It's getting to the point that I have no choice but behave. There isn't much time for them to settle before winter. I didn't plan on getting more but got Spacecoast Dragon Prince on the lily auction (SF) for only 5.50! I couldn't resist that-I've been waiting for the price to go down on that one. Don't have room left but I will find someplace to squeeze it until next spring when I put in the next section of the front bed. And Dad had gotten a late Maryott order and shared Buddy Hudson with me as it was BOGO. SOOOOOOO looking forward to next summer with all the garden changes this year.

Thanks everyone for your answers and ideas, and especially to those who are being so supportive with the encouraging words. I just got off the phone with my son. Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. I did tell him -- and I'm sure he knows -- that I've certainly made paint booboos before, and that everyone has. No biggie. I asked him a lot of questions. He owns the house. We are in the greater Seattle area, so 9 mos. of the year it's grey and rainy. He says when he saw the gold he just kept thinking of the green and that he LOVES that green and loved how good the "fake wood" hall doors look with it. He's not happy with the blue paint, and wasn't as soon as it was done. He keeps saying he can't afford to replace the ugly blue tile right now, and I know he doesn't want to do the work. Decorpas & Funkyart, I've read you can paint tiles, but that it's a bad idea in an area that sees a lot of water and use. I looked into that too. He says he knows the kitchen is going to look bad until the tiles are gone. Funkyart, have the tiles worn well for your friend who did it? Can you please find out more? Like products? Sealer? Did she paint her grout too? I think either black or some shade of tan/brown would look good on the counters. I ran the dishwasher panel by him but he says his is so old he's not putting a dime into it. He owns the brown loveseat, bought it himself a few years ago. He owns the chair -- it's a hand-me-down antique from his dad's side of the family. It's theadbare and then some -- a pale aqua color. But he won't part with it (sentimental). The red color on the chair (which he wants) and the pillows and the draperies were my addition with the mockup; they aren't there IRL. The little rocker to the right of that one pic was left behind by a renter and he thinks she's going to come get it one of these days. The lace curtains were left by the PO. I've asked him about them and he says he likes them and wants to keep them. Go figure. He likes antiques. He dislikes modern decor. Funny, he's always been a Navajo White kind of guy in the past, so this burst of color really surprised me. I think he surprised himself, too. His LR/DR and Kitch all flow together. Like, you come up stairs from the front door (split entry) and the LR is on your right, the hallway on your left, with the kitch straight ahead. The LR opens to the DR, and the DR opens to the kitch. The wall you see painted green is the wall that separates the kitch from the LR. What you see painted blue in the above first pic is the kitch's shared wall with the DR. So at this point he says he wants to keep the gold in the LR and the half of the DR as it is (LR and DR share a common wall). He really likes my mockup and still wants to do that, and wants the green down the hallway as he has it now, and intends to paint that green in the kitchen as well. He still wants to accent with red... leaning toward the rust tone, not toward burgandy. So do you have any comments, ideas as to how to pull that off without making it look like a Christmas explosion? That green really threw me for a loop.

Around 1982 (when I lived in San Francisco), I went to Austin TX to visit my sister and happened to do a bit of shopping at a mall there. It was extremely rare for me to find anything in Texas that I would want to buy, but I did find a shirt I liked and was paying for it by check - and of course my checks were from California. When the checkout person asked me for my ID (for the check) and saw that I had a California drivers' license, she said to me, "We don't get many foreigners here." That's what Austin was like in 1982, but still a lot of people in Texas consider anyone who is not from Texas to be a foreigner. Little did the checkout person know that I was a fifth generation Texan, but of course I did not have the proper accent, having lived out of state for so many years. I have only been back to Texas once since my parents died in 2012 and have no plans for future visits there. It would be different if my relatives there showed respect for me. Kevin and I invite one niece (plus her husband) to visit us here, but I have told my sister that if she wants to visit us here again, she must leave her husband behind, as he is extremely disrespectful and rude to me. My sister in law wants to visit us, but I have not extended any invitation to her, and I know that our cowboy brother would hate it here. One of my cowboy brother's friends accused me of making a pass at him in the small town (population 1000) close to where my parents live and even told my father about this. This friend of my brother's was a very (to me) repulsive person, and when my father confronted me about this accusation, I asked him when this was supposed to have happened. He told me it was a Saturday night (specific date), and I told my father that I happened to be with him at my late grandparents' house 160 miles away on that date. Since my father then became my alibi, he turned against my brother's friend, but not before I made him aware that the accusation had to be fabricated. My father (believing he was half French, since his mother's maiden name was Jacques), believed in the Napoleonic code; i.e. guilty until proven innocent. This kind of incident has a large effect on how I feel about small towns - at least small towns in Texas and Louisiana. Just because people know your name does not mean that they like you or respect you.

That skeleton dancer brings back memories! We saw him in Auckland New Zealand on a vacation there a little over three years ago. Afterwards we had a chat with the puppeteer, who is a German iirc living in Malta but he travels around the world when he wants to visit friends and busks with his skeleton dancer. I checked my photos and it's the same guy. Loved seeing the video, thanks!