Well, mine is not garden related. "Sister" became a nickname when I started playing rugby on my sister's rugby team after college. A woman named Donna on the team couldn't remember anyone's name, so I became "Sister" and it really stuck. A few years later, at a wedding, someone was telling Donna about a really nice lawyer she'd met -- when Donna asked who it was, the woman replied "I can't remember her name, but I know it was Sister's sister!" To this day, if I call anyone from my old team, I have to use my nickname, as no one would know my first name. The "k" in sister_k is for my first name, which is Kristin.

texasredhead,i really don't know what kind of crepe myrtles i have to be honest...i bought them from home depot and all the tags said was "red crepe myrtle",i have 3 so far that are in late bloom i guess since they were bought about a month ago those are red,i have another that appears to white with tinges of pink,so apparently the tags were wrong,but i did pay for them and would like to see them grow,if you would follow my link to photobucket you would see where i have questioned what kinds of crepes i really bought as i left the tag on it,...i also bought some from lowes and were also the wrong colors..i was just concered that they had that black mold and was wondering if anyone could tell and also some type of bug all over which i mentioned in my first post...i also had to trm some of the branches as they were broken...thanks anyhow

As I newbie I have no success stories but I can share what I have learned thus far.. 1. Newspaper is the best quick fix for a bed overgrown with weeds that is so far from the house that the notion of planting anything there is so far off the too do list that typing it onto my to do list hasn't reached the end of my fingers - not to mention the fact that is was an area I thought, for two years, was my neighbor's neglected mess! Much to my mortification it was really my mess - newspaper, mulch, forcythia and stella dora - beautiful, weedless, in a morning. And it still looks good nearly a year later! 2. I love sprouts! Period! They are growing!! I hope they live but right now I have my instant gratification. I seed green in those jugs! 3. A nice glass of wine, viewing my potential plants, is a lovely thing on a warm spring day. I know I look silly sitting with my feet up admiring a bunch of milk jugs but hey... I am over 30... well over 40.. who do I need to impress but myself! 4. I am so ready for planting! I bought 6 flats of flowers last weekend - I thought I wouldn't be buying any more 5. My design skills improve when I "pretend" to read a book while drinking a glass of wine and observing my gardens! With every glass of wine I have better and better plans! :) What I wish I'd learned.. 1. Why do I keep buying, buying, buying plants and seeds?! Why do they call my anem?? "Christy, Christy, Christy, we need you... you need us.... buy, buy , buy forget your husband... he loves you and doesn't really care if you keep buying!" Well... I am not so sure about that - at least my house isn't full of zip lock mini green houses... 2. When will my husband quit rearranging / adding to my gardens? I love gardens but last fall I split and replanted a bunch of border plants to edge a garden perfectly... they are now in the middle of the new and improved garden - which melded my perfect red and white garden with my emerging purple and yellow garden - what to do with that? (I net a pond in the production so I will quit whining!) 3. When will I figure out how to keep track of what I have planted, what it looks like, how tall it is, is it perennial....???? I plant, go and forget... I hate that I do this but cannot quit! buy, plant, buy, plant, buy, plant it is an addiction! Christy

Seems a lot of us liked our paper dolls. I remember when you could go to the five and dime (we had two, Danner's and Ben Franklin's) and buy a whole booklet for a dime. Of course, a dime was pretty hard to come by back in those days and when you were 7 or 8. We cut furniture out of old Sears and Penney's catalogs and make pretend rooms. I read a lot, too. Like YogaLady, we got library cards very young. The library had a summer reading club. If you read 10 books and gave an oral book report to the librarian you got to go on a picnic at the end of summer. I usually had read at least double that amount. We also played games. We played riddle-dee-dee, I see something you don't see. Then you would give a hint--like it begins with a "B". When we would go to Grandma J's, she'd play cards with us. Mainly "War" which can last forever--bless her heart. Summer was for bike riding--with some friends we used to ride 5 miles out into the country to my grandparents' farm. We'd go to the creek to cool off and explore the woods. This was in 7-8 grades. Winter was sledding and ice skating at Herkles pond. Usually a fire to warm us when needed and hot chocolate in thermos bottles. Gosh, sometimes it'd be fun to be young again.