Hey, I really had to search for this thread!! Well I'm down to 3 monarch cats, 1 5th instar, 2 3rd. WHOOHOO!! 7-8 chrys. Haven't collected any new eggs, orchard just sprayed again yesterday, so I'm assuming it's safe to mow the lawn so I can get some safe milkweed again. Well I'll probally check for survivors first, I know a week or so ago there were all kinds of eggs again, but I just didn't have the food to bring them in. I have one cat I've just been keeping an eye on, living on my butterfly weed, he should be off to pupate any time now. 5 of the 6 BST's I brought home have pupated, one working on it. And still have the 3 lil BST's who are starting to eat like crazy! I'm glad for the semi break though. I don't see how some of you raise so many monarchs by feeding individual leaves!! I much rather use plants in vases! Being left w/ only my butterfly weed to feed was insane! 3-4 feedings a day! And yes, I even did the middle of the night feedings on occasion! I didn't even have that many cats!

Thanks to the info given out regarding sending boxes to APO addresses to a soldier or sailor. It's all right on the money. I was advised to go to my local post office and get the customs form, label and the largest APO prepaid box to use for my son's things. The box costs just $12.50 for me to send, and it's one of those "whatever you can get in there; it all ships for the same price" boxes. They have specific boxes in 3 sizes to send to military personal overseas, so ask for those special boxes. There are pre-printed labels on each box to fill out for the soldier's name, rank and address numbers (they're all numbers). Thanks to all your very, very helpful suggestions, I came back home with enough to fill 2 of these boxes (LOL!)! So, I'm sending off one tomorrow and the other next week. BTW, the post mistress at our post office informed me that parents have been telling her the Army is removing all beef jerky before sending the boxes onto our service men and women. She has no idea why, as they're not the restricted pork products, but advised me not to waste my money sending any. Rose: thank you for thinking of me. I'm holding up well enough, although I shed a few tears in the middle of Target this afternoon, when a soldier in uniform stopped to help me pick out some items for my son. Sometimes, the reality of it all shakes me to my core, but then I pull myself together and get on with it. Again, many thank for all your great suggestions. The soldier helping me today at Target was VERY impressed with them all. Me, too!! Lynn

Stephanie, I understand your confusion, and agree that it is not a true bully / victim situation. However, I really think that what my son did was over the line, and wanted to be sure he realized it, too. If they were playing out in the yard, I would have handled it differently, but there are different rules for the yard than for school, and he is old enough to save any roughhousing for after school. I don't know what, if any, punishment the other boy received, and truthfully, I'm not even sure it matters. Ds has never complained about "MJ", so what reason would the school have for punishing him? When the asst principal first talked to ds, ds only said that they were playing around - didn't mention the pencil-poking until later when he talked to dh. What I wanted ds to get out of this, is reinforcement of something he learned years ago with my niece. My boys and their friends all play rough with each other, and know not to expect any sympathy from me if they get bruised while wrestling or playing dodge ball. But when my niece would come over, ds would play with her the same as he plays with his friends, she would screech, and he would get in trouble (because she had made it clear that she was not interested in their games). Pretty soon she would screech whenever he came anywhere near her - I think just for the fun of getting him in trouble. So I told him, I know that she is overreacting, but I can't defend you if you have so much as touched her. So just stay clear of her, and then you'll never be in trouble. I know it isn't exactly fair that he has to walk on eggshells around her, but in life he'll find there are always a few people who don't play by the same rules he does, and I wanted him to be able to differentiate between who is "safe" and who is not. To me this is nearly the same situation - the school makes it clear that students are not to touch each other, but he did it anyway and paid the price. Yes, the other kid seems to have changed the rules between himself and ds midstream, which is unfortunate, but still, I really don't feel that I can defend ds' behavior here - he has to be responsible for what he does regardless of what anyone else did. Probably will not call "MJ"'s mom, though - your comments made me realize that there is really nothing I can say to improve what will be an uncomfortable situation. "MJ"'s mom will eventually see ds out playing with his friends enough to realize he is not a big bad bully :)

We had to lose a mural too -- bought a house with a tea party mural - perfect for a house with a couple of girls, but we have two boys. We wound up wallpapering, so we did sand the wall. We had to remove texture more than paint. Since you are planning on painting, and assuming the walls have some texture on them, I would paint on one coat of tinted primer and see if you can see ridges or brush strokes through the primer. If you do, you ony need to sand to break those down, not totally remove them, so they blend in with the wall's texture. If you have done a lot of sanding you will definitely want a second coat of primer. If not, you can decide whether you want a second coat of primer. If the wall has no texture at all, then I would give it a light sanding first, then prime. If the grey goes with the blue in his room, I'd go with the one he likes. If you have a large open are of carpet, you can put a rug on top of it. If not, it will fade away visually -- it isn't going to be what he or likely anyone else is really looking at.