Your probably referring to the Photoshop; most of it's planted thought just too insignificant to give me an idea of what it might look like. The wisteria and golden chain tree have yet to arrive arrive; hope they do, bought them from a shady online nursery. Anyway I eventually plan on having paths of crushed limestone edged with lannon. I like the idea of mulch paths behind the vegetable garden since it's full of buried cable and electrical I could just put it down over a barrier & not dig out the grass.

Thanks, I get a set of Pirelli P4 All Season tomorrow, and from the Subaru dealer. I was surprised his prices are competitive... and I'm sure he has the expertise to catch any "items" on the Forester that may be getting weak... i.e., they are experts on the car too. We got about a foot of snow, I had to plow the drive before we could get out - still it is nice having the Forester AWD. And, I purchased a 2009 Suzuki SX4 a couple of months back. It has switchable FWD, AWD and Locked (more like 4WD) for speeds below 36 mph. With all that traction I also note my Chevy pick-up with an auto locking differential worked when I took the trash to the street Sunday night. I had a little trouble getting the Chevy up the hill part of the drive, but it made it. The SX4 and Forester go up without a pause... old tire and new.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but it seems like every year, a different set of roses in my garden goes all out. One year, Ducher and Belinda's Dream blew me away with their constant flowering. The next year, it was Cramoisi or Mutabilis. This year, for reasons unknown, it was Rubens and Kronprinzessin, with bonus points for some juvenile roses that did their tiny best to bloom their little heads off: Gen Gallieni, Quietness, Korbel Canyon, and others. If I were a more disciplined gardener with a regular schedule of fertilizing AND if Texas weather weren't so hideously unpredictable (drought, drought, drought, deluge, drought, deluge, deluge, SNOW! drought... etc.), I imagine my roses would perform more consistently from one year to the next (and I'd have a prettier garden). But as it is, things are always changing here, so while I do get bored by underperforming roses or roses with attitude problems, I'm always charmed and surprised by whoever's doing well this year or this season. (We got a nice little fall mini-flush on Zeffy this year for the first time--why? No idea. Yay, Zeffy!) OTOH, Bermudagrass--now THERE'S a plant that bores me. Always there--never goes away--kill it, it comes back--oh, god, the ennui!

Wow, what an ordeal! Hope you get full reimbursement from the car rental company. We have USAA so I've never really worried about changing a tire myself - I did learn years ago when I got my license, but I'm sure I couldn't remember now! I also live in a very suburban/urban area and typically don't drive anywhere that doesn't have cell phone coverage. I got a flat tire one night a couple years ago on my way home from my book club, only a few months after getting a new SUV. I knew it had a spare, but didn't pay much attention to its location though I knew it was underneath my car. Dh, of course, was out of town, my kids were home alone (oldest was 13) and I hadn't planned to be gone past 9:30. I didn't realize I had a flat at first, but knew something was wrong, so instead of taking the highway, I pulled into a complex of restaurants, condos, etc where I knew people were around. I ended up having to wait an hour for the USAA contractor to arrive. Then when he did, it took him forever to get my spare out. To prevent theft, There was a special tool just to unlock the lug nuts that I had no idea was necessary though was in my glove compartment. Even he, a guy who does this for a living, had to pull out the instruction manual to figure the whole thing out. It took him more than an hour. I didn't get home until 11:30, and realized there is no way I'd ever have been able to do that on my own! thanks for the reminder to check on spares in rental cars. I rarely use rental cars but just took a college tour trip with my dd and rented a car. Stupid me didn't think to look for a spare.