You're in Michigan? In some parts of Ohio, spirea are late to leaf out this year b/c of the unusally cold early spring. I have several varieties (Anthony Waterer, Magic Carpet, Little Princess and Goldmound), all of which have pink flowers of different shades. Only the Goldmounds are covered in leaves, and that has only occurred within the last 48 hours. The others are only now starting to show some signs of life and only a little at that--but I know they'll kick in to gear once we have consistently warmer temps. Spirea (except for one or two not mentioned--can't recall the names but they have white flowers), can be cut back pretty hard without damaging them. They can get a little out of control and taking off even more than 50% helps to rejuvinate them. As for flowering, I have found that deadheading (pinching off the bloom) shortly before the blooms completely fade away and occassional light pruning through the season increases repeat, more profuse blooms.

Glad to hear those storms missed you! Hope you enjoyed your Easter dinner, it seems like you have a great attitude about all the little problems that cropped up for you, that makes all the difference! Here's hoping things smooth out from here and no more tornadoes!

I did stop by yest. & boy is it moving right along! Glad I stopped & I've assurred myself that I will indeed go by every day. Especially after what you said about your sunroom, Mollymcb. Sorry to hear about that & I hope that will turn-out to your satisfaction after all. We will have a sunroom of sorts - we have a Keeping Room that's right off the kitchen & B. Nook. The plan only had 2 windows in there, but we changed it to have a whole wall of windows. It has a fireplace & we'll also have a screened porch added right off of it. Our footers seem to be set & ready to build upon - hopefully today. It's been raining a little, but the yard is damp & not soaked or muddy. They've delivered brick for the foundation & it APPEARS to be the brick that we liked. (Our home will have a partial brick front & the rest hardie plank). They've also delivered lots of concrete blocks. The only thing that they've kinda messed-up is w/ the clearing of the backyard (that was all wooded)- we didn't want them to clear-out as much as they did, but DH says he likes the way they've done it, even tho' our backyard is way bigger than what we anticipated & we'll indeed need a riding mower after all! We were kinda looking forward to having a rather compact yard w/o too much maintenance..... but we figured that we paid for the lot so we might as well use it. We also have the biggest backyard in the neighborhood now. I guess it's just different now that nearly all of the trees that were there are gone. It certainly seems like we'll be to the framing stage within the nxt. 2 weeks! Yay!

I have been stung by designers twice with new homes. I am a professional woman but also had four small children and grew up with a limited income on a farm. So when later decorating a large home and finally had a nice income I was so intimidated by the designers who neither had children and convinced me twice to put white carpeting in my bedroom because the "children" wouldn't be in there. Pleeeze!! The designers always looked like a million bucks and I had oatmeal in my hair and flipflops on. I had no interest in oriental design but a designer convinced me it was all the rage so I spent more $$ than I should have on wall art, uncomfortable furniture and little brass or china things to sit around on shelves. I felt like a fool. But the time before I did the Ethan Allen look with floral wallpaper and my house looked like Ralph Lauren exploded in it. Never trust a designer whose name ends in "i" like Bambi, Wendi, Mandi, Tami, etc. (Just kidding all you "i" people). So where am I today? Well, we sold our large home and I gave away a lot of the furniture to the kids (they really didn't want it) and what I didn't sell in a garage sale I gave to goodwill. Some lady shopping in a thrift store is wondering who will ever buy those ugly brass bookends. The children are all grown and my hubby and I are downsizing, we bought a cute historical cottage in a great neighborhood and with the help of an architect enlarged it some and made it fit our lifestyle. Gone is the formal living room, we only have one eating space (dining room) plus the kitchen bar/island, gone is the masterbath big enough to park an 18 wheeler in, and in is relaxed and cozy with a screened porch with a fireplace on it, rose garden, open kitchen, and a small carriage house for guests. I am having a fun time decorating it with MY style whatever that is and old enough I don't care what anyone else thinks except hubby. But it took me years to get to this place. After being married 40 yrs lots of stuff has worn out or just sick of it so it's fun buying new things. I think life for everyone is more relaxed than it used to be so lots to choose from. I use magazines, this forum, travels, etc to get ideas. I am also taking it slow, not feeling it all has to be done at once so I get something and live with that and it helps me see where I want to go next. Then I confess I do have some boxes in the attic of stuff I can't part with but really don't want and neither do the kids. I guess after we're gone the kids will get rid of it. Things like wedding presents, I had a big wedding 40 yrs ago and got silver revere bowls, silver nut bowls, candy dishes, expensive china figurines, stuff you can't quite part with but hardly ever used. We just don't entertain formally anymore. Also your taste does develop over time so probably you do have to make mistakes to figure out what you like and don't like. When I first got married we bought a large mediterranean sofa with arched cushions on the back, little wooden knobs between cushions on back, large wooden arms and it was some gold/brown mix and I was so delighted that we bought a gold velvet chair to go with it. Geez!! But at the time, I thought it was terrific. We had it through lots of kids and dogs. Don't beat yourself up, pay this designer off and tell her bye, try to make some lists of what you like and develop your style and take it slow.