Composting is not rocket science as much as some purists would like the un-enlightened to believe. In my experience, it's extremely hard to do it wrong and my experience has been that one would have to work hard to cause ill effects. (Though if you believe that the natural way of disposing of used motor oil is to compost it along with your kitchen scraps and then spread it around your lettuce or if your boy friend is prone to dumping paint thinner anywhere he thinks the EPA won't find it, then you may be heading towards complications in your compost, your garden and your health.) Like life, composting is not a race and if it doesn't get super-hot, the material will still rot in time and be of as much use. I read endless posts here from those who worry far too much about "doing it wrong." Should I compost my coffee filters? Should I run my kitchen scraps through the blender? Oh, no, my compost has cooled down! I think my carbon/nitrogen ratio is off and how can I face my family after such a failure? Should I measure all woody material with a micrometer after chopping it up with surgical instruments? How do I measure the volume of air relative to the solid matter in my compost? And on and on and on (as Kurt Vonnegut was fond of saying.) If you only think that you may have introduced a few, and only possibly diseased plants into your compost, you probably have extremely little to worry about (as opposed to those who have had acre upon acre of crops wiped out by disease and then said, what the Hell? Let's throw all those disease-ridden plants into a pile, turn it once or twice and see if we can get lucky by spreading it around our new seedlings.) Nature constantly spreads a little disease all around our gardens and all around our bodies. For the most part, our gardens and our bodies build up natural immunities to all sorts of things that we would naturally be horrified to know about in detail and I'm sure there are websites where horror-stricken people write about all the god-awful things that put their lives in jeopardy: "Just today, on the bus ride home from work, there was a guy with a runny nose, and I'm sure that he sneezed in my direction. I've heard that there may be a new flu strain from Asia and this guy had a foreign look to him. In fact, I verified it with his seat mate when he left that he did, in fact, sneeze. Now I'm very prone to colds and I'm sure that...." And on and on and on. Not that I'm trying to belittle your concerns. Just that some here would have us believe that this esoteric, mystical art of composting is so much more than just piling up organic matter, adding a little moisture and mixing it now and then. Ma Nature, as far as I almost know, never calculates carbon/nitrogen ratios when composting leaves and brush on the forest floor, nor does she dispair when she doesn't achieve a "hot pile" with internal temps of 140 degrees or more, since everyone knows that a hot pile is critical to to the very survival of the species, yet she seems to have a pretty fair rate of success, at least since the last Ice Age. My advice: Don't worry; make compost. Wayne

Val, you said: "In zone 5 they say our last frost date is May 15th. So I'm curious to know why you "winter-sowed" them in pots or jugs when couldn't you have just sown them into the garden? I think I'm getting more and more confused by this process. LOL" Sorry, didn't mean to confuse. I think Karen is right - so many of us do things so many different ways, it can be intimidating. I am VERY laid-back about my WSing. I might decide on the spur of the moment to sow a few containers at any given moment I'm at home. Then, I decide while looking through my seed box what I'm going to sow at that given moment. Again, the only "rule" I follow is to do veggies later than earlier. Later is relative. I WS so much - usually about 225 containers - that I tend to sow my perennials and annuals first, and then my veggies (well, except for cold-hardy veggies like peas, carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach - those I will do early). So, yes, I sowed my warm-season veggies in May, but that is basically because that is when I got around to it, lol! I didn't say to myself, "I have to wait until mid-May to sow these". I was just still sowing and since those are things that I would sow "later" rather than earlier, they just got put at the end of the line, and that's when they got done. Nothing to do with calendar dates, frost dates, or anything else that practical or logical, lol. Just had to do with when I could get to them! Oh, and one last thing - I hardly ever direct sow (I think green beans are the only thing I do) because I like the control that the jugs provide. Seeds don't get washed away, critters don't get the seedlings, and I have more time to plan where things go. That's why I still use containers as late as May. So, yes! Stop over-thinking and jump in, for goodness sake! The water's fine! AJ and Barbie, glad my list was of some help. But - to everyone - remember, as Mr. Gibbs says in "Pirates of the Carribean", they're really more like guidelines! :) Dee

Hi, Ilene. You have certainly been a glutton for punishment. You are also good at owning other peoples' problems. If you have decided to become more self protective now and enjoy your pool and give more necessary attention to your husband, good for you. You are the one that will suffer if you don't slow down a bit and take better care of yourself and DH. There are social workers that can come to the assistance of your Mom if you are unable. You can make a referral to the Office of Aging in the county your mother lives in if you are no longer able to meet her needs. Definitely, you have the right to be the the one to decide how much and what you are able and willing to do for anyone. If your Dad is nicer to you, it is understandable that you would more easily be able to help him out--and your DH is the person you will need to lean on when you need help, so you certainly want to care for him! If you are still willing to have your Mom visit for the holidays, of course you have the right to set the terms-overnight or whatever. She's probably not going to have the good grace to appreciate anything you do in any case. You could be in for a surprise, though. As you begin to set firm limits and boundaries with her, she may beghin to show you more respect. Justy don't hold your breath on that. By the way, imo you express yourself very well. Some of us have just been so mangled by misguided English teachers that we can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to composition. If you still have problems with any of the above, give a copy of what you have written to a counselor and he or she will see very clearly how to support your move toward greater assertiveness. With the new health insurance we all now have, there will be more access to counseling for this sort of thing. It's easy to let one's family pull one down, especially in stressful times and by invoking undesired guilt.

I haven't read all the posts so if this is a repeat of what's already been said I apologize. Have you tried changing out your lighting to reveal bulbs if you don't have them already. They can make a huge difference in how a paint color looks. Just recently my reveal bulb in my pendent in my kitchen burned out and all I had on hand was a daylight flourescent. I like those bulbs and have them in my lamps. However, when I put this one in my pendent in the kitchen it turned my walls a muddy ugly color. I had to immediately take it out as it made me ill to look at my pretty walls so ugly. Needless to say the nest day a reveal went in. Also do you have items in the room yet or are you just judging the paint by itself? Furnishings and other decor can make what you think is an ugly paint look very good. Not sure if this is the case with yours but thought I would mention it. Good luck and I know how you feel, been there, done that to the tune of $100 in paint and many wasted hours.