Gabe's liver transplant was a huge success. He was only in Children's Memorial for 6 days and then at Kohl's House for 3 weeks. The doctors told us that rejection is rare as long as he takes his meds. The problem has been all the viruses and stuff this winter because his immune system is so low. He catches every bug that comes along, which is pretty much what the transplant docs at Childrens said he would struggle with. My husband was tested to see if he was a match for a living donor, but he had a vein that was in the wrong place, so Gabe had to wait for a donor. He received a whole liver from a little 4-year old boy. That's about all we know. We thank God that someone made a sacrifice through their pain for us. Kids are amazing....he had the surgery on Friday 3/16; was only in intensive care for 24 hours; and was taken off all pain meds on the following Monday. He was shouting the roof down about being hungry and asking the doctors why they didn't have any food in that hospital and demanding a Happy Meal. Kids recover so fast. We met a parent there who had donated a kidney to her child and 2 weeks later was still in a lot of pain from the surgery. Kids really bounce back quick. Thanks for asking. -t

jackie o, Thanks for writing in and offering your ideas. I haven't noticed a lot of denigration of English garden writers on the forum or elsewhere, but then I'm not British so these comments would probably be less irritating to me than to a Brit. About "warning" other gardeners about the differences in rose growth caused by different climates and cultivation practices, I suspect that gardeners are divided, by temperament or philosophy or whatever, into two camps: the help out the ignorant newbie; and the let them take their lumps: they're grownups, after all. I belong to the first camp. I became interested in gardening when I was thirty and started from a point of abysmal ignorance, a state I remember well. I was fortunate: I happened to have an older sister who was an experienced gardener, plantswoman, and garden designer, who gladly offered me expertise, moral support, and plants. Not everybody is as lucky as I was. I offer the kind of basic (kindergarten level) advice and warnings I enjoyed when I started gardening and that helped me so much. I don't understand the other point of view, but then, as I read recently, it's not necessary to understand other people, but only to accept them; and I do that. Concerning your last comments, there's a difference between offering elementary knowledge, explaining what a perennial is, or a once-blooming rose, or that there's such a thing as soil ph; and dictating how another gardener should go about cultivating her garden. All gardening is experimental, even if not all gardeners know that. I regard myself as a tolerably experimental gardener with her own ideas about how I want to cultivate my garden and how I want it to turn out. I'm happy to tell anyone who's interested how I garden and why and what the results are, but I certainly don't insist on it as a model. It's neither my business nor my desire to tell other people how to grow their gardens. Melissa

I, too, struggle with guilt and pity for roses I've accidentally hurt in some way or shovel pruned despite their being healthy. I have experienced that many times. I cope with it with a few strategies. First, I try to find homes for them rather than shovel pruning. I've long since run through and exhausted my list of friends and neighbors who might want my cast-offs. Then I turn to Craig's List and list them as FREE. Second, I'm gradually getting thicker skin about shovel pruning the roses that are heavily disease-prone or just weaklings. I remind myself they started out as nothing more than pruning material we've all disgarded tons of. Third, the money I've spent on roses after giving away perfectly healthy roses that I just didn't love, I remind myself its just part of the cost of enjoying hobby and that it defintely is appreciated/needed by these rose nurseries. I still struggle with some twinges of regret: Roses I had mixed feelings about getting rid of. Sometimes they were great roses but too big for my limited space. Occasionally there's a rose that is great in every way--healthy, viorous, blooming machine even good bloom form, that I just don't like the color of. Winsome, St. Patrick, Pierrine all did well for me, but I could never get excited by them. The worst guilt is from occasional mistakes that resulte in my killing a rose. Oops. Particularly frustrating when its an unusual, hard to replace variety. I killed off New Yorker by over-fertiling the delicate thing repeatedly until it couldn't recover. (Palm slaps forehead)

"A friend of ours owns several funeral homes and he said that if people saw how a tatoo looks after death they would not ever get one. Especially if they are now older". Can anyone give me one reason why I should giveadamn what the people at the Funeral Home think? I don't care what people say NOW! Those Funeral Home employees don't get paid to think, they get paid to "look sad" at a $25,000.00 funeral!;) Imagine having to stand around with a family you don't even know and having to look all sad...while "Cha-Ching" is ringing in your ears! I wasn't following "herd mentality" when I got my tattoo! I got mine a personal memorial to my husband. I couldn't care less if I have or don't have the approval of anyone.