Stay away from Smith and Noble. Stay far, far away. I ordered 6 shades. I paid Smith and Noble to come measure. When the shades arrived, 5 of the 6 were about 1/4 to 1/2 inch too wide for the windows. I asked to return the shades to get my money back. Turns out their "satisfaction guarantee pledge" means that they won't give you your money back, no matter what. They insist on coming back to re-measure, but a) I can't take time off from work again for this, and b) why would I want to run the risk of further screw ups and hassle? Their customer service staff come across as Soviet-style bureaucrats. Evidently, Smith and Noble could care less about disappointing their customers and engendering ill will. I guess my next steps are to file complaints with the BBB and my state's attorney general, as well as dispute the original charge with my credit card company. I'll probably send the shades back to the company's president for good measure. Keep in mind that Smith and Noble's "partner sites" (i.e. sister companies) include Ballard Designs, Grandin Road, Garnet Hill, TravelSmith, Frontgate, and others. You can rest assured that I won't be giving any of them my business in the future either.

Vee, I've bookmarked the Slightly Foxed site. I've read several of those memoirs, including: 84 Charing Cross Road - Hanff (a favorite) My Family and Other Animals - Durrell Period Piece - Raverat (another of my favorites, as you know) The Real Mrs Miniver - Maxtone Graham The Flame Trees of Thika - Huxley Look Back with Love - Smith A Sort of Life - Greene Blue Remembered Hills - Sutcliff I just recently acquired Bell's Corduroy because you had mentioned it previously, but I haven't read it yet. Hand-grenade Practice in Peking by Frances Wood looks interesting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Somewhere I have a Virago edition of Comyns' Our Spoons Came from Woolworths. I'm not sure that I've read it, although it sounds familiar. I reread Blythe's Akenfield a few weeks ago. At any rate, I think you are right that misery is more interesting to a lot of readers than old boring happiness. That seems especially true when readers feel insecure, unhappy or miserable themselves, and the world seems to have gone mad. Counterintuitive, perhaps? Apparently not. I suppose the attraction might be: Well, other people have lived through horrible times and events; maybe my childhood wasn't as awful as theirs and things aren't so bad now, for me, after all. However, some of the memoirs listed above don't dwell on the bad stuff -- hardly mentioning it all, in fact. I don't like cloyingly sweet memoirs -- those I usually throw on the floor and kick under the furniture. The readable ones, in my opinion, strike a happy medium.

I would always recommend a solid drapery panel in a light, neutral color for a master bedroom. IMO the purpose of drapes in a bedroom is privacy and light control, and you want something that is only there to add a layer of "softness" and luxury and richness so you don't want any bold pattern that would disrupt the serene/sophisticated feeling you're going for. Patterns will make your eye look at the drapes, and that's not what you want to be focused on .... you want the drapes to "disappear" into the walls so that you get the feeling of them without being forced to acknowledge them.

Nicole, chili soup does not have water in it, it has either tomato juice or V-8 juice, diced tomatoes, onions, sweet or hot peppers, hamburger, a very flavorful chili bean like Bush's Chili Magic, chili pepper, can put in cumin, red beans, and let simmer with some cooked pasta such as cut spaghetti or elbow macaroni simmering in with it. Of course salt and pepper. Not so much pasta as it would be way too thick unless you like it that way, but then it isn't really soup. Sue