hi Tammy. Try these links: http://www.northhillsnursery.com/id24.htm http://www.santarosagardens.com/Succulents-Sedum-Sempervivum-s/8.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houseleek http://growpro-inc.netfirms.com/mountaincrest/nfoscomm/catalog/index.php http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Crassulaceae/Sempervivum_tectorum.html there ya go, this should keep ya busy for awhile! Here is a link that might be useful: hens & chicks

Hi, I would love to have a few of your red armarillas. My wife would be pleased to have a bird of paradis plant. I'm o the gulfcoast too but in MS. Since Hurricane Katrina, the only plants I have are some Cannas; yellow-orange flowered and a few red with the dark purple leaves. Too, I have few Petite Yellow marigold seeds.

Thanks for your thoughts Hollysprings. We did look into renovating/adding on to our current house. The house is 85 years old and it would be nearly as much to renovate it (including the price we paid for the house and lot) as it would be to build a new house. We have been doing a lot of work on this house and anticipate we can sell it for nearly the price we paid for the lot and house together (minus the cost of the renovations we did). We really want a full, finished basement, high ceilings and we don't want to deal with the quirks of an older house, even a renovated one. If we tried to tear this house down, the ARB would come after us with pitchforks. It really is a lovely house, but it just isn't the house for us. Even with all the restrictions, we feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to build from scratch in such a great location. Back to your suggestions, I am almost certain we can get a variance if we need one to put the driveway right on the property line, but I think ground level improvements are permitted anyway. We could also put an easement on the driveway of this house and have a shared driveway or put ours right next to that one if we really wanted to, but the location of that garage means we would lose a good amount of courtyard space so we could back out (I have actually tried this with my car by driving in my yard). I am reluctant to try to share and I loathe backing out onto the street. I can live with it if necessary, but I really don't want to do that for the rest of my life. Right now, my husband parks in the parking lot anyway because our cars won't fit in the 20x20 garage. I could reverse the L, but we can't put a privacy fence between our house and our neighbors. We could have a 4', 50% open wood fence, but even that might be a fight with the city. I am not much for maintaining a lot of plants, though I am hoping to put garden beds along the 8' setback on the south side of the house. We currently have a 4' hedge acting like a fence on the parking lot side and it is a pain to maintain. I am nearly certain the ARB would not approve any building over the driveway, but we could have a car port there if we really wanted one. I am pretty sure we can fit three bedrooms over the front if it is 26x36. That is as much space as we have for all our bedrooms now and it is more than enough for our two girls, a small guest room and one bath. I have also thought about putting a gate in the back of the fence. The challenge will be that the church has some kind of agreement with the city that makes the parking lot public during non-church hours, so it won't just be up to the church. We have kicked around the idea of putting an motorized gate and asking the church just to move one parking block so we can go in and out if there isn't a car parked there. We will probably have a gate back there in any case because it will make unloading furniture much easier than dragging it through the front entry of the house. I doodled a few more plans today and I keep coming back to the 1st floor master as the cause of our layout problem. I guess we are going to have to decide if we are really committed to being on the first floor. It is funny, we have almost everything we need now in an 1800 sq ft house but when we add an extra 700 sq ft, I can't get everything to fit!

We have used All free and clear liquid 2x ultra in our old top loading machine. We just purchased a new front loader and are going to switch to the All free and clear He liquid. Not many stores carry it. The Walmart nearest to us doesn't carry it, but the Walmart about 13 miles away does. I have many allergies and my daughter has some as well. We'll see how the He detergent works. Also, my main concern right now is the rubber gasket in the front loader, I have allergies to latex...I sure do hope that rubber smell goes away.