Skaterio and Cube, I was thinking the same thing--FLYDADY. It's a great Web site for getting your house to seem more homey. Yes it's bizzare and out there, but you don't have to do all the things on the Web site, pick and choose what works for you. Once you free your home from CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) then you can invite people over. I have about one dinner party per season and invite people who make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It's a great pick me up, the whole process--getting the house ready, cooking, etc. Also, it might be helpful to find a spiritual community to join if you haven't already. I mean I should talk since I don't belong to one, but the idea is that a spiritual community can help people fee loved and appreciated and connected to a higher power. I was speaking with a pastor last year and he told me that your complaint is one of the prime one he hears from everyone. A couple of years ago I got a book called "Minyan" by Rami Shapiro which is about developing a spriritual practice. Minyan is a term in Judiasm which refers to a group of ten men, which is how many people you need to start a worship group. Anyway, the rabbi who wrote the book developed ten spiritual practices which, according to the review on Amazon, "ground a person in divine reality and balance external and internal affairs." Anyway, the book isn't pie in the sky, it is very practical and accessible to people of any religion or even agnostics. One of the practices is to read inspirational books every night. Like a devotion, read a couple of pages as your before bed reading. That's how I found the "Art of Happiness" book. Two other books I have especially enjoyed are: "Attitudes of Gratitude" by M.J. Ryan, and "The Simple Living Guide" by Janet Luhrs. There are bound to be other books out there, just find a few you like and then look them up on Amazon.com. They always tell you other books you might like or other books that other people who bought your book also bought, which gives you some ideas to try. Right now I'm reading "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" which as a novel pretty much sucks, but as a guide to meditation practices is quite good. By putting the ideas in the form of a novel I guess the author is making them more accessible. But it's not really a novel, just a fable. Also, MJ is right, the TV is very damaging to one's self esteem, the world portrayed there is not even close to reality. The whole medium is designed to get us to feel that our life is inadequate. That way we will buy things to fill the void.

Congratulations on your new home and new garden! It's always a big thrill. As for your garden...deep breaths. Relax. From your description it sounds like you started big, which makes things a bit overwhelming. This is a natural feeling and I'm sure it has happened to many, many new gardeners (even with small gardens!) it certainly happened (and is still happening!) to me. A few things to keep in mind: Don't be in a rush to cram plants into every little space to make things look full. They grow, and sometimes far more than expected. Your sparse, new garden will be overcrowded in a hurry. If you feel like spots are not filled in enough, put annuals there for now until shrubs and perennials can take over. BONUS: most perennials need to be divided every few years and so you'll get free copies of your plants to fill into other parts of your garden. This is new for you. Plants will grow differently in different conditions, so for now consider everything an experiment. Some plants will thrive. Some will fail. Some will grow way too big and you'll have to make changes. Others will struggle and you may have to move them. In my first 6 years of gardening I have had to move or replace so many plants it is ridiculous. Right now I am dealing with a Bee Balm that was supposed to grow to about 3x3. It is currently 5x6 and is a monster eating up my middle border. So this fall it will get divided and I will have to think about moving it to the back of the border. Live and learn. Try not to get too attached to plants or think that making a change is some kind of failure. It's not. Remember: this is still an experimentation phase. If something isn't working or if you think something else would work better, make the change. BUT...remember that perennials and shrubs may not really show you what they've got for a year or two or even three, so have patience. Peonies often don't bloom in the first year or two. Make sure they weren't planted too deep! If too deep you may not get much bloom. Roses are often scraggly the first year. Once their roots get better established then they will have an easier time getting water and nutrients and will look a lot, lot better. Big gardening jobs are usually easier if you break them down into smaller jobs. And try to incorporate some of the work into your routine. For example, when I let my dog out into the backyard each morning I spend a few minutes inspecting my roses for pests, diseased leaves, and doing a bit of deadheading. A few minutes of this daily means come the weekend I don't have a gigantic job ahead of me. It also gives me an excuse to enjoy the flowers! Best of luck to you, and feel free to post some pics!

I think they're both too big to be functional centerpieces (aka ones that stay on the table while the table is in use), but they don't look bad at all. One small change I'd make is getting a runner that will span the diameter of the table OR get a nice round doilie thing - the short rectangular thing doesn't quite jive with the round table, BUT that's a very minor concern. House overall looks lovely and put together (much more so than our house we also just moved into) and if I were a guest, I'd not find anything amiss. Seriously though my house is still full of all the college hovel furniture we had in our apartment, and there's art on the floor leaning up against the wall, mismatched stuff everywhere, the toolbox lives in the dining room, etc, and we've been in the house almost four months. Despite all that, we just hosted Thanksgiving for 14 and it was fine. You're doing just fine with your house and shouldn't worry yourself over it.

The stone looks dry-stacked. If that's the case, I'd work on undoing and re-stacking it to much more professional standards, i.e., its each surface will be built to a smooth plane. That will be more than enough texture on account of its being stone. It's past time to do some tree shaping by most removing bottom limbs. Tweak the tips of the small tree only enough to make its shape uniform. Remove any large shrubs flanking the walk and have either a consistent groundcover in that zone, or in some cases lawn if that makes more sense. I don't know if or where lawn works because we can't see the broad picture. You have to judge. It may be that all the large shrubs near the house need to be removed. We can't see good, full, broad views of the area so have no way of knowing for sure. But the second picture makes it look that way. And it's hard to know what large shrubs would be blocking. Until one sees clearly behind them, there's no way of knowing if they make any sense.