About 10-12 years ago I, too, thought my suspiciously well-contained patch of peppermint had gone to the big garden in the sky. The next spring I realised he'd actually been busy travelling: under the patio and into the garden proper. We had a freakishly-warm, extended spell of nice weather that year and as a result I found myself mowing the yard in mid-March. As I was mowing around the raised beds I smelled mint, and when I took a better look discovered a brand new patch of it measuring about 6' x 3'. In a panic, I began ripping up the runners and this is how I ascertained the route he'd taken to set up his new digs. I immediately understood that resistance was futile, since there was no way in hell I was gonna be doin' any diggin' under that 12' x 8' concrete patio. From then on I mainly just kept an eagle eye on it and whenever mint would pop up in a path or a bed I'd yank it out. Oh, and the original patch that I thought was dead? Well, it wasn't.

Thank you all for your comments (except for vhehn - seriously, if you want to tell me I'm an idiot (or, conversely, that you are the smartest person in the world), why hide it, just tell me you think I'm a moron and be done with it. You don't know me, and you assume that I'm throwing away perfectly good (and hard-earned, mind you) money because I'm a d*mb*ss. If gloating in front of someone who's down is the way you roll, I'm so glad I don't know you in person.) - 15 hours after the initial discovery of "OMG, it's happened again" (and the resulting pit in our stomaches), our anger and sadness has mellowed a bit, abut we're both intent on salvaging this situation in a professional and drama-free manner. I probably haven't chewed on the situation enough, but after digesting your comments and putting all the pieces together, I'm inclined to do the following: 1) wait for her response (except I really really really want/need to know if we submitted, and/or if we're submitting on Monday, omg......), 2) unless there's a fantastic reason why Friday didn't go as agreed, request an off-site coffee meeting with the architect and synthesize your comments in to a conversation that says, basically: look, we think you're a really talented architect [she is!], but it's clear you're extremely busy, and maybe too busy to devote the type and timing of attention on our project that we need. It's causing us a lot of unnecessary stress and heartburn, especially this early in what we know will be a stressful year and a half [between the rest of planning and the build]. We see a couple of good solutions: a) now that you know how difficult the slipping of schedule has been on not only the timing of our project but on us personally, if you'd like to continue working on our project, we'd like to continue working with you, but we need hard milestones. [and then discuss the milestones, timing, etc....maybe these need to be in writing.....]. 2) if you're just too busy and don't see that changing, we'd be disappointed but would be willing to transfer the plans to another architect to complete - do you have any that you'd recommend? How do we properly transfer the plans? As you can tell, I do soft-pedal rather than throw blame in situations like this - I'm very willing to be firm, but it needs to be in my own voice, and unfortunately (I guess), that's my voice when dealing with people that I actually like (err, you "heard" my other voice above, when responding to others!). chisue - thank you for understanding, and yes, she's licensed, has a nice boutique business, and is actually really talented. she just sucks as client service. We found her as a referral from a neighbor who has (in our opinion) the prettiest new build in the neighborhood - we live in a 50's era rancher town on quarter acre lots in a part of the country where that's considered really big - most of the Bay Area is on 4000-5000 sq ft lots). To his credit, he DID warn us that while she's a terrific architect, she'd be "tough to get a hold of, as she's very busy" (maybe that was neighbor-code for "she'll miss every deadline"). dixiedoodle - agreed, I'm not planning on getting any $ back, so that's not what I'm after. Actually, for the $ we've paid thus far, we ((heart)) the house plan. Yes, in hindsight, the comments that translate to "they're more important than you" are, at best, inappropriate. At the time(s), it seemed more like casual chit-chat. feedingfrenzy, sue36 and sovra - thank you all - your comments and thoughts are the basis for the planned conversation. We actually *would* like her to see the plans through, just need to figure out how to tell her that we can't continue this way, it's too painful. I will go post this in Conversations to see in M-A has additional thoughts. What do you all think of the planned conversation, and how would you tweak it?

After this was posted the first time I got to thinking that maybe I should have picked something else for my counters. (I'm a marketing grad and still the biggest second guesser of all my buying decisions). My mom is redoing her kitchen and I was taking her around to a variety of places one of which was our counter place. They sell granite, marble and silestone products. I was surprised when my mom said she wanted to look at the silestone products and when I asked why (as I'm drooling over the granite) she said she found the granite too busy. I was shocked> We went and looked at the silestone which they had in slabs and she fell in love with the coolness and the calmness of the stone. I, on the other found them to be cold and boring. She walked through the silestone aisles and I went back to the granite aisles and we were both happy. That's why there are choices out there - none are right or wrong just what is right for each of us. This visit confirmed that the granite was right for us.

Not that this is any help, but...me and my wife have this term we call 'trusting your mother'. Background: My wife's mom plays a bit fast and loose with reality. She gets an idea (like, say, buying a house), parlays it into a huge all-encompassing scheme, and then (for the sake of argument -- not a real example) blows all her money on a trip to vegas. Or something along those lines. So if we happen to get pulled into all her shenanigans, believe her, go along with her, trust her, and then get burned in the end -- well, we're guilty of 'trusting her mother'. We *know* what she's like; we just get suckered in because the archetypical 'Mother' wouldn't screw us over either through malice or through sheer cock-ups. Unfortunately we don't deal in archetypes in the real world. So, anyway 2 things: as far as generic forgive and forget -- you know what this person is like. Your kids know what she's like as well. Make any plans for the kids future *counting on the fact* that their BM won't help in any way, won't be involved in any way. Hopefully (at least my opinion based on your brief blurbs) she *won't* be involved. (In as much as we'd like other people to live out satisfying morality plays we script for them in our heads, the best way to deal with these folks I've found is *not* to deal with them, preferrably from a great distance away.) If she is involved in some constructive manner, then, hey, pleasant surprise. At no point should you depend on her or trust her to carry anything through, however. If you do -- well, you're trusting your mother. The other thing relates to your statement "their continual abuse, stupid allegations, and childish theatrics". Not sure exactly what you're referring to here, but if they're causing you real problems, costing you real money (beyond caring-for-the-kids money -- I mean lawsuits and such), then talk to a lawyer or a mediator and find out if there's anything you can do about it. Be prepared for the real consequences of this. (Personally, if it's just, as my sainted uncle wound say, 'happy horseshit' I wouldn't mind so much -- I'd sit back and laugh as these folks dug themselves ever deeper into petty ridiculousness. But if it's serious, then treat it as serious and maybe they'll learn to play nice.)