I wrote a detailed reply last night, but I must have closed without sending it. My first piece of advice would be to skip the gypsum in the future. It doesn't hurt anything, but it only helps certain kinds of clay, and the clay we have is not the kind that it helps. Watering with the split sprinkling helps to get the water deeper into the soil. You probably have no problem getting the top part of the soil to absorb water, since it's sandy loam/topsoil (how deep does this go?). Ideally, you'll want to penetrate into the clay as well, to encourage roots to go as deep as possible. It can be more difficult to get clay to absorb water, but once it's there, it retains water very well. I would also cut back to watering twice a week right away, increasing the times slightly (maybe not the full 50% to provide the same amount of water--I think we can use less water if we water less often, since we lose less to evaporation). After a few weeks of that, switch to watering once a week, applying double the amount you're applying now. If this works, you're using 2/3 the water you used to use. I'm not sure you want to ask me about seed mixtures. I'm cutting back on my watering and gradually replacing my KBG/fescue lawn with a low water lawn consisting of several natives and a few low water introduced species. I'm using streambank wheatgrass, western wheatgrass, crested wheatgrass and sheep fescue. My goal is to get to the point where I can have a green lawn if I water every other week. One drawback to my approach is that these grasses aren't as dark green as KBG. My main concern is reducing water use. If you're more interested in a dark green lawn, I would suggest asking for mix advice on the lawn care forum. There are some very knowledgeable people there who can make good recommendations.

I called four companies. I didn't have time to wait several days for them to get back to me. Kohler--said my set up is completely possible. Asked me about the style of faucet I wanted, and then walked me through the each piece I would need to buy in each of three faucet collections. She gave me the part numbers of each trim and each valve as well as the handheld and hose. Very helpful. Grohe--asked if my set up could be done with Moen and the reply was one simple word. No. Hansgrohe--told me that I should check out their new thermostatic trim with volume control and diverted as it would fill at 8gpm. Moen--said that they had never tried a set up like I wanted before so couldn't vouch for it actually working. She gave me some part numbers and said I would have to buy a shower/tub set even though I didn't need the shower head. You have to be very careful that the tub spout is long enough to reach into the tub. I'm debating adding a few more inches onto my tub deck instead of wall mounted. My tub is a two person tub so I don't want to mount a wall spout from the short ends of the tub where they would be easy to reach. I wanted the spout on the long back wall, but it would be hard to test the water temperature across the tub without actually getting in the tub. Hope that makes sense. Bottom line is that I still don't know what I'm going to do. My plumber left for a 6 day job which gives me a little more time to decide.

I had a Bravos and hated it so much I sold it for pennies on the dollar. I think it was $1000 and I sold it for $100. I wish I could tell you the big tub is a wonderful thing but it's not. It doesn't put enough water into the tub and sometimes my clothes were not even wet. It was gross. Not to mention it was big so it often went out of balance and the clothes were in a huge wadded up ball when I extracted the clothes. They went too far when cutting down the water used to wash the clothes because it now does not get clothes clean or in some cases even wet. It's also a noisy machine and takes forever to wash clothes. My GE front loader does a much better job of cleaning clothes. I would never buy a top load High Efficiency machine again. The dryer was noisy too. I'm much happier with the set I have now which I think is the same GE set you mentioned in your post.

I can't settle on one place, but so loved traveling through Utah's spectacular landscape. Then there is South Western Canada, and Highway 1 the length of California. the mountains in Colorado. Add the White Sands in New Mexico, the endless fields of sunflowers in Kansas, the winding roads of such pleasant scenes along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I can't forget the Atlantic Coast into the brilliant fall colors in the New England States and Eastern Canadian Provinces. Now I go back to the foothills of the Appalachians and my Pennsylvania home. Then there are all those places in between the above mentioned awe inspiring places in the good ole' USA that I experienced behind my dear husband on the back seat of our motorcycle. So I guess my most favorite, enjoyed, awe inspiring place to be would be on that moving motorcycle.