>> why did you use insecticide on a plant you knew wasnt getting enough water.. and already stressed.. [organic or not] I didnt KNOW it was getting enough water. A desperate attempt to eliminate the possibility of insects causing the problem. (I tried everything else) >> and why potted?? Because I have crappy soil. Next question. >> was it in full sun.. in that tiny pot all summer??? The pot is not tiny, it works great for flowers of like size normally. It's not the pot size, I know. The plant was thriving in the full sun until suddenly it began to die and did so in just a short period of time. >> and why not mother earth?? Crappy soil! Black clay... Not even an option... Next question >> and with the lawn looking a bit splotchy.. is there a dog around.. you will know when you unpot it.. smell the media ... No dogs. No animals... My plan now is to remove the plant and inspect the roots. Something killed this plant quickly. No exterior chewing/sucking insects present... No foliage damage... It appeared to me that the leaves were drooping before it died.. I originally thought it was wilting and needed more water. Occasionally ill forget to water my potted plants and they will do that... (wilt) But they usually perk right up once I give them water. Tim

A fast preheat in an oven does not guaranty that the oven is truely heated to your intended temp. Some ovens this is only a timing feature and after so many preset minutes the indicator "dings" even though the oven is not to the set temp. Other ovens turn on addition elements to speed the process. This gets the air temp to the set temp but maybe the oven walls and door are not up to the set temp. There are ovens that turn on addition elements and run the convection fan during preheat. These do a better job of getting the walls and door hot along with the air. Some companies base their advertised preheat times on lower temperatures. BUT... In all reality with the physics of thermal dynamics, and a household range, you can not truly heat an oven to 350 in 5 minutes. Depending on the set temperature, it takes 20 minutes or longer for all the surfaces in the oven to stabilize. Many of my customers who do a lot of fine baking like pastries, breads, etc., let their ovens heat for well over 30 minutes before putting in the product. Commercial bakers turn their ovens on several hours before baking. However like mentioned in the above posts there are sometimes when you don't want to preheat at all.

"...cindylou, imagine if you can what it would be like after all you and your husband have experienced with your MIL if your own children grew up and estranged you..." If I had a child who estranged me, I would not think it had anything to do or not to do with my MIL. I would not think that they owed me a relationship because I tolerated my MIL (maybe I misunderstood what you meant by connecting my MIL into that idea). If my child estranged me suddenly and with no warning and if I asked and they said, "You know", and I truly didn't, I would make the assumption they didn't quite didn't know themselves. That they have feelings and upsets they don't quite understand themselves and that they needed time away from me to work them out. (This is assuming there's no mental illness or addiction. If there is mental illness or addiction, then I do know and frankly, maybe I'm just getting too old, but I've seen the hopelessness and heartache of addiction and mental illness, and I think I'd just be grateful for being cut out). More likely, I would have been told the answer. And I'd accept it, even if it didn't make sense. "Because you wore blue to my kindergaren graduation." Huh? Ok. I don't think I'd argue. I can't imagine arguing with an adult child. They are an adult. I barely argue with them now. My parents didn't argue with me, I never saw them argue with their parents. My aunts and uncles on both sides didn't argue with either their adult children or their parents. It's just not done. I can't imagine it. There are differences of opinion and hurt feelings and misunderstandings and on rare occasions, conflict between adult members of my extended family. Of course there is. But everyone seems to understand a basic rule. I live my life and you live yours, and I can offer my opinion and it's fair if you don't follow it. The person who's business it is, gets the final say. The person who has the most responsibility gets to decide. The person who takes the biggest risk chooses. We are none of us perfect people; but we don't squabble and manipulate and gang up on each other and form one alliance and then another to force family members to do what we want. And we don't stab each other in the back. That's such a bizarre concept to me. And we are very close--without melodrama. There's not a lot of conflict. So if a child told me, "I don't want contact from you because you wouldn't let me go to Aruba on spring break." I'd respect that. I'd figure sooner or later they'd understand. Or if not, sooner or later it wouldn't matter any more. I would absolutely believe that eventually they'd come back. Not the way they were, it wouldn't be the same relationship, but had we stayed close, it wouldn't be the same relationship at 30 as it was at 20 or 10. Would I miss them and be hurt. You bet. But I'd be comforted that I would see them again and focus on the other blessings of my life while I waited. I truly believe that if you love something you let it go, and if it loves you, it will come back. And if it doesn't come back, you never had it to begin with. If after 10 or 20 years there was still no contact, I'd have to face the fact that it's probably for the best. We didn't have the relationship I thought we had; I didn't know them, and we obviously weren't a match even if they have half my DNA. Do I hope to have close, intimate relationships with the families of my adult children? Of course. But I will be happy with any non exploitive relationship my children feel comfortable with. I may want more contact or less, depending on the personalities, but perfection doesn't happen in relationships; it's like tension between togetherness and individuality that has to be worked out in a marriage. When your children are adults with families, you renegotiate your relationship, and if it REALLY doesn't work for someone, you might have to walk away. Sad, painful, but realistic. I have a coworker who is retiring and moving to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. They are delighted to have her. On a recent house hunting trip she was dismayed that her daughter seemed to expect/demand a lot of babysitting from her. She's not moving there to take on the responsibility of babysitting her grandchildren, altho she does hope to see a lot of them and participate in their lives. Things were tense as she attempted to come to understanding with her daughter. She came back and asked if things don't work out in the other state, can she have her job back. I sometimes in the past had wondered if she's a meddling MIL so much does she talk about her grandchildren. But I see now she's got a life outside them and is not exploiting her daughter's family to fill the emptiness (if any) in her own life. And she's not going to allow herself to be exploited by her daughter however much she loves her family. She sees her standing up for herself may result in a cut off; and I respect her handling of this delicate situation. I'm sure it will all work out, but I can see myself in her place; in any relationship, there's always the possibility that you or the other person will walk away for whatever reason. You may think, oh yeah, you are so philosophical, just wait until it happens to you. Well, like anything, what choices do you have: you either accept with grace or you don't. How does not accepting with grace help anything? The ends don't justify the means. Bullying, manipulating, harassing, yelling...none of that is going to help. If you accept with grace, while you are waiting for the problem to resolve itself enough so the child talks to you again with a willingness to compromise, at least you can still have meaning and pleasure in your life. It also gives you time to reflect as well. It might not be that you did something WRONG, it's just that you don't mesh well. And you can measure in the absence how you and your adult child's family don't mesh and what you are willing to compromise to make the relationship more pleasant for EVERYONE. "Mom, you can never be unsupervised with my kids." "Why?" "Because you are a taurus". Huh? Well, that makes no sense to me. But why jeopardize my supervised visits with my grandchildren which can be wonderful by arguing if being a taurus prevents one from being a good grandma or not. Why fill that time with strife and anger and posturing and demands and righteousness and counter accusations when I can be on the floor playing Candyland and angling for the chocolate swamp or coloring in Barbie coloring books or stacking Lincoln logs as high as the sky. Who cares if DIL is glaring at me when my darling grandson and I are holding our breathes to see if we can make a Pixie Stix teepee? I believe letting them go gracefully gets them back eventually, and if it doesn't, the relationship would have just caused heartache all around anyway, estranged or not.

I've also done various shades of gray since the late 80s when my ID suggested Norwegian wood for the kitchen cabinets and the woodwork in the kitchen and den. More recently, but still about 10 years ago, we painted all the hideous green doors in the ski house a darker warm gray and then a couple of years later painted the builder white walls a a couple of lighter, very neutral, warm grays. We're building our retirement house in a few years at the ski area and will probably go with a lot if gray then too, but will try to keep it on the warm end. Right now my Irving room is a charcoal gray below the chair rail and a lighter gray above, but I missed on those and it comes off a bit cold. While I can appreciate a well done room with creamy whites or tans, I am not a big fan of anything with a hint of yellow (especially in snowy areas). Something about the reflection if all the white snow makes tans and creams seem dingy to me. Ironically though I do like yellow generally -- just today I had on a soft yellow fishermans knit sweater with gray leggings.