I've read these forums off and on for several years now. It's amazing how many searches for gardening info bring up Garden Web forums! I bought my first house last fall and decided this week it was time to register and join in here. So many wonderfully talented and knowledgeable gardeners here! And, then, I find a forum specifically for Okies! One of the things I liked best about the house when I first looked at it was the backyard. There are just all kinds of plants. I have to wait to see what many of them are, although my neighbor next door has clued me in on some. The neighbors have a landscape pond in their backyard. One of the things I expected to miss about my last apartment (lived there for over 10 years) was the landscaping, complete with ponds, a stream and lots of wildlife including frogs and toads. I was thrilled to find out that the neighbors pond has frogs in it as I love listening to them. They were worried that the new owner (me) might object to having to hear frogs croak. I think we both got lucky! The backyard slopes severely and has some sort of evergreen planted all around it. Over the years many of lower branches have been trimmed off due to disease, according to the neighbor. Now they are very tall with foliage only at the top. Quite a few of them suffered a good deal during last winter's ice storm. There's still at least one sizeable branch that is broken and needs to be cut off. A couple in the back aren't broken but are badly bent over. I'm sort of hoping that the bent ones somehow magically recover as the birds and squirrels seem quite fond of them. I have already counted at least 15 different species of birds in my new backyard, and that doesn't include mockingbirds which I have seen in the front yard. I also saw a tiny mouse near the back fence a couple of weeks ago when I watering a spot that has some irises and a crepe myrtle. Last Monday evening I saw a baby rabbit in the neighbor's yard by my garage. Some of the plants (many of these I can't verify yