Lindyb, Everything that David Austin says about this rose is true. The Queen is an excellent rose here in NEPA. She's very hardy, disease free, floriferous,fragrant, and has a well behaved bush form. Her petals are slighty translucent and are held firmly on sturdy stems. If you pick the blooms just as they are beginning to open, they will last about 5 days in a vase. Her spent blooms drop off cleanly. Thorns are few and far between. I so love this rose. I have three of them and I'm considering adding a couple more this spring. I don't know how it would do in your area but I really think it's worth taking a chance on. I don't think you can go wrong!

I think even if you share a household, you need to learn some boundaries. To protect yourself, mostly. But also because it's right. True, your mom is too "lazy" to make those albums. But maybe that's just a pipe dream; maybe she thinks she "ought" to put photos in albums, and just can't admit that she doesn't really WANT to. That's often behind people's laziness--the fact that the benefits of that thing are just not apparent. If people don't do something, I believe it's because they don't genuinely WANT to. No matter what their mouth says. (and frankly, there is NO empirical benefit to putting photos in albums w/ fancy paper and stickers. The fancy paper and stickers are make-work, and should be done only by those people who get some sort of artistic satisfaction out of doing it. Your mom obviously doesn't get enough satisfaction to bother with it. She's ALLOWED not to want to actually follow through on her albums. Of course it would be nice if she could be honest with herself and say, "I'm content w/ these photos in boxes, and I'm going to stop kidding myself that I'll really make albums," and then toss the excess scrapbooking stuff. But having only recently been through that process, I can tell you that it's not an easy one. It involves creating an entirely new self-image.) I think you need to stop taking responsibility for "fixing" your mom--whether she's morally deficient ("irresponsible and immature") or ill ("psychological disorder"). You *can't* fix her. She's a grownup, and if she's going to change, it will be only because she wants to. You can't even make her go to a psychiatrist to see if medications would help her (say, if she has OCD), because she is NOT your legal dependent. I think you need to just NOT focus on her, and her stuff. No more going "room to room" and making lists of all the ways she is deficient. I know you live there, but it's not your space. Focus your energy on getting out, and on making your life be what you want. Try to maintain calm and order in the places where it affects you, and then, regarding all else, close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and say "la, la, la!" Try to have your own life settled so that if you *need* to "be there" for your little sisters, you can, but don't take on that responsibility too rapidly. A 17-year-old can watch over a 12-year-old, and your dad is part of the family too. Few people have actually died because the corners of the living room are stacked full of out-of-date textbooks, etc. Also, you need to spend some energy, not on fixing things in your parents' marriage, but on getting OUT from "in between." Stop taking ANYBODY's side in any of their disputes or problem. LEAVE THE ROOM! I'm not trying to be snippy. I'm just trying to make you see that you are reaching beyond where you ought to. And your basic assumption--that *you* need to "fix" all these problems in your parents' lives--is wrong. You need to "declutter" that assumption--toss it in the garbage. That assumption is YOUR equivalent of old issues of magazines, etc. You can't fix those problems. So stop trying to. You'll find it amazingly freeing.

Of course if someone buys a slab of stone they are going to think they bought a slab of stone. Common sense. I don't see or know people assuming they can store leftover material at a shop's warehouse (for free) or they are demanding (free) delivery of a large heavy remnant. All remnants are not large or unmanageable and some, say for a vanity or small table top, could just be loaded in someone's truck and stored at their house. It's really up to the customer if they have, in fact, paid for a whole slab. Someone here had a series of cutting boards made. I am willing to bet they expected to (pay) for it. And maybe they want the leftovers for their beauty, not their decreasing monetary value, so incurring a delivery charge for larger pieces is a nonissue. Whether the apparently cheap and ignorant customer ever uses it or not is really not anyone else's business. If the shop prices based on keeping leftover material, that should be disclosed so there is no confusion and people are on the same page who owns what and what the options are otherwise. There is really nothing unusual or demanding about such expectations and communication. It should be understood and in writing as a business' s SOP. People buy a slab ... they think it's theirs unless told otherwise. Fair enough assumption, imo.

Rosie, I think you have graduated from KD 101; now it's time to take it to the next level by being willing to abandon the strictly balanced symmetry of your layout in order to max the out the functional benefits of your space. (Don't worry about the visual "cost" of losing the balance, getting that right in the end is the final step and it can be done in other ways than a book-matched design.) Anyhoo, the idea of having different-sized counter runs (and cabs) on either side of the sink and range is the next stage. Off the top of my head I usually would say give more space between the fridge and range (for the main Prep Zone in a plan like yours)than between the range and wall, except that if you do a lot of grain milling then you may need to give more space to the baking side to accomodate the grain mill and other major baking appliances. However, you did say you grow vegetables so perhaps you also can. That would mean that the "prep" side would get an enormous work out assembling and filling the jars before moving them on to the canner. (Cold pack stuff would come from the sink/island prep zone; hot pack stuff would come from range to can-filling area and then back to the range for processing.) Then you need to think of where to put the hot jars after processing and that cannot be on a stone counter, only wood or formica works there because of the risk of thermal shock. I don't know about you but I rarely do just one processing at a time so I accumulate a lot of filled and cooling jars before I'm done canning for the day. And I want to have them wind up in place where they can sit and cool down without being in my way during the clean up and rest of the day's kitchen work. But maybe you freeze instead, which would move the packing more to the island after prepping in the Prep Zone/blanching/shocking/spinning dry to the packaging steps, which might happen on the island? Do you use a FoodSaver - where would it live? Just think through how you do this..... The excellent suggestions of other posters should lead you to play around with the layout along the counters to find the most useful spacing for your personal counter top usage. Right now you have 54" on the left of the range and 60" on the right. Is that the best config? I'd try a lot of variations for regular meal prep, dedicated baking and food preservation pprojects. Don't worry, for now, about the cab sizes, just think about the work surface patterns. Since you do more home food preservation than many typical kitchen users, you have to think those additional processes through with the space needed kept in mind. For instance, I sometimes use a DW as a holding area for clean and hot jars if I am doing a hot pack, so I would want to think about its placement not only for day to day convenience, but also for how efficient it woud be for snagging jars amidst the hustle of getting a whole batch of jars filled and into the canner. This is just an example of the extra considerations needed in a preservation kitch. One suggestion I would make is to consider having an extra-deep counter, 30" would be great, but even 27" is an improvement over the standard one. This would allow your fridge to assume an even more "built-in" appearance, but most importantly, those extra inches allow appliances to stay on counters and not compromise the functionality as much. If you any extra inches to spare in your design I'd "spend" them on a deeper range wall countertop rather than in extra aisle width or island space. I hope you won't feel bummed, or discouraged, by our additional suggestions. Extra time spent now working out the variations will pay off in the long run. I made drawing after drawing and then drew lines to track how I move through my most common meal preps and preservation projects. I took pics and even made drawings of my counters during canning, freezing, dehydrating and baking projects so I could see what I actually had out, and how I had it arranged, while actually doing the tasks. This was enormously helpful to me. You have obviously put considerable thought into your current plan and drawing. And you're more than ready to take on the next level of analysis. Welcome to grad school! HTH, L