Karyn I received your email - thanks! I checked out the link too. I'm looking for the red blooming one - known as Disocactus flagelliformis. (if that helps any!) :) Mike Here is a link that might be useful: 'Rattail Cactus'

Hey Josh, please don't stay away too long! You have been missed these days:=) Patty! Please share your Jades! I still have one set aside for you. I just brought them up for the summer for good today:-) Thanks for the comments. The roots are not tight yet. It loves that pot.lol You should see the second flower that just opened today. Oh, it smells so nice. Hi Andrew. They can't be found anywhere here in the U.S. I don't even know the cultivator of that one. Hey Blaze..Thank you! What is your name anyhow? No gas masks here..lol Mike! What's up? How have you been? How's that gardenia? I'll bet it's doing great now that the warmer weather has arrived. Have you tried vinegar yet? Mike, hook me up to that adenium thread if you can. I would love to see it. Thanks buddy MIke

Hello Everyone!! Hi James.. They are the largest blooms i have ever seen too! The fragrance is just as powerful.. I love these beauties.. Want one? Hi Mike!!! Yes.. your seedling is adjustng nicely beside all of the others cousins learning the tricks on how i care for them!! It is in good company and i will send a report soon!! He is very happy!!! ;-) Hi Kenny!!! I enjoy the cutting's. i have them in the vase inside and i root them at the same time!! I dont know the real name, but my mother always called them "Old Fashioned" Im sendinng two to OK.. i could send three? Hey BWD!!! That would make a beautiful corsage!! I guess i would need to wear this while working in the yard? LOL.. I did go to lunch with my daughter and mother and Grandson.. so i could have used one!! Thanks!!! Happy Birthday to your dad!!! Hi Robert!! MY pleasure.. especially to the one who LOVES fragrance.. this will knock your socks off!!! LMAO!! Hi Lynn!! I have heard of others having trouble with Gardenias .. On one of the forums, they talk bout them often.. probably the fragrant forum. They are beautiful and if you ever want one.. let me know!! ;-) Hi Mona!! Thank you so much!! You will have to get up to VB one of these days this summer.. Peg and I will take you to lunch!!! Take care, Laura

I think that I understand why you are so sad. Here is my advice, take it or leave it. It is meant with kindness, and I hope it doesn't sound too harsh. I think that your response to the dish breaking is a release of the pent up stress of everything you are experiencing right now, and the feelings of things happening that are both good and hard at the same time. The dish is a physical reminder of your time when you and the children were together, doing something as a unit. And of course it is a thing of beauty in its own right. We all know that time marches on and things change, and that can be both joyful, difficult, wistful, and gut-wrenching, and make us both proud and lonely. I think that the dish breaking was just a physical release of all of those emotions for you. And your darling son is trying to help you focus on the true physical reality of what actually happened, and detach it from the emotional meaning that you may be feeling from what happened. And that in itself is yet again a reminder of the finish line reached as a successful parent, and a solemn reinforcement of the fact that your role as primary teacher and problem solver for your children is over. So again both happy and sad. (Yes, I am going through the empty nest transition myself, and have been reflecting a lot on this as my friends and I all are experiencing this together in different ways. And we moved last year and I had to do the possession evaluation as well.) Of course this could be just how I would feel and think, and may or may not have anything to do with you and your experiences and feeling. But I wanted to share in case it helps you. And the reason is, aside from wanting to help you understand, is that if this had happened to me in this context, I think having something made from the pieces would make me feel this anguish over and over and over again every time I saw the broken pieces. And that even if I found the "same" old piece, I would always know it was a substitute. So I guess what I am saying is that if this had happened to me, not only would I be sad like you are sad, but that I think that I would pout a bit, and then try to move on, instead of recreating the past. Now you might find great joy in a key fob or pendant or tray or frame with the pieces, but I know that that would make me beat myself up over and over. For me, it would be just better to be sad, and then to move on and create a new good memory. Again, I am not trying to say what you should do. I just wanted to bring this up in case it would apply to your situation. And now, back to home decorating. hugs and sighs, Julie This post was edited by juliekcmo on Sat, Jun 28, 14 at 8:40