Thanks Ruthie!! Yes, I am an old southern girl and I grew up with a mother who did lots of canning, but my job was to wash the veggies and once I was done with that, I scampered outside as fast as I could!!! LOL!!! I wish now I had payed more attention!!! But I intend to pay alot of attention here and know with ya'lls help, I will learn alot!!! I am so glad I listened to Ruthie and finally made my way over here!!!

de, I don't think you should be having so much trouble keeping your soil moist overnight. I'm wondering if you moistened the mix (specifically the peat) when you combined the ingredients. The peat can be problematic. Personally, I just put a small hole in the bag, and put the hose into it for a while to moisten the peat (let it sit a day or more afterwards) before I add it to the mix. If you didn't moisten the peat before you put your seeds in, chances are that the mix is just very dry (and dry peat will allow the water to flow through, rather than be absorbed). If that is the case, you will need to give your mix a LOT of water, slowly so as to not wash out your seeds. But, at the same time, you may not have success anyway, if the mix isn't moist anyway.

LOSING YOUR LIFESTYLE, but GAINING A NEW YOU! All change has some pain if it's going to be successful! You sound like you are on your way! I have learned to eat carrot stick (those small ones) when I want something crunchy instead of chips. Radishes too. Celry too. Celry and peanut butter. After awhile, you don't want the COST (mentally) of chips... I get a huge bag of almonds, lay some out in a brownie pan, freeze the rest, and bake them until done. I have some in a jar at my desk at work RIGHT NOW! No salt, no sugar...plain, baked almonds. I do eat DOVE DARK CHOCOLATE and sometimes I throw in some almonds. DARK Chocolate has good ingredients for you vs. milk chocolate. Sometimes I splurge and make chocolate mousse. It's worth all the sugary candy in the world! It has improved my palate so that I only want the good stuff now. Less costly in the long run, for my budget, and my diet. I EAT VEGGIES with some Velvetta cheese. Yup, I cheat a little, but it get's me eatin' steamed brocolli, caulifower and brussel sprouts. Do you know a handfull of baby carrots will keep angina away!! I eat NO SALT whole tomato's...I eat those first during a meal or have a cup of tomato juice to fill me up a little first. I make raw veggies and blend the Italian season w. olive oil. Somes I add some cooked whole wheat pasta with hot pepper flakes. I eat more apples now. Never liked them, but now I do. They are filling! I still love fudgesicles and try to fine ones with the least sugar. I do have some indulgences. I have to! But I always EAT CERTAIN FOODS FIRST. Before I can have a fudgesickle, I must eat something of protein or some veggie. I love a good hamburger and buy only lean meat. In another email I told you how I eat more fish. For superbowl weekend, I'll probably be watching LIFETIME or something else, but I'll have my good munchies and crunchies. Ooowww, shrimp sounds good! If anything, the next day, you can ask, WHAT DID I DO TO BETTER MY LIFESTYLE OF EATING BETTER...and you feel soooo good! That has kept me going. Knowing that I CAN do this and I can do this with a new attitude about eating. You will be gaining so much! You need to think of all this junk food in they way your heart would look at it.... "potato chips...Oh, MY, all that FAT and empty calories", "Candy bars...gee all that WAX and hydrogenated oils"... "Store bought cookies...sugar, empty calories, and hydrogenated oils".... "Greasy hambuger...oh, please get the LEAN beef next time....you're cloggin' my arteries!" TAKE YOUR HEART WITH YOU IN YOUR HEAD EVERYTIME YOU BUY OR EAT SOMETHING! Ask her, "WHAT do you prefer?" You are on the road to a new and happier life! Good Luck, June Lynn

Hey guys... just reading that poem makes me cry again. I still cry every day. It's really hard when you're by yourself at night. I miss Danny. I made a shrine to him in my room. It's been a few months now and though the pain isn't... as consuming, it's still with me all the time. The time we had together, his youthful eyes and laughter, they haunt me, you know. It's still not right that we are here "enjoying" life and it is over for him, so young, so full of potential. I keep wondering why it has to be this way. And why he couldn't have been pulled out of the water, why those boys who were with him don't care about us, because they never call. I keep wishing I was old enough to start a family, that my ex boyfriend was a good man so I could give into his pressure to go home. But my path is set.... it's so strange but in the aftermath I see clear evidence that we (mom and I) are doing as God intends, that he has plans for us and taking my brothers away are part of the plan. For my mother at least, no clearer evidence could have been presented that God is here and He does care. My mom was devastated to be here, after her head cleared. She quit her well paying corporate job to slave away for my vengeful, tyrannical father. Things were not looking good - on top of the grief she had to suffer his abuse to pay the bills. She was depressed and felt she made a huge mistake in the wake of the grief. I felt bad b/c I insisted that God wanted us here, to help my Dad (before he betrayed us) to be where Dan was, to be in this small town away from the city, away from my ex bf. I prayed and I really thought we were doing the right thing. Even at the worst I encouraged her that somehow, God would come through - I could feel it. And He did. Out of a pool of 462 applicants in a town of 50,000, *my mother* was chosen to be the business manager/instructor for the only scuba diving school in the entire area. Her new job is about as awesome as they come. She not only gets paid to learn a new career, scuba instruction, but will be taking 10 paid vacations a year to take clients to places like Australia, the South Pacific, Hawaii and Florida. That we moved here after Dan drowned, and now she has a new career in *underwater life support* is not lost on me. Praise God - if that isn't direct evidence of his Love than I don't know what is. My beautiful mother has suffered so - this bit of security, adventure and hope for quality of life was exactly what she needed. The owner is so nice he won't ever make her dive in the huge brown river that took my brother, though it is the local attraction for his business. We also got to meet the diver who pulled my brother out of the water (bless him, if his body hadn't been recovered or recovered quickly it would have been even more tormenting) and my mom will get to be a volunteer search and rescue diver herself. I don't know what I'm doing. I was supposed to go back to school to finish 8 credits but I blew it off - until January. For some reason I lost my motivation to go to law school. I want to do something else. I don't know what. I will keep praying and maybe God will show me the path. I'd endure just about anything if I could have him back. Death is so unforgiving. A few minutes of being underwater, unconscious, and you can't come back. I've been re-reading "The Lovely Bones" and I really like the way that novel describes Heaven. The little murdered girl wonders why her dearly beloved grandparents aren't in her heaven. It's because she can't let go of watching people on Earth - her family, the investigation, her school. I like to think that Dan is here sometimes, I can almost feel him. But when he is not, he must be enjoying hot rods, powdered mountains and babes in bikinis. There must be babes in his heaven. I am waiting to find the perfect landscape tattoo artist, and then I will get a memorial tattoo in Dan's honor. It will be a silhouette of a snowboarder popping off an impossible cliff, with a burning, brilliant variegated sunset in the background. Dan Krueger, 1986 - 2004, it will say. He was such a good brother. I'm so grateful God has shown himself to me in the blessings and messages, so I know Dan continues on and I will see him again. I just wish he could "enjoy" life. Maybe heaven has all the good parts of life and none of the bad. But you can still feel things. I mourn the loss of his feeling - he loved to feel. We all do. That Dan's opportunity was taken away makes me feel like I should make the most out of life - but I don't know what to do. I'm just saving all the money I'm earning, and being here for mom. Thanks for caring, Lu, and I hope you all are holding up okay. Oh man, now I'm looking at the pictures to post the link. Pictures hurt so bad. These basic ones I've seen, I can hardly bear to look at them, and trying to look at the hundreds of family photos we have in the closet is like trying to breathe underwater. I just can't do it yet. CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY Man, it hurts.