I can identify with what everyone has said so far. I often rely on the practicalities of a design question to point me in the right direction. How does this area need to function? Which plants would like these conditions, sun/shade, wet/dry, low growing/tall? Then often it is a case of a certain plant that I am in love with and finding the best place to put it. And in the end, even after thinking it through well, and giving attention to care, the end result doesn't please you. Then you try again and see where it is not working and move things around or bring home another great plant to try. I've done that lots of times and have done a lot of moving. Eventually, I have finally succeeded in a pleasing result in some areas, but others I'm still working on. This year, I am finally seeing some maturity with some of our shrubs and perennials and I have thought what a difference that makes. So patience pays off more than I realized. But, when you plant with eventual size in mind, the spaces are very unappealing. So I've planted between and now, for instance, I am going to have to move daffodils out from under shrubs. I like the idea of planting annuals for a season until you find inspiration. I love an annual garden. You may find it works so well, you will keep doing it every year. I keep one bed in full sun that has a mix of perennials and annuals, but it started out with just annuals and that was fun. A garden is so personal. It is a process of learning about yourself as a gardener and your property. The trick I think, is to accept both as they are and with patience just enjoy the process. There isn't a season that I don't find something to really be happy about, but never a season that I'm happy about everything. But if I were, then what would I have to look forward to changing next year? :-)

Oh, I get that way too, especially this time of year. Sometimes a spot will look wonderful in spring, and then by August I realize that it's Totally All Wrong. Since this isn't the best time of year to be re-arranging, or indeed, to buy good-quality perennials, here's what I do. * I take digital photos of the "needs something" area from all vantage points. * I print several copies, sizing the photo to take up about half a sheet of paper. * On the other half of the paper, I write down everything that irks me about the spot. * I also make notes of things to check in spring. Maybe it's a clump of daffodils that now look like a big hole in the planting scheme. And then I pull out the photos and notes in winter, when all of the catalogs start arriving. Giving the area a fresh look later, especially when I couldn't go out and plant if I *wanted to*, often inspires me. But if it's someone ELSE's spot that needs work, I have ideas all the livelong day! Post a photo, and we'll help you brainstorm!

