Thank you everyone! If the poster that gave me three of the smaller Plumies would like to ID themselves here, they can, and I give them a big huge THANK YOU! =o) Juicy, I love that buddah belley! I got that over 5 years ago as a very small plant at Ikea of all places. It has to be one of the easiest plants on the planet to take care of, possibly even easier than Chamaedorea Elegans (parlor palm). Thank you Laura! If you are ever up this way during the warm months you are welcome to stop by and have a "cold one" on me under neath the palms and tropicals. =o) We STILL have not gotten down there yet, but we are still planning on coming at some point, hopefully before winter sets in. I'll keep you posted. MerryMike, I lift them all myself. They come inside and most go into the sunroom. It does get crowded in there, but it is worth it to me. Our sunroom used to be a porch that was built out so its all windows, faces south, and has the original hard wood porch floor. It is raised off the ground so under neath the porch is "open air" which makes the sun room cool down at night in cold weather to the upper 50s or so if we close the french doors to it, and it really heats up during the day. It gets full sun, ALL DAY, and is extremely bright. Dpolson37, were you the one that stopped by my place (old place) back in like 2007 and dropped off two Plumie cuttings to me? If so, back then I did not have the space I did now. One of them I rooted and gave away, the other one got damaged by a storm, wind, falling tree branches, then HAIL of all things. It ended up not surviving all that trauma. =o( Roper2008, the BIG palm is a Phoenix Roebelenii. That will come inside and go in the sunroom as it is not hardy here. It is about 6-7 feet tall at its leaf tips so it easily fits inside. Its BIG, but that palm is my pride and joy. Fortunately those to not gain height very fast, and also are very happy in rather small pots. The reason it looks so "tall" is because its got an extra 2+ feet on it because it is sitting on a table. The only palms that will stay out are the in ground Sabal Minor out front on the south side of the house, and the windmill in the pot. I do wrap the pot, and use either xmas lights or a heating cable around the pot itself to keep it from freezing. The sago palms stay out until night time temps go down to around 27 or lower. The banana to the left with the single white chair next to it is a Rojo "blood leaf" or "blood" banana. I have it since it was about 1' tall and for almost 3 years now. This is its third summer out, and it is putting up lots of pups, especially since he got a bigger pot this summer. Only two of the Bananas come in, the others are Basjoo and will go in the ground to overwinter, OR just get cold stored dormant in the basement. Thank you everyone for all the kind words and for looking! It's not the best but its what I can do given what I have. If I actually owned the house, it would look ALOT different, with many things actually in the ground.

No, I had read your post and had just bought that CD after seeing Huey on Rachel Ray last week. I ordered it Thursday and it was here from Amazon on Friday! NO inference intended that you are on drugs - now a happy LIFE is your drug! I did a huge pharmacy vendor conversion back in 2001 for a large insurance company. We actually made a CD with songs that made us think of parts of the project. Since the company was going from one PBM (pharmacy benefit manager) to another, THAT was the lead in song - I Want a New Drug. We also had Clapton's 'Co*a*ne', 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' by the Stones (reference to 3rd tier drugs that aren't in the formulary), and one that cracked us all up - 'Se*ual Healing' by Marvin Gaye. We chose that one when we ran reports for the previous PBM, and saw that some women had filled scrips for Vi*gra. 'First of May' by the Bee Gees referred to the day we cut over from the old PBM on 5/1/2001. 12 other songs rounded out our 'Conversion Highlights' CD, including our song about endless testing, which was 'Do It Til You're Satisfied', by B T Express. You'd love it!

Juanital, that is a nice one. Your link helped me see that I'm not the only 'sky junkie' around. ;) It seems to have a million looks and moods that often come and go in the blink of an eye. Here is a little slideshow I did of the Decemeber pics around here. Here is a link that might be useful: December Sky slideshow

Marcolo, this isn't necessarily for you, but for someone who might be considering linoleum type counters in the future. When we were first married, we lived in an old farmhouse that had red lino floors, and red lino counters, perfect U shape postwar remodel, sigh. (It looked like they used the cutout of the floor to do the counters!) I don't know if the problems came with the age of the lino, or what, but every time I tried to lift something warm up off the counter, it would stick fast. So, things like a bowl of soup or a bowl of oatmeal would stick. When I'd finally pry the bowl up, a small chunk of linoleum would be stuck to the bottom of the bowl. Yuck! We were very happy when we could replace those counters with some laminate. I hope you find that durable finish you are after. Have to wonder if hard wood countertops might be a good option. I think they'd still give you somegrounding with the colors you are considering. This kitchen is especially bright, is it grounded enough?