Hoovb: "It's all about the journey, not the destination..." and Lottirose: "My garden is not and never will be a showplace, but it is my bliss.". Both wonderful articulations of my feelings. My garden movement I think is pretty minor, but a constant slow flow. I cannot shovel prune anything - just not in my nature, but I do move plants that are not doing as well as I'd like, or I don't think belong in their current place for one reason or another, to a less obvious place. I find myself moving more and more companion plants, and making more room for roses in the prime garden spots. The one rose I moved to replace with another (moved a Crimson Glory to put in a Sunsprite instead, as I thought she'd look better there) - I find myself apologizing daily to Crimson Glory as she doesn't like her new spot. I think in future, any roses happy in their spot will remain in their spot, despite my opinion. Daily dead-heading and weeding mostly gives me the sense of activity I need for constant input into my garden. I do keep visualizing more places for more and different roses as I plan to further expand. One think I have learned about the perception of my garden, is to keep my less pleasant relatives out! I had my cousin and his wife visit the other day, and somehow looking at my superbly beautiful garden (in my eyes that is) through her eyes, dimished it greatly. She had a critical eye, and lots of suggestions on how it could be better. Opinions I likely would have welcomed from any of the true rosarians on this forum, but were not appreciated from one with less than constructive intent.

I just saw your posting on my thread about yellow leaves. Glad to hear you pinched back some of your plants. Don't worry, they will be fine! It is the right thing to do. For Valentines day, my husband and children brought me to a nursery, I bought two established mother geraniums, brought them home, and cut off all the new growth, 11 pieces off each plant. All that was left was a fairly woody stalk, and a couple leaves on both plants, to which, my enthusastic 4 year old yanked off! My husband was horrified, having no idea with what I wanted them for. He is thinking "Gee, I did good getting those plants for her" and then he walks into the room to see that I have hacked them to pieces! I potted all the cuttings, and then left the mother plants alone. I now have the results, 22 baby Pelargoniums growing and thriving, and 2 mother Pelargoniums sporting their own new leaves! It really is incredible!

The situation may be too tense at this point, but could you ask the neighbor to call you with the plan to let them come inside your unit during a "stomping episode" to prove to them that sound travels and it's not coming from your unit? Ideally one of them could come upstairs and another could wait from within the unit. Or perhaps management could send one person to each unit and see how loud it really is (are expectations unreasonable?) and upstairs you will have a witness that normal movements are happening upstairs regardless of what they hear. If you have any travel plans, could you use this to your advantage to establish it as a fact that they are hearing noise from another unit? It's obvious they don't believe this. Anything for them to stop calling the police, because that is clearly not solving anything and is wasting city resources... what an awful wake-up call for you.

Silver Quite interesting reading. I have thought about EX and how he must feel about DD, or any woman that has been in his life. I do understand the conceptual thinking behind the term "limerance". I had a man that I felt that way about once. I never told him, figuring that if he felt anything for me he would approach me. There were a few mixed signals, I thought but he never made an attempt that was something that I knew for sure showed he was interested in me. He had enough chances to do that and he didn't. He thought of me as a friend or sister I guess. Or he would have gone for a little "roll in the hay" if I would have. He even introduced me to a girlfriend that he began dating and ended up getting her pregnant and they later married. Ouch! With EX's past ( if what he has said is true ) he undoubtedly has great fear of rejection. Again, if what he says is true, he wanted my DD to stay with him, build a future with him and he wanted a family with us. There are too many things though that are negatives to the success of their relationship that he is completely out of touch with which makes me think that he has a break with normal thought processes. This is evident with other actions...his extensive lying and his criminal behavior. My DD did not want to marry or have children ( my goodness, she is only 20 ) and he did. Very much in fact. I don't know that she will ever change her mind but he had said that he would rather have had her and no kids than to not have her at all. I don't know that it would have been something he could have easily lived with though. The age difference is something that was too vast....11 years...when dealing with her age group. Had they met when she was in her 30's or 40's or older then it would not have been as big a deal. I am sorry for him when it comes to honest, heartfelt feelings that he might have had for my DD. The fact that he could install such fear ( and continues to do so ) and the fact that he has told so many lies negates all of that though. It sucks to be rejected. Our family histories have a lot to do with whether or not we can process the rejection in a healthy way. Most of us have been and some of us have stepped over a line while dealing with it that we cringe at after having healed a bit. It is important to teach our kids that when they deal with peers or a romantic interest people have a right to reject them. In the long run it is for the best. I don't know how much EX has control over when it comes to his emotions about the breakup. I am sorry that I can't talk to him. It just can't happen. I want him to get help and to go onto have a happy life. More importantly though I want him to leave my DD alone and let her move on. Thanks for the thread and the link Silversword.