And so the addiction begins... When I grew phals indoors (I'm also in NYC), I found that in the winter (Dec - Feb) they could take direct sunlight in the morning and/or in the afternoon. I did not grow them succesfully in sphagnum moss because during the winter, there was not enough air movement in my house to dry out the moss fast enough. They did very well in LECA, as did all my cyms, zygos, oncids, paphs, and catts. I wish you luck with your phal and hope you'll continue to share your orchid tales with us.

For as much as I like Miele, their executive management is dysfunctional. All countries except the USA have good web sites that actually work. Not here. Miele is basically screwing up the marketing in North America. They don't properly promote the advantages of their machines while underutilizing some revolutionary features (PC Update, RemoteVision, etc.). The RemoteVision thing is what I really can't understand. Miele can enable wi-fi connectivity on their machines, so why not make the machines programmable remotely and charge customers for special cycle "packages" like they do with their commercial machines? For instance, if you live on the coast you might want a slight variation to all of your programs to ensure sand is properly rinsed out... or I might want to buy the "Southwest" cycle package that would be better suited to wash out iron-rich clay soil. The possibilities are endless and something like this would add to Miele's revenue stream. No other manufacturer is positioned to do what Miele can do here, the only problem is that Miele is not doing anything much with the great technology they've developed. I should be CEO of Miele USA.

If he's an investor, he'll probably not get caught up the in the "offended" thing. So instead work on what's the lowest you can justify. I'd probably say "I was going to offer $140K to the bank, but didn't make the deadline. I don't know what you paid for it (you don't know the precise number, after all), but I'll offer you what I would have offered the bank." DO NOT change your offer until he puts something concrete back on the table. Don't let him pull the "that's too low, what's the highest you can go" game. Once he counters then you can proceed. If he counters anything over $150K, ask him how he came up with his number and pull out comp A and say "look, this is a similar house that didn't need the repairs that this one does, and it sold for $158K. It'll cost me 10 grand to get it up to par with comp A." If he uses any of your other comps, then reject those as newer, in a better neighborhood, on less land, or whatever, and thus not legitimate comps. And you can always pull the "we just don't have any more money than that" game. I think you should be able to get it for less than $150K. And the investor should be sufficiently motivated to take it. Heck, 10-20K for a bit of paperwork? Not a bad deal at all. Good luck!

Lmao! No doubt! Basically we have this therapist that is a 'conflict resolution' therapist. SM and I have seen her a few times and what we talked about are how we are different at the same time we are a lot alike. 'supposedly'. I don't see it really but at the time we realized a lot of our 'goals' in parenting are the same. The problem lies in SM seems to want to forget that I even exist while DD is there. I have never wanted that for BD. DD has pictures of BD in her room. She has a photo album that I made during our seperation of a of the photos of her and BD from day 1 and up. His family, anything that revolved around BD but it excludes me. One of my goals while making it was so DD could have her dad in pictures whenever she wanted without a constant reminder of the family we use to have but to remind her of the father she still has. If that makes sense. They have sent pictures over the last few years and I add to it as they send them. DD is very much an out of site out of mind child. She doesn't really ask about Dad when she is with me and they say she never asks about me when with them. Instead of them seeing that as 'normal' they see it as well she doesn't even think about me at all so she must not need me or want me. I don't think that way? And I don't think it's the case. It's simply out of site out of mind and there isn't anything wrong with that. If she were worried about me or thinking about me constantly while with him, I would be worried. But what it tells me is she is happy and can function outside of my care. It tells me I did a good job giving her independance and I am raising a healthy happy child. I am not sure what we will accomplish but we are supposed to work out a co-parenting plan and come to agreements on raising, what is important regarding house rules and behavior. We found we are very similar in that regard. We have the same expectations for behavior and chores, school work, respect and so on for each of our own children. The only difference is although those things are similar regarding our biokids, sm seems to have different 'higher' expectations for my DD. I so wish the tables could turn on her for a moment. I Would never wish an angry, lunatic sm on anyone but I would love for her to have to deal with these same problems regarding her own DD. It may open her eyes a bit. If she had someone doing this to her daughter she would probably go WOAH hold on! She told me her ex does not have a girlfriend so she doesn't have to deal with this. But I am thinking one day, he will meet someone and this will all turn her world upside down. I am not a stepmom but I am married to a stepparent and I have stepparents and they all recognize boundaries especially when it comes to respecting the child's bioparents as the PARENTS. The way I look at it is steps are an added bonus. More people to love!! Shouldn't it be so much easier to have a family of four parents than just two? That means more hands and more support - but it sometimes also means more opinions and more negative energy. The one thing I would like to say to SM if it ever came up but I know it won't.. Is: the insecurities you are feeling regarding me stem from you beginning a relationship with a man who still had a wife and still loved his wife. The man was so confused at the time and was in a tug of war of two women who loved him. She didn't break up our marriage, it was already broken, we weren't living together but we were still trying to work it out. I do not think it is always the case but in my experience and knowing others that deal with this, when you begin a relationship with someone still attached to someone else, you have insecurities and it takes a lot to overcome them. When children are involved and you have a constant reminder of the other person that makes you feel so insecure and they won't ever go away as long as you live.. And you are still with that person. Of course that is just my opinion. We have our first meeting next week...