I always like the bad news first - the crepe myrtle is too close to the house and should be moved while it still can be. The boxwood will eventually outgrow it's little space, but that can take a hard pruning to keep it for a few years. The fallen leaves are okay. The silvery plants are Dusty Miller - and I think the snaps, plumbago, alyssum, and dianthus are fine. A nice change from the tortured into submission evergreens in some yards. Snaps will wilt when they need water; but they'll put out more bloom spikes if you pinch off the spent ones. Your conditions in zone 8 are much different than mine in zone 4 - we rarely get prolonged heat enough to bake a garden like you probably do in Houston. I wouldn't plant anything directly over the buried downspout extension - too easy to forget it's there and slice through it with a shovel or something. Some more snaps underneath the arrow, some more allysum on the up side of the dianthus and you're all set.

Wow, how can you even choose faves? I never can. I guess my fave groups of plants are palms, orchids and aroids. I like hoyas, but they aren't my faves by a long shot. These are some of my faves that I grow: Rare entire leaf (undivided leaves) palm, Salacca magnifica. It is found naturally only in Borneo, where it grows at the base of cliffs in very moist locales in the rainforest. My largest leaf at present is about 10 feet; mature, they will be 20 feet, going straight up from the base at ground level. Very architectural, stunning in habitat. This is a little variegated Lady Palm (Rhapis) that I particularly like I love aroids with large leaves that have a little "something extra" like variegation or cool colorations, like this Alocasia "Purple Prince" I have growing out in the yard I love variegated monstera. I have managed to collect 4 plants and planted them in various sopts to climb up the walls This is one of my favorite trees, Erythina indica variegated, also called the "Sunshine Tree". It just glows and makes the entire area light up I love small understory palms that put out new leaves that are highly colored, like this Calyptrocalyx polyphyllus I guess of all theorchids, Bulbophyllums and Cirrhopetalums are my fave group, because they have such bizarre blooms

Thanks all! I let little man read all your comments this morning. He was blushing and saying to himself, "I didn't cook this all by myself and I am not that good looking..." but I saw the sparks in his eyes and knew he secretly enjoyed the nice compliments. LOL I want to take advantage of his new found interest and run with it. We have decided that he would continue to make breakfast for his dad when he feels like it then dinner once a week, mostly Sunday. If he's up to it, maybe one easy dessert during the week. I got hubby hooked on bread making and now little man cooking, think I am ready to retire! LOL Pat, I guess the Xpress is sort of like a grill with much less capacity. We like it because it's small and very portable, just about the right size for a 7-year-old to handle. Karen, thanks for the link again. We have it bookmarked and have been checking it from time to time. We haven't tried out any of their recipes yet but I am sure we soon will. Rusty, I believe you're right about soda crackers = saltine crackers. Here in Canada (at least the part where we live) soda cracker is an ethnic food that has a different look and taste. They are bigger, fluffier and have no salt on the surface. The recipe definitely calls for saltine crackers because when little man finished crushing the crumbs, it turned out just the right amount. If we had used the "soda crackers" found in the Asian store, we would end up having way too much crumbs. Chase, I noticed the difference too! LOL Thanks again everyone. Your comments definitely reassure his positive experience at first attempt. I greatly appreciate it.

Tishtosh I can now only buy dress shirts at Brooks Brothers, because I can get a large neck and shoulders, very short sleeves and a relatively very narrow (for the neck size) waist. They are expensive, but less than custom, and probably less than buying a cheaper shirt and then getting them tailored properly Before, where I grew up there was a Japanese woman who would take my shirts apart at the shoulder, move the sleeves up, and taper the sides, and she did not charge like she was making a whole shirt. The first time I tried to get sleeves shortened anywhere else they got chopped off at the bottom with the cuffs moved up and there was no split left above the cuff. ----- Poverty has changed in America. If you look at the films made in Appalachia in the 1960s, the poor were painfully thin for the most part. They were also poor in a different way. I just got back from San Diego, which seems to have a significant homeless problem and I saw several very dirty, homeless lying right on the sidewalk in the garbage/utility areas of a large building---looking at their cell phones. Now morbid obesity and poverty are related, at least where I live. I even see morbid obesity among the homeless, barring the obvious drug addicts. Many of the patients I see in the teaching program that gets referrals from the public health system are obese, and some of them are so morbidly obese they can't walk unassisted. Most of the poor here seem to eat almost nothing but junk food or fast food, and this is a change from the past. And fast food is full of carbs and hormones. But it's all relatively cheap compared to keeping good food around the house. ------ I also think men's bodies are changing and this also has to do with hormones in food. In the generation younger than mine, especially--the first one to grow up on chicken fingers and the like, there are many many body types on males that are feminized. Bottom heavy, curvy hips and thighs, pear shaped, man boobs. (Some of this may apparently have to do with Ritalin or other ADD drugs too?). Even otherwise thin men in this generation seem to have very large asses and hips and little pouchy bellies. This is not how men were built when I was in my 20s, There were thin guys and there were fat guys and there were muscular guys, but there was not the thin with subcutaneous fat in certain areas type of build.