Ae2ga contacted me off line soliciting more substantive critique on her board. Apparently we weren't critical enough--step up, people! :) So I took her tile and design elements and did a couple boards. I thought that her underlying problem was that it is hard to use two vivid, contrasting colors in a design in balanced quantities and intensities without making it look like a college sports jersey (Go Cal Bears!). So I did one design where I let blues predominate and one where I let yellows take the lead, although a lot of the elements are the same. I focused on the color balance, and the styles of the different elements don't work together as well as I would like. It was devilishly hard finding things in the right color, let alone the right color and style. Anyway, feel free to rip these apart and let ae2ga know what you really think works and what doesn't with her tile. Floor: .....Yellow: Checkered Marmoleum in Butter and White Marble .....Blue: Daltile Micro Flecks in Moonlight Swim Cabinets: Kraftmaid square raised panel maple in Cinnamon Cabinet Hardware: Plymouth knob and Allison antique brass pull from eknobsandpulls.com Range: Bluestar in blue Counter: .....Yellow: Silestone Yellow Dream .....Blue: Silestone Blue Enjoy Tile: Ae2ga's tile Rangehood: Frigidaire stainless chimney hood Paint: Benjamin Moore Barely Yellow Rug: .....Yellow: Blue oriental rug from therugfactory.com .....Blue: Fronter Moroccan ivory & yellow hand-woven wool rug from Zinc Door Table: From ae2ga's pic, sorry for the loss of resolution Chairs: Furniture Classics English country ladderback side chair from homefurnitureshowroom.com (chosen to resemble ae2ga's, which lost too much resolution to use) Art: Bridge in City Park by Charles Woodward Hutson, ca 1910-1920, from 1stDibs.com Frame: .....Yellow: Paint swatch of Color Guild Galaxy Blue from myperfectcolor.com .....Blue: Paint swatch of Benjamin Moore Midnight Navy from myperfectcolor.com Lighting: .....Yellow: Ikat batik drum pendant from ShadesofLight.com .....Blue: All yellow giclee pendant chandelier from eurostylelighting.com (this is the wrong yellow and wrong style, but I couldn't find anything that really worked)

Oh Jodi...N I C E kitchen! Is that Uba Tuba Granite? Is that Travertine on the walls? Are you making stuffed peppers? I love the little niche behind the cook top. You DO need to share photos! Thanks for the compliments on my DS. He is very special to me. We are like best friends...and so much alike, it is scary sometimes. Thanks for sharing your photos every day...everyone. I just love this post and never miss checking it out. It is hard to ever pick a favorite...and comment on them all. Keep 'em coming!

Just raking leaves. The trucks are coming to do the curbside pickup of leaves. It's so much easier just raking them to the curb than the endless bagging. The leaves are hanging on the trees far longer than usual this year because of the extra-ordinarily warm September. Our yard waste pickup and leaf bagging programs are ending next week, and many trees haven't shed their leaves yet.

I did a 30 min HIIT (high intensity interval training) ...this was a hill climbing exercise. Do a 5 min warm up walk on flat land, and walk to the base of a hill...power walk/jog/run up the hill for 60 seconds, (whatever pace you need to really work hard) then turn around and stroll/light jog your way back down the hill to recover. When you get to the bottom, turn around and go as fast as you can back up the hill, and so on. Do this as many times as you can in about 15 min. Then do a moderate pace back on flat land for 5 min, followed by a 5 min walk to cool down.