aok27502 wrote: Are those pictures from naturallycurly.com? I browsed through there a while back, but to me every style just looks messy. The first two look a little like mine if I go to bed with my hair wet! I just grabbed them from a google image search of medium-length curly hair. They do look messy in some eyes, but I can't find a way to make curly hair like mine look neat without a significant amount of time. And this "messy" look is in style now. Last weekend, I was at an outdoor sporting event and took a break from the wind by getting a coffee at a local shop. My hair looked like the first photo I posted--I literally had just gotten out of bed and did nothing to it that morning. The young girl who served me coffee complimented my hair. Her words were, "By the way, I love your hair." (I wanted to hug her... they probably train them to say that to women my age!) I'm 45, and to have someone more than 20 years my junior give me a compliment--trained or not!--made my day. Yes, I'm both vain like that and appreciative that, at my age, I still have some flair. Call it messy. For me, it's easy and makes me feel good. I'll take it!

Most foundation planting beds are far too shallow. A neighbor who is a great gardener and whose aunt was a local landscape architect, once told me that the foundation bed should be half the height from the ground to the top gutter of the house. That seemed impossibly wide to me, but every 2 years, I have extended my front beds and she was absolutely right. It makes such a difference. For me, seeing things from the INSIDE of the house is important, too. I have some huge hosta in my front beds (the deer don't seem to like the big-leaved hostas the way they do the finer ones), but between them and the house, there is ground cover and hardy ferns. One used to see the ferns behind the hosta - no longer as the hosta are so large - but from my LR windows, I look out to a little "secret garden" of ferns nearer the windows. I love it! I put in lower windows in my LR and my library on the front of my house just to bring the outside inside - same with a huge low window in my breakfast room and the french doors in the DR - the better to see my garden and bring it into the house. It breaks my heart that I can no longer work in my garden due to age and various infirmities, but I still take a keep interest and have trained my totally untrained yard man to do many things, something he is SO proud of now and he feels an ownership of what we have created after my husband died. He and I adored working in the garden together. We never had children together - he was a 37 yr old bachelor when we married and I had two children from a previous marriage - so the garden was OUR baby. I just wish he could see the improvements I've continued to make in the nearly 12 years he's been gone. I think he would approve.

::giggle:: Islay, that sounds good, but when I saw "savoury cakes" on the preview, my mind went right to anchovy or bacon layer cake. :) And then to thinking that the sugar is important to cake texture. :) I actually think I've seen bacon done in a sweet cake on TV, but not savory. :) Nancyjane, There are all kinds of apps you can make ahead and have young cousins or whoever is available put together. Figure 3-5 pieces per adult, depending on your estimation of how hungry they'll be. Canapes, whether on traditional toast rounds or those flat round tortilla chips, or cucumbers or similar veg, are easy to make and easy to eat. A goop (cheese ball stuff, or meat with enough sauce to stick together, or any kind of paté (meat, veg, and fatty binder run through a grinder), all of which can be frozen ahead, but needs to thaw thoroughly), a crunch (slice of pepper, cucumber, jicama, etc.) and an herb (leaf of parsley, tarragon or cilantro or sprig of dill), take some prep, but are a breeze to finish and look fantastic. They also taste good and are easy to eat. I second the mini-quiches, also really good for freezing. You can mex it up with cornmeal, cumin and cilantro, or not. Crudités are usually welcome. You can put dips in disposable shot glasses or skewer the veg with a grape and a cube of cheese instead. Meatballs are also an easy make ahead. Or quinoa balls. So the secret to making them for 100+ people is just making more. Really. Or go to a catering supply store and Costco and see what you can buy in food service sizes, already made, which will cover the need and get you out of the kitchen to enjoy the run-up.

Mtn, HOAs are a relatively new thing I think, yes? So since they're newish, and they're generally started by developers making communities out of vacant land, every community definitely ends up having its own look. I agree with your point about that. I think Florida in particular has had some spectacular HOA financial failures, largely driven by the real estate crisis and foreclosures which hit that state very hard. All things being equal, I would probably prefer not having an HOA. But life isn't equal. In my beach town, I couldn't afford to have the amenities my HOA provides the community. Tennis courts, pool w/clubhouse, etc. Land is just too expensive for me to be able to afford enough space for those things. If money is no object, many things are possible. :) We toured probably 20 communities or so before we bought. Some houses had a definite look which is overwrought (IMO, obviously) and I don't think will age well. I didn't even look inside homes there. However homes are selling like hotcakes there so lots of folks like them. We narrowed the search down to communities with a "look" that we liked, and then I started reviewing HOA documents and talked to the president of every one under serious consideration. We made our final choice carefully and it's been a wonderful home for us. I love it there. What chaps my hide are the folks who buy in an HOA and then do nothing but complain and not follow the rules which were there for all to see before they bought. Which takes me back to my first point above - the problems with HOAs is that they're full of people. :)