Good morning, y'all -- just sitting down with my chai... First thing, (((mitch))) that *stinks* :( Good onya for standing up for your daughter and not taking no for an answer. She'll remember your tenacity and support for the rest of her life. (DH and I both have memories of how our parents *didn't* stand up for us to authorities ever, on anything, so we're determined not to make that particular mistake in this generation.) So this sounds like a movie, I know -- I think of Pollyanna but without the paralysis... As they told it to me, DH and DD drove down there last night at the end of practice, feeling a bit nervous as they pulled in, only to see the sprinters and the distance kids -- gasp -- playing Capture the Flag together! First, the sprinters had never played a game, only DH's distance kids; this was a double first because the sprinters can barely stand to have to breathe the same air as the distance kids anyway, much less acknowledge them as peers, and here they were laughing and playing together. Completely ODD. When the kids saw DD, many of them broke from the game and *ran* to her, seriously. There was MUCH hugging and "I'm so glad you're back" and "Are you o.k.?" etc...one girl hung back from the group--the perp, of course. And DD noticed that the sprinter girls the perp usually hung around with were not clumped with her, either. The distance girls were all bouncing around happy to see DD, but even one sprinter girl and her mom came over to welcome her back and talk. One family volunteered to join us at the all-comers meets next month if DD's able. So while she's over with the kids and the moms, who are variously inviting her over to play with their kids (although I'm not holding my breath for it actually to happen--DD's just the it girl for the moment) and admiring her hair, which they'd never seen out of a pony tail (hey, it's what they know LOL), DH is over with the head coach. awm03, you'll be interested to read this...The coach starts out with "well, I've talked to three different families and I have three conflicting stories" (meaning the perps, us, and one dad who saw it from across the field whom I mentioned above, and I could have taken the other two apart in court quite easily, but it's not necessary) and DH was gearing up for his "don't even try to call my daughter a liar" speech, but then the coach said "but on Sunday, I saw with my own eyes the girl do it *again* at a meet." DH was stunned to hear this. Evidently the girl felt pressured at the state meet in one of the events and she tried to push another girl out of her lane--again, no one official saw (but thank the fates our head coach did) and he went up to the perp's mom and said that the perp is developing a seriously bad tendency and she's got to stop pushing people out of their lanes. She was spoken to again on Wednesday much more forcefully, the head coach saying "[perp's mom] is super-competitive anyway..." with a significant look. We have to make sure that the policy of having to sit out the next meet that we suggested will be instituted, and it seems now that everyone knows that DD didn't "just fall", that the perp hurt DD and tried to push the girl at the meet, that the club isn't going to ignore it, so DD's psyche is healing quite well. The timing of the coach noticing 'a pattern' is quite odd, actually, because we sent the letter on Wednesday afternoon, so on Sunday from *us* he didn't know that the perp was the person responsible yet. (I'm not inclined to think he's lying about the whole thing, esp. since another of the distance coaches has said he wanted to talk with DH about something that happened at the meet, when he gets back from an ultramarathon next week--now we have an idea what he might be wanting to tell DH). Reading between the lines there must have been even earlier incidents that caused the coach to say the perp was developing a pattern, The girl is seriously troubled (again, more on this below). The coach then also told DH, if we can believe it, that on Sunday when people realized DD wasn't at the meet, and why, they came up to him "constantly" to tell him how much they liked DD, how fun she was, how sweet, how she was so nice to everyone, how her hard work had inspired them to work harder this year and how they wish she could come back and race - like going to your own funeral without having to die :). I wouldn't believe all this except for the reception DD got spontaneously from all (but one of) the girls of the club, the moms, the coach's wife, etc. (the boys were too cool to care, of course). The coach's wife, who was included in the recipients of the letter we sent, actually said something funny by mistake: she said that she really admired DD's attitude (DD was doing what I do in those situations and making lots of jokes), then said "and you'll be back soon, you'll come back with a vengeance, right? Ah, I mean...you'll be working just as hard as before, right?" LOLOL I had also pointed out to DH that one reason the push and the lack of witness to it happened was that there aren't enough distance coaches to have one with each group of kids -- as the only distance coach who shows up reliably (others are parents who do ultramarathons and such, not track distance, and they help out with runs when they can) he has to juggle *all* the kids of all ages and abilities and he has to rely on the older kids to regulate themselves sometimes. Which obviously has its vulnerabilities. So the H.C. agreed to work from several directions to address this next year, seeing as the distance contingent has grown so much bigger since DH took over :). (I sit back and can see from a wider perspective the dynamics of what's going on there, kind of like sports dramaturgy :), and saw the organizational flaw...I also have suggested more interconnection between sprinters and distance kids, e.g. distance kids doing sprint workouts every so often like the great Nick Symmonds, sprinters doing distance workouts to help them with the 400 -- but I have no official track experience so I have to whisper in DH's ear and he gets credit for all these ideas. Love it. But as long as it helps DD and the team, I'll be the eminence grise) So now about the perp. I am seriously worried for her. She came over to DD yesterday after some of the initial excitement had died down and said "I'm sorry *you're hurt*" (COME ON, girl, is it SO hard? evidently so--she is to be congratulated for coming over and trying, but she just couldn't own up to it, even or perhaps because of seeing how bad everything was). DD told her the full extent of her injuries and how she's going to have to train back, finishing with "I'll be back even stronger next year, though" with a sweet smile (which she repeated for me LOL). Perp girl smiled back weakly and kind of slunk away. The idea that she has done it before and did it again in a *meet* is suggesting to me that maybe subconsciously she's so desperate she *wants* to get caught and banned, a la "suicide by cop". It's maybe the only out she sees. But even beyond running, I have deep foreboding about what the teen years hold for this poor girl. I wish I could sit down with her mom and really talk with her about what her kids tell pretty much everyone who will listen, but the mom is a serious (shiny upper middle class blonde) hard case. She doesn't respect me or DH, who has tried to talk about the kids' training and nutrition with her before, to which she just says "I used to run too and I know what I'm doing." Well, o.k. Guess I just have to send out energy to the girl for strength and courage to seek out healthy people to associate with (she actually had hung around DD and always wanted to be on a team with her, ironically enough--DD thought they were friends, which is why the push was doubly saddening for DD). Maybe I might try to find a time to casually talk directly with the girl herself. Not recriminatory, but supportive, letting her know there are other ways to live and she *can* find them and they will accept her if she doesn't push them away...(and now I know why the ex-husband of the mom didn't want his kids doing track. We never understood that before.) I'm going to make sure that DD makes sure that the other kids don't demonize the girl for what she did, that they leave the girl an open door to come back in if she ever decides she wants to behave better. So DD just has to let her ligament heal, do the PT, and get back in the game. I am *so* thankful for how the club handled this, and I just hope that the good feelings continue and grow, even if it took DD's injury, from which she'll recover, to hold a mirror up to people. (A side note: I love this thing I see happening all the time--when something happens to you that people can see, suddenly people you have known a bit, say cashiers or postmen or whatever, suddenly share their own stories of similar things happening to them and how they overcame them, got better, came out stronger on the other end, etc. We even learned that an older-looking shelf stocker at the local pharmacy, just a person we asked where the knee braces are, was almost an Olympic gymnast (I could tell she wasn't lying by the way she talked) back in '72, but she tore her ACL by showing the mens' team a floor ex move she'd made up that, it turned out, Olga Korbut did in the Olympics later that year! (not that O.K. somehow stole it, it was just 'in the air' and the same idea occurred on two different continents simultaneously.) She has had extensive surgery but can still *downhill ski*! She was a *wealth* of information and humor -- DD and I walked away shaking our heads--you just never know, when you start up a conversation with someone, do you? :)

Bluebell - here ya go! BANANA BREAD BLONDIES Ingredients For Blondies: ½ cup unsalted butter-melted 1 cup light brown sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1 large egg 2 teaspoon vanilla 1 ½ -2 teaspoon cinnamon (to taste) 1 cup flour ½ cup mashed banana (one medium-large banana) For Frosting: ¼ cup butter 6 Tablespoons light brown sugar 2 Tablespoons milk Dash of salt 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup powdered sugar Instructions Preheat oven to 350 F and line 8 x 8 inch baking pan with aluminum foil (leaving an overhang on the sides to lift the finished blondies out) and spray with cooking spray , set aside. To make the blondie batter, in a medium bowl mix together melted butter, sugar and salt. Add egg vanilla and cinnamon and mix until well combined. Add mashed banana and mix to combine. Add flour and mix until combined and smooth. Pour the batter into prepared pan, smooth the top and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until center has set. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature. To make the frosting in a medium sauce pan melt the butter and continue cooking over medium heat until reach nice amber color, stirring constantly (be careful not to burn it). Add brown sugar, milk and a dash of salt, stir and bring to boil. Remove from heat and cool for 10-15 minutes. Whisk in vanilla and powdered sugar. Spread over the blondies. Allow frosting to set before slicing and serving. Here's the batch I made. The next time I make them, I'll add chopped nuts to the blondies. I thought they were even yummier after having been refrigerated for a few hours too. Enjoy!