The beams are not as you would expect 16" centers. Remember when I first told you all about this project, I mentioned it was the cheapest structure of all times. Those horizontal beams are 23 3/4 inches apart. That doesn't count the thickness of the beam itself. I remember that number because I had a marvelous helper at the time who was between jobs as a computer programer and was working out his OC tendencies on the project. Each and every brace we cut to go between beams was measured twice and cut once. There are 6 braces between each roof beam and if there is an eighth inch deviation I'll unscrew each and every one. That's right! No nails on this project. We used decking screws, so a hole had to be drilled through the beams and into the ends of the cross piece before putting in one single screw, three screws per end. (He decided on 3 rather than two) Maybe I am a little OC myself? All I know is that I wrote the plan for only one side and 3 crosspieces each because I figured I would get all sorts of flack from my volunteers. When he asked if I wouldn't prefer to put in 3 on the other side too, I started grinning like an idiot and took off for the lumberyard. Do I hear over-engineering from the audience? Those lateral forces scare me silly. Up and down is easy! I was planning on coming back and doing the other side of the roof myself when no one else was around. I'm glad I'm not cutting the pieces for that bench back. My cheap tools would never get through it. Would love to see the finished product or a photo of same. I gave up on chess except when I was teaching the kids. We had some neighbors from H*** who invited us over for drinks. The first thing he does is haul out the chess set and start bragging. We are not that good at it but we could figure out we were better without too much difficulty. He challenged DH first and when he was beat, challenged me. I decided I would lose as fast as possible and get us out of an uncomfortable position. To my horror after 3 moves there was a sudden silence broken only by DH's struggle to avoid laughing. I looked at what I had been doing and saw I had played a classic fool's mate. I did the necessary and stood up abruptly, knocking the board off the table and saying his wife needed help in the kitchen. While it saved his ego we were never invited back. Gee, I wonder why? Sandy

I inherited a yard with lots of existing plants when we bought this house. I've been learning a lot, and I'd say that, in general, you want to leave the leaves that died back. It seems to be far more useful to plant things which come up at different times in about the same place to cover up the previous plant's old leaves. Also, cutting the leaves is more work, and leaving them there turns into free mulch and keeps the nutrients in the soil. I was going to check where you are (other than zone 5), as that might help in determining what to suggest. In general, I would suggest things which are locally native, simply because those are adapted to your area and are much more likely to live with little care once established. At a random guess, you're probably in New Hampshire in zone 5, so maybe http://www.plantnative.org/rpl-nen.htm would be interested to you. For bulb plants, I really like old house gardens, and their advanced search will let you choose bloom time, shade/sun, and soil type. Are you more the type for a cottage garden or a more formal type garden? That will also matter! In the shady, moist parts of my yard, I have various hosta, lily-of-the-valley (this _will_ spread if it's happy), solomon's seal, false solomon seal, jack-in-the-pulpet, a native part-to-full-shade creeping phlox, lungwort (one of the early type plants), bleeding hearts, ferns, hellebores, astilbes, some recently added primroses, a recently added monkshead, grape hyacinth, scilla. Note that my soil there is only moderately acidic (6.2 pH, buffer 6.6 pH). How acid is your soil? Also, the organic matter in my soil is _amazing_, between the leaves from the trees nearby and I presume ammendments by the previous owners. It looks like your shady area is shaded by a building, not a tree? How much sun does it get? In the part which gets very little light, I currently have hosta, lily-of-the-valley, and the aforementioned native creeping phlox. I am not sure what else might be ok there. It's also the north facing part of the yard. So it mostly gets blocked by the house and the fence.

Wow, yeah definitely frame the hunky Aztecs. Love your space and maybe you have given me the incentive to update my home office/guest bedroom. When I was working and had a real honest to goodness grownup office, I had a collection on banana stickers on one wall. I'd have a banana with lunch and stick the sticker on the wall. I became a banana sticker connoisseur. I tried to buy my bananas at out of the way mom and pop stores because they tended to have bananas from more exotic sources than regular grocers. One day someone stuck an apple sticker on the wall. I spotted it immediately and unstuck the interloper. After a while, the whole wall was covered with banana stickers. I worked there a long time. Funny how we decorate our work spaces. Mine have always just kind of grown without a plan.

I'm terrible at recognizing faces, but I had been to my neighborhood hardware store almost daily and felt like I "knew" all the guys behind the counter. I had just moved into an apartment, had a lot more time than money, and was fixing it up by myself. I would buy what I needed bit by bit -- a single paint brush, a few screws and anchors, etc. One afternoon after a difficult job hanging a kitchen shelf, I was walking down the sidewalk and saw a guy from the hardware. I couldn't help but boast, "I finally got that kitchen shelf. hung." He smiled and said, "Congratulations, that's great!" Later that night, I turned on the TV to watch Law and Order. That's when I realized that it hadn't been the guy from the hardware store, I'd been congratulated by Jerry Orbach!