oh darn, Kudzu. I just read this post. May I still offer a late Birthday wish to your sister? I'm really sorry for not being 'on time'. I hope Greta had a good one and enjoyed your special treat LOL. hugs, Karen

SAA203: May I suggest that you choose a neutral color for the time being for your kitchen? When I say neutral, I do not mean gold. I, too, have BC floors and a lot of cool grey colors in my granite, but warm whites. I wanted a gold color, too, but decided to mute it out and wait until my backsplash was installed. Plus, my floors darkened considerably in just a few months, so I'm really glad I didn't add the gold now. You add gold to those walls and your cabinets will really start to 'yellow out'. I was shocked to see how much 'yellow' they picked up off of the walls even with Clam Island, and it's not yellow. I am going to do a bit more painting now that I am getting ready to choose window treatements and believe that with my backsplash and granite to either beige up the walls a bit since I have brown glaze on the cabinets with Parisian Taupe OR either go a touch more gold with Toasted Cashew, both by Behr....and both look good. I love the SW blonde. I got a sample the other day and it's just too gold for my kitchen. I don't have a lot of natural light and cannot afford to go any darker than the Toasted Cashew. My point: I would really wait until you have your backsplash chosen before I would commit to such a strong gold in your kitchen, unless you know that you'll just love it and that it won't compete with what you use on your backsplash. When I got my backsplash, it had a lot more rose to the stone that I imagined, so I know the SW Blonde would not have worked. Clam Island or Parisian Taupe are winners hands down and you just can't go wrong type of colors. The taupe has just a bit more pink, which I think compliments the brown/red tones in the cabinets and flooring; hence why I'm thinking I may go with this eventually in my kitchen after all of the cabinets are done. However, Clam Island is just a perfect neutral. It has enough depth to be a brown, enough gold to work with gold carpets and not overpower other colors. It's no longer in Behr's Color paint chips, but the color is in their computer at HD. I've used Clam Island in several homes as my 'base' color and I come back in and add depth or lighten. It's definitely not a beige or tan or offwhite. It's a lovely base color. I mixed it half and half on some of my ceilings, too. Here is Clam Island in different rooms so you can see how it goes with so many colors. (I think it does.) Ignore the green tint on the cabinets...we've redone them. Notice the colors in the tile and mosaic...they have the tones of the Clam Island that I used on the walls in my kitchen. Here's another view of Clam Island in my kitchen ...you can barely see the floors...I'll find one more photo

My dad was so good about telling family stories, etc., but now I can think of so many things I wish I'd asked him. He spoke often about Alice's sisters (his Aunt Anna and Aunt Margaret), but never mentioned her parents. They were Scottish immigrants, and I learned from the 1880 census that they were Margaret and George (a servant), parents of six children. Growing up, I was close to my father's cousin Peggy, daughter of Aunt Margaret. It never occurred to me to ask her about her parents or grandparents. Who knew we would become so interested in genealogy and family history when we got (much, much) older? Maire, my newly-found cousin was told Alice's parents were very upset when she left, but her sisters kept in touch with her. I guess that means the parents did not? Maybe they did later. My dad never mentioned his paternal grandparents either. That was another hugely musical family. I just assume the musical talent was handed down from my great-grandfather (an assumption that makes no sense), but when I followed the family line back to England I found not musicians, but caterers and the Lyons Tea Company. This might explain my family's obsession with food. :-) So then I suspected the musicality came from my great-grandmother, but with a name like Phillips I didn't think I'd get very far tracing it. And I didn't. But thanks to FindAGrave, I encountered my distant cousin Roderick, who has done a professional job of tracing his family line--which includes my great-grandmother! Turned out the Phillips name started out as something quite different--a Polish name, as she was born in a part of Prussia that is now Poland. And Roderick tells me the family is quite musical. A mystery solved.

She is a beauty! My girl has a birthday this month too, on January 31...only she's not a dog, or a cat, or any other kind of furry friend, she's my daughter and she's turning 21! Remember when you'all turned 21? Wasn't it a big deal for some of you? I think it was for me, of course once you turn 21 the years start rolling by faster and faster. It's exciting for her to be 21, and I like the feeling of it too in that she is growing up so nicely, but with that, I get older too. Happy birthday Callie the collie!