Some people don't know this, but cuttings taken from older or woody growth are not the best, they can take a very very long time to take off. It is possible that that is what you started with here. Ideally, cuttings should come from neither old nor very new growth, but somewhere in between. I was in a round robin last fall and two of the varieties I took from the selection were obviously older growth. I hesitated because I knew they probably wouldn't be good, but I really wanted them so took them anyway. It has been about 8 months now and compared to the other cuttings I planted at the same time, one of them has just now sent out a vine, the other has grown maybe two leaves. So, for anyone that does not know, if buying, selling, or trading, old growth cuttings are not desirable!

Hi Bigkahuna, I was at my sisters this weekend and typed a great response but she has terrible signal there so it wouldn't send so I'm just now getting to respond to your wonderful ideas. You have given me such good thing to change and such great help. Master bedroom: I had forgotten about the carpet size so that's a great solution. I wanted to enlarge the laundry room and make the master bath smaller so this will work well for both areas. I will re-work the other areas you mentioned and each of these are exactly what I wanted. I felt the Master bath and childrens bath both have too much wasted space but didn't know how to fix it. I had a shower bench on my list but I forgot to add it or make the shower big enough so I'm going to enlarge the shower, too. I wanted a place to sit especially for shaving. I also like the ideas for the closet to make it wider. I LOVE the suggestion for moving the kitchen/pantry back. It's amazing how when we started I thought 14 feet long would be plenty large but once we stepped it off I wish it was BIGGER!!! We had already decided to add an extra window to the dining area but hadn't reflected that on the plan. It's one of our top things to have plenty of windows. We decided today to extend the laundry room to include the area that's on the side porch. It won't add much but will give us a tad more room. We talked at length about the fire place in the beginning of the plan and the reason we put it there was so it wouldn't compete with the piano as a focal point. My lovely 100 year old black grand piano will be in the front bay window so we are hoping to balance the living area. We will have a custon entertainment center on the other wall. Is there something else we could do or another way to arrange the room?? I'd like to ask your opinion on making the kitchen sink run mimick the front windows? It would be similar to the photo below. By pushing the fridge/pantry wall back we hope to have 4 feet between the fridge and counter and 3 1/2 (maybe 4) between the pantry and end of counter. What are your ideas on this versus the straight sink run?? Also, the pantry will not be as big as shown. It will be a step-in and not take up the large space as shown. I really like the idea of pushing it back. Thank you again, bigkahuna. I don't know if I've made any sense at all but hopefully have. Any more ideas??? HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL THE WONDERFUL, SWEET PRECIOUS MOMS HERE!! I hope you and your families had a wonderful weekend. Sunny

I'm with heather! I guess I don't mind an occasional snowy day. Some days here, you look out the window and it is so beautiful, it looks just like being on the inside of a snow globe with huge fluffy white snow coming down.... only for hours and hours and hours and hours.... We have lake effect snow and often get 10-12 inches a day for several days a week. Last year we had only a 'little bit' of snow at 169 inches for the season. The year before it was about 200 inches. What I hate is dealing with it. The snow moving, slush, piling up in the yard (we end up with about a 12-14 foot pile in front of our house), having to wear snow 'gear', walking puppies in it 3 times a day then having to restrict them to the kitchen until they are dry so they don't mess up the furniture, slippery roads, I could go on and on... No, I don't much like snow.. or actually winter! If Gary's job were as portable as mine, we'd go south for the winter :-) But it's not... so we wait for retirement....

I had similar shock about parents still living. The parents of one of my brother's lifelong friends came to his gathering. The friend, who passed years back following a motorcycle accident, was the same age as my brother. My parents died in 1975 and 2000. Someone told me this guy's parents were coming and I was shocked to think his parents were still alive. I was so happy to meet them and I couldn't help but saying "you're so young" when I met them. I guess that was better than "you're still alive". I was just in the mindset that the parents of people my age are no longer with us though of course that's not true in many cases.