Nora, Thanks so much for your response...I feel so fortunate to have so many people respond over the past 24 hours. Your idea of a styrofoam ball with yarn is fantastic. My mom knitted and crochet her entire life...learned while in school in 7th grade and actually did it for a living while raising me and my sisters. Now, I have bags full of yarn and I've tried to encourage her, but she won't (I realize now it's probably that she can't). But, if I get the styrofoam balls, maybe, just maybe I can get her interested in winding the yarn around them. I cannot tell you how much this forum has helped me already...For 4 1/2 months, I've been so frustrated with my mom constantly refusing everything I've tried to get her to do. At times, she seems completely fine, so clear headed that I lose sight of the fact that she's losing her mind and at times have actually argued with her!!! How ridiculous! I'm beginning to realize that it's not that she doesn't WANT to do anything, it's that she CAN"T, or is AFRAID that she can't. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for them...what are they thinking, what are they feeling? How frightening it must be for them. These are thoughts that I torture myself with. I so want to cure her and take care of her; all I can do is be there for her and let her know that I love her and will always be here for her. Every day, when I leave the house (I go to my main office for a few hours 3 days a week) she asks me "where are you going?" and every day, I say "I'm going to the office" and she says "be careful and make sure you come home" and I walk up to her, every day, give her a big hug and a kiss and I say "I will always come home, and I will always love you." I guess that is all I can do..let her know she is loved and truly cared for and that I won't let anything awful happen to her. Now that I've rambled on so....I do have a question, if anyone is even still reading this...How do you manage caring for your mom knowing that she doesn't have a clue who you are? It must just tear you apart.One more thing Nora...nine years is a long time...how was she through the majority of those years? Was she aggitated? Did she get along with her caregivers? Did she put up a fight about bathing?...I'm done for now....thanks again...you've been more help than you can ever imagine...my heart goes out to all of you for taking the time to respond to me and caring enough to do so....

Do you have access to employment counselor services? Something like that might be able to help you get an idea of what kinds of professions might fit your framework of needs. There are many things you could theoretically do from home. Anything that would be computer-based and which doesn't require your physical presence in any particular place seems like it would fit. Telephone-based too maybe would fit. Depending on what your current job-details are you might be able to do it from home. Talking to your current human relations department people might be a good idea (if you work someplace what has a HR department). If you haven't considered it, it might be worth considering part time or flex time arrangements where you are. The big immediate thing it sounds like is the lack of daycare for your baby and the fact of being in the post partum period. If you can't find acceptable care, try asking at your present place of employment what options exist. (They might shock you by enabling your job to be adapted in order to accomodate your needs.) Because you are in the post partum period physically, you need to consider some issues. The idea is to consider for yourself whether large changes were a good idea before, will still be a good idea in a year or two (as best you can imagine a year or so into the future), and whether they are in your family's best interests and in line with your goals and plans for the future. Give that a lot of consideration. It's not unusual for a woman's post partum changes to cause changes in the way she thinks of and perceives things. This is usually a positive kind of mothering thing that goes nicely with having to care for a newborn. Sometimes though in the whole first year that effect can be more extreme from time to time and cause a woman to want to make sweepingly huge changes which may not be in line with her longer term goals. (This kind of effect is usually transient and just giving extra thought and consideration to the changes that seem (at the time) to be needed can help her to know which changes will be best.) Writing or thinking, or recording, or things like that are useful tools to sort things out. and, as usual if you feel depressed or anxious or overwhelmed (either up or down) in a way that impacts your ability to function in general in a negative way talk to your doctor P.S. It seems like any kind of billing, or writing-based tasks could be done from home (and some of those kinds of things may be required in the kinds of areas where you do have experience). Make sure you know or can easily meet the people you work for; that's a good way to at least avoid some scams. An additional thing is to check the better business bureau or make sure the people or places you work for have good reputations that they have an interest in maintaining and improving.

I had VG in my last house and loved it! It went nicely with my cherry cabinetry and didn't show crumbs or anything at all!! We have since moved and my new neighbor has NVG (slightly lighter than the original VG) on cream cabinets and it looks wonderful with that combo too, so I agree that it's a very versatile granite that looks good with lots of different cabinet colors. Since you might eventually paint your cabinets in the future, I would stick with the NVG which might look better with painted cabinets, especially if you are thinking about cream. Also, the darker the granite, the more dust it shows. At least that has been my experience, so the NVG is a great middle ground and won't be a headache with showing stuff the way a darker granite might. Good luck!

Thanks, Sue, for your help. I'll try the water thing first - that would be the simplest - and if that doesn't work, I get a spray. Glad to find out what these bugs are and that they don't do a lot of damage, but like you, I hate to think of them on the plants. The roses are looking quite good at the moment and I'd like to keep it that way, so will try your suggestions. Many thanks. Cheryl.