These European Salvias thrive in poor soil, and are pretty well drought-resistant. They enjoy full sun, but feeding them is not really recommended. Wishing you success!

Seeing all these freeze damage pictures sends my mind back to our Hurricane Wilma aftermath. My trees, most of which were 8-15 years old at that time......80% blown over, some uprooted entirely. I have video of my yard and I can't even bear to look at it. I had to hat rack all the canopies and pull the tree into the best up-right postions that I could with the car, propping them up with the heavy branches that we cut as braces. Worked non-stop for the better part of three weeks (while we had no power) cutting and hauling what seemed like mountians of debris and cut branches to the roadway for pickup. I shudder to think about ever having to do it again. The good thing about tropical fruit trees, however, is that they are resilient. I think I had Post Traunmatic Stress disorder after that storm 5 years ago. Anyway, the good news is no one froze to death and trees can be replaced if necessary in the worst case. But it is still very saddening.

Motivation: You have to REALLY want to improve the house, not just "half-want" to improve it because you feel guilty that you "SHOULD" be living differently. Anything worth having is worth working for. How to start: Flylady says to start by shining your kitchen sink and keeping the dishes done. That's a no-brainer for me, so I'll suggest this: Flylady's "You can do anything for 15 minutes" really works. Set your timer for 15 minutes. Walk through a room with a trash bag. Pick up obvious garbage. You have Flylady's permission to throw stuff away, so forget whatever your mother told you about saving junk (you can designate separate bags for recyling and charity donations if that won't overwhelm you). Clear the walkways in every room, then the table tops and horizontal surfaces, then the closets and drawers. Do this EVERY DAY for 15 minutes until you're ready to move on. Yes, this could take a while. Be patient. Another thing Flylady says is you can't organize clutter. Not only that, I find it hard to clean around clutter. Once all the clutter is gone, you'll be able to do "real" cleaning with less effort. For example, it's hard to mop the kitchen floor if it's covered in boxes of stuff. Once the boxes (or whatever) are gone, it's a simple thing to mop the floor real quick. Your daughter is old enough to participate in the Timer Game, too. Also, to look at routines another way, you DO have routines! Your routine is to sit and watch TV and ignore the mess. You need to CHANGE your routine. Make it your NEW routine to get the dishes done and shine the sink (it's a "pride" thing, just trust us on this). Then set the timer for 15 minutes and get rid of stuff that doesn't belong, THEN watch TV. Here's a challenge: Do you remember Flylady's 5-minute Room Rescues? Set the timer for 5 minutes every day and work in the WORST room in your house. For only 5 minutes. Eventually you WILL see a difference. That's how I cleared out our basement. It would work in your bedroom, too. Getting rid of "stuff" is the more freeing than you'll ever imagine. Julie P.S. The first winter Flylady gave me "permission" not to save stuff, I was filling a 30-gallon Hefty bag PER DAY. FOR WEEKS. The Salvation Army loved me, and the trashmen probably thought we were moving. LOL

Ashe, your commercial hood (and the Rangecraft) have a wee bit more juice than my 450 CFM hood, so I can see how that height works for those. And it doesn't bother you to look up into the baffles and lights? Anyway, it is too high for my taste, it's too high to reach the controls, and it's too high for the mfr's recommendations. They want 24-30" from the top and it is currently 40". My hope is to drop it 4, maybe 6", so that the bottom is just under 30" above. It will still be a bit higher than the recommended height, but any lower and it will obstruct our view of the rear burners and range controls. I'll talk to our GC on Tuesday about it. And sadly, it took us nearly 15 minutes, WITH the manual, to figure out how to turn off the automatic night light!