I'll get back to ya'all tomorrow, I hope. Since I was unable to contact her to tell her I was coming to take some photos, I didn't want to walk onto her property or her rental. If she's home, she would probably let me smell or photograph most anything I like so long as I don't give out her personal info which I wouldn't. I would like to ask her some more questions about her garden. She's really nice and friendly and involved in the community. I can't remember now how it came about that I met her in person last year, had photographed that gate and fountain in 2003, her husband was in the yard but didn't seem to object (some might). Legally you can photograph anything you want from public access, but some people like to be asked. Generally, I don't but always (now) if I want something where I want to go onto their property. In the beginning, I just walked into a yard with pretty flowers and started snapping away :-). I met my good friend that way, but some people I now realize would object, what if the situation were reversed? If it was obvious they just were taking flowers in my yard, or Christmas lights which I've never had, I wouldn't care, otherwise it would make me paranoid about what their motives were. I really ticked somebody off down the block standing on the sidewalk with my camera on a tripod photographing his house with the pretty Christmas lights. I slunk home, but got my photos. I've had a few run-ins taking photos, only two with property owners, some are incredibly kind and invite me in to take as many photos as I like, what a good feeling that is. If I'd known at the time who the other lady was and that she was there, I would have left and gone back another time. I wrote a humorous photo essay for my website with that as an element in the saga about another flower that ultimately got bulldozed.

Hope all the boys with their injuries are getting better. Yes they will always call and sometimes if the child acts funny they will really make your life miserable. You would think that boys never have accidents they way some of them can act. I was always at the school for some bruise or another with my two and they usually did it to each other, lol. They fought all the time and still don't get along. John says his oldest boy was always good. He said when they went to someones house they could have a box of toys right in front of them and they wouldn't move from where he told them to sit unless he told them it was ok even if the other person told them it was ok to play. I told him thats because he trains us all like the dogs, lol. He makes you want to mind him, lol. I often wonder if my boys would have been different if I had met him sooner. It has surely helped with my daughter. She acts very different around him than she does with her father and he will do anything in the world to please him. I thought he was going to faint when he heard her back talk her father on the phone once, lol. He just expects you to behave and thats it they do it, lol. Even my boys don't act up in front of him. His younger son got arrested once and sat in jail 3 days and wouldn't call and tell him until his brother found out and called us, lol. He would have stayed there forever rather than tell his father he got in trouble. He gets this look on his face and it makes you stand up straighter, lol.

Sooz, sounds like you have a new career. Your food looks delicious. I'm with you on not cooking the chicken a day in advance. But I would definitely, bread the chicken a day in advance. I would rub each chicken breast with a little fresh garlic paste (Microplane the garlic).( I like fresh garlic better than garlic powder) Use your processor to make fresh bread crumbs and season the crumbs with fresh grated parmesan cheese. Dip the chicken in flour seasoned with salt and pepper and egg mixed with just a little water and then into the bread crumbs. Chicken can be breaded the day in advance and then quickly fried the next day. I'd pour a little of the sauce in the bottom of the pan, and lay the breaded chicken cutlets over the sauce. Now they are ready to be reheated in the oven. Leaving them in the sauce for an hour or two isn't going to hurt them. Add a little more sauce on top and the cheese just before they go in the oven. Oh and if you have extra chicken, you can breaded it as above and freeze it on cookie sheets and then store in zip lock bags. Don't defrost before frying. Ann

Feisty I have beat you to it, the bathroom downstairs is also brick and I think it is fabulous! Will post pictures, we have a new khaki countertop and Handy Guy is painting the vanity a barn red next week. Having a soft yellow/ gold shower curtain made to hang behind the (new) arched opening over the shower/tub and cabinet person is making enough paneling for the fireplace wall to front the side of the tub. And we are ordering antique finish brass faucets and tapes for sink and shower, yay, the existing satin nickel ones look incongruous with the brick. We may install siding on one long wall of bathroom also but I only want Handy Guy to do this, not the GC's guys. ( I am anxious to get them out of my house, no one seems to own a pencil and paper, they come back endlessly, to do small jobs they could have done in one call, this is true of the electricians, carpenters and drywallers.) Lol, I have even ***pretentiously*** coined a new descriptive phrase for our basement style to encompass the brick floors, siding on interior walls, black wrought iron rails and sconces, etc.... renovated carriage house.