I use Benetint. It comes in a bottle with a tiny brush. I found it to be too watery to blend nicely and too pink and artificial looking with my pale skin tone. It only comes in one shade. It looks better when my skin is a bit tanner in the summer. At $28 for a teeny tiny bottle, I will not purchase this again. You can use it on lips for a tint if you do not care for the greasey, glossy look lipstick has, but it does not stay all day as it is easily washed off with water or beverages that are drunk. No experience with the other two products you mention. Clinique use to make a gel style liquid cheek tint in a bottle that I loved, but they discontinued it and replaced the item with a similar product that I don't care for as it has more satuated color and looks artificial on me but you may have different results with your skin. It is a 'mousse' style cheek tint in a jar.

Kentucky-It's just that friendly---that is our state motto. I don't know much about the rest of the country but in my little corner of the world 99% of the people are friendly and polite. The company I used to work for was bought by a bigger company from Lancaster PA, so we had a lot of visitors from up north and I found that they were all very nice people, but on one trip down they told us as they were driving through a very small town to get to our small town thwt people were out in the yard mowing or gardening or just relaxing and as they drove by they would wave, they all wanted to know why all these people were waving at them? One girl even asked me what they wanted. I had to laugh, they just wanted to be friendly and say howdy. Very friendly part of the world, even complete strangers. Store clerks and waitresses all ask how are you doing today, and they chit chat about the weather and just life. I'm very lucky.

Hi Timallan - Sorry, I didn't know you were ONLY referring to fiction writers. (Also, I noticed I spelled his name wrong -- it's Coupland, not Copeland.) I never had contact w/the publishing industry except a couple of office temping assignments; so I wasn't privy to any of their deep, dark secrets ! Your post just above has opened my eyes. There's so much openness about sexual identity now adays, that I took it for granted that there wasn't any prejudice by publishers re gay novelists (as long as they're good writers, of course!). But, saying that, I just remembered --- what about the popularity of Alan Hollinghurst, the British novelist? He writes wonderful, serious novels about gay men, gets very good reviews from top critics. Even though not gay myself, I like his books. "The Line of Beauty" was the first one I read, and have read another one since. Both good, and definitely NOT funny. Re "chick-lit." -- I agree w/one of the posters way above in this thread ... to me it's light, frothy stories about -- usually -- young women looking for love and designer clothes! Some of these writers are more deep -- at times -- and, also, may feature one or two "older women" besides the young ones. Cathy Kelly is one of the few of these genre that I've really liked. Her stories are exciting, with depth of thought and feeling -- she makes me care what happens to the characters. To me that's the sign of a good writer, whether of the "Literary" or "Chick-lit." genre.

Here are some paths and designs that I like... obviously very large gardens, but I think you can take these ideas and place them in a smaller garden... ..in this photo the shingled path is straight but softened with edging plants, and the path is tapered towards to end, which draws the visitor to it, I think... ..the same view 10 days later..... I like the way the blue Geraniums have now been replaced by the pink ones... but the yellows still draw me to the end of the path... ..another garden, another example of how I like to be drawn forward.... the very straight path narrowing in the distance to what appears to be a pair of dark green pillars.. ..but it is in fact a Hop covered archway, the path softened and the gazebo enticing the visitor forward... I like this one very much... and I think could be replicated in a small garden... ..with a grass path, I like to see curves with plantings that hide the view ahead... and absolutely no spillage onto the paths... I don't like to see that with grass... preferring a nice clean sharp edge.. ..with high straight walls, I think it's important to bring the borders outwards towards the centre... but I don't like these island beds here... although they serve a purpose in this particular garden... ..finally, I rather like the way the hedges here have been shaped to invite the visitor to take a turn right or left... it flows and I find it relaxing... and I wouldn't like it if it was sharp... ...hope you found something of interest in those...