?). You say you "totally trusted him", yet you continued to snoop in his sent email box even after "accidently" opening the first message. Then you downloaded a program that would hack into his Yahoo archives. If there is lack of trust in your marriage, I'd have to say it goes both ways. So your hubby wrote a letter to someone you once thought enough of to be friends with. So he finds her good-looking. Are you so insecure in your relationship that you can't stand the thought that he might find other women attractive? I don't think you've told the whole story here, but I can't blame him for being upset at what you did. I certainly would be too if I found my wife installing software on my computer for surreptiously reading my private correspondence, even if I was completely innocent. (I don't understand what the point of trashing the computer but saving the hard drive is, though.) That said, this isn't about you being lazy in bed or anywhere else. This is about a breakdown in trust, and lack of responsive listening. Something had to have led up to this.

I typed a response last night by DD borrowed my computer and I forgot to post.:( The rug you have looks good. It doesn't have to stand on its own; it's part of a whole. I am like you (I think). I don't like any one item in my home to stand out, or things to look too decorated and deliberate. I like the yellow rugs for your chairs, but they may be just a tad too much "on the nose." I liked wool sisal for your room, but I love texture. I like everything to meld together to create a calm, comfortable whole. I want people to say "I love this room", not "I love that rug". To me, the later speaks to the luck of a purchase, the former speaks to my ability to create an atmosphere. To me, the addition of the yellow tee-shirt pillow cinched it. But, I agree, the little shelf needs work to fit in. You have good instincts; trust them. Dee

Sorry I've taken so long to get back here. Thanks for your responses! There's so much good info that I want to respond to, but it's taking me a while to sort it all out. First, I should address one big concern. If we do make the eating area our only dining space, we still have the living room up front that could become a dining room if we ever felt we needed it for us or resale. I am concerned about the eating area being narrow, and if we go that direction, I'm pulling the peninsula in by several inches to gain at least a little more room. rhome - you're correct, we do have an island now, but it's kind of small to me (2.5 x 3.5). I don't know if we can make it much wider, so if we made it longer, would it seem ... spindly? Anyone know how much space I should have around an island? One of my annoyances with my current kitchen is being unable to open the cabinets opposite the dishwasher while the dishwasher is open. I guess, with the new storage I'll be adding, I could try to store things there that don't tend to go through the dishwasher. :) lavender_lass - I appreciate your worries, but I didn't find your first response negative; you brought up valid points that do need to be thought about, and we have. Also, I love that you woke up thinking about my kitchen! I wake up around 3 a.m. every night/morning with thoughts about the kitchen circling relentlessly through my brain. That's a new thing for me, and I am not loving it. The dining room wall isn't load-bearing, and doesn't contain any ductwork, or anything else that can't be moved (The benefit of an unfinished basement), so that can definitely be moved. The reason we can't change the windows in the eating area is because we somewhat recently put money into replacement windows there, and that means the foot, it is down, on reworking that area. But the dining room has the old windows. I'm glad most don't think the pantry is a crazy idea. I like that I'll be able to bring some things up from the basement (and then maybe we'll finish that space if we ever get through the kitchen.) More thoughts to come, and I'll take a stab at drawing up an island layout.