Good to hear! I have mine in pots still. They'll probably stay there for a while yet until I can find a place for them. The heucherella has a small root system so it'll probably remain in the pot until the end of summer when it can have the chance to grow more roots and I can keep a better eye on it. Once plants are in the ground they are mostly on their own. Here are my new heuchies. The back five and the one in the front left came from In The Country, they are (left to right): Heucherella Honey Rose, heucheras Sugar Berry, Sweet Tart, Glitter, Blondie, and Peppermint. The dark one, Blackout, came from Santa Rosa Gardens. The last one is my poor little Southern Comfort I nearly lost that I've been rooting. All there was left of it this spring were two small pieces of crown and no roots. Both were doing okay but then suddenly the tinier crown got eaten or something and I think it's a goner, but the bigger piece is slowly growing. Karen

Your room also sounds like it will be beautiful. What kind of bulbs will you be using? I'm sure you know that the bulb choice can drastically affect how the lighting comes across. For instance: even though the fixtures aren't specifically intended for fluorescents, we decided to use CFLs in our master bath. We have both bright-white and daylight (daylight in the downlights, bright white in the sconces closer to our faces) and they have *very* different effects on all the colors in the room, including our skin. I'm guessing that if you like the Alabama White in the large-window room, you want something with a higher CRI (and consider the kelvin factor if you choose cfls) than the bulbs you have tried the Alabama White with so far. Maybe you want to get some samples of colors on posterboard or watercolor paper, and look at them with different kinds of light bulbs in the fixtures to see what works best. We went through this with the light over our dining table recently. Comparison of the micromini/mini-twister bulbs from Lowes: Daylight (6500K) was *too* blue for dining ease, but when I put them in my office lamp they're wonderful; they make me feel like there's a window in my dark little corner :). Bright white was just right (3500K), and 'soft white' (2700K) was so *red* it gave me a headache and made my eyes play tricks on me. The higher Kelvin number was better for us. (HD had only the soft white, not the others.) I love that painting, btw -- so dynamic! I love somewhat expressionistic takes on landscapes. (I also love non-representational art, but there's always a soft spot in my heart for the landscape) The sky is fascinating. Do you know the artist? (btw, I just have to wonder to whom BM was marketing that paint color -- having just seen a documentary on the Freedom Riders, the name 'Alabama White' doesn't seem any too complimentary to me...maybe you can rename it something less 'incendiary'?)

I have already planned a party for that day and I have 24 pairs of special solar eclipse glasses on the ready. I am so excited for this and we are less than 100 miles from what they are saying is the absolute best place to view this in Kentucky. I am having a party and I have invited people but they seem more excited about a party than they do the eclipse. I have told them that this is a historic event and quite possibly the last one I will see in my life. The small town in Kentucky is really gearing up for this thing and so am I. It is also the day after my birthday. I'm in. I already scheduled my day off work like 3 months ago.

A group of 50+ of us went to a state park in TN (east of Nashville) so we were there for totality (2 minutes, 34 seconds) It was so cool watching the moon eat the sun, bit by bit. At totality, everyone whipped off their eclipse glasses and cheered and was just amazed. I stood there looking up--those 2.5 minutes passed really quickly. I got to see the diamond ring effect both at the beginning and end of the eclipse, as well as being able to see Mars. It didn't get as dark as I expected--we could see stars and Mars, but it wasn't dark--it was deep twilight. I didn't take pictures, but friends who are with me are sharing theirs. It was an amazing experience and well worth the 9+ hour drive!