Since you need a bump I'll chime in... I prefer charcoal grout with black pebbles. A few times I've blended grout colors together blending charcoal grout with a dark gray for a "light" charcoal or a really "dark" gray, or blending carbon black with any grout to darken it. That's my personal preference with the black pebbles. With other pebbles more contrast is okay, but with black pebbles I'm always drawn towards dark grout with minimal contrast. Funny thing is with dark tiles I like dark or light grout. It's the black pebbles that sway me to dark on dark for whatever reason.

Oh geeze. Thanks for the kind words. Very much appreciated but not necessary. :) Garden Web is my occasional mental vacation/distraction from a hectic real life. As much as I love color, it's nice to come here and read about other stuff.

Hi Ejbry, I have SO many photos, LOL. Here are a couple: These are from this year. Things went downhill soon as I broke 2 toes and had a hard time gardening until they healed! I have lots more photos and gardening advice on my gardening blog, Henbogle. My best advice to new gardeners is to start small, grow what you love to eat, and try the square foot gardening techniques to get started. You will find lots of help on GW in the Vegetable Gardening and Square Foot Gardening forums. Brussels sprouts take a long while to grow 100+/- days, and can be troubled by cabbage loopers and worms. I like to grown them in tomato cages covered with floating row cover to keep the worms away. They need good fertile soil, a side dressing at about halfway through the season, and plenty of water. They get pretty big, and taste better after a frost. I also highly recommend your county extension office, if your state has one. I became a Master Gardener through the program and learned a lot in the process. You can email me at henbogle @ gmail.com and I'm happy to talk about gardening FOREVER! Here is a link that might be useful: Henbogle

"tishtoshnm Zone 6/NM The list missed my biggest one right now which is deferred maintenance. We have been in our home 10 years now and there are a bunch of little things that bother me. I am hoping to make 2017 the year to deal with things like patching the stucco, touching up paint, caulking certain areas, etc. They are all little things that are easy to overlook but are now piling up." I am dealing with all of this here now. Hubby was sick for almost 4 years with cancer then passed in August. PHEW did a lot of things get put on hold. I could only do so much and taking care of him was priority. So far the biggest worst issue was calking the seams on the house. It is the cement board and the seams needed the calk desperately. I also painted over the calked areas and yes it is very noticeable. I plan on painting the house next year if I can afford it. Second was getting the whole yard finally fenced in. We put up a nice dog yard as we were moving in and later I fenced in a side yard. Finally getting the lower yard done. One more gate to get the wire on. And some small fill in areas where the ground is not level. I did paint a little more than half the inside of half the house in the last year. The three rooms not freshly painted were painted three years ago and in good shape. I will have my hands full of painting doing the house.And YES I am doing it myself I can not afford to hire a painter. Also doing the fence myself. I am 67 so things take me longer than some one younger. Clutter. UGH I forced myself this morning while waiting for the fog to lift before going out side to clean inside. Vacuum and pick up everything.Fold the laundry. I am not a paper keeper but do have one file folder I do keep out of the current bills. I am still working on figuring out my financial situation with hubby gone. He always did the bills. I was putting the folder away then spending too much time dragging it back out so I made a place for it in my side table. Hopefully I will be able to tuck it further away soon. I have been purging for years and feel pretty good about my progress. My biggest thought now is about the kitchen stuff. I cook very little for myself now. There will never be another man in my life to cook for. I rarely have company and I am wondering why I keep all the cooking stuff I used to use? I do not need the storage space in the pantry or kitchen cupboards. But it kind of bugs me to keep stuff I will never use. I do not remember who said they had a laundry room issue of no space. I got rid of my dryer after hubby died. I am a total clothes line gal and when the weather is not good enough to dry clothes I just hang them on rods over the guest bath. I hardly ever used the dryer and it was taking up valuable real estate in my laundry room. I have not missed it. We chose our house and had it built for us to age in place. So I do not have much to not love about this house. Maybe the hall way closet could be larger. but do I really need 6 jackets? Well in winter shoveling snow I can easily get one or two jackets wet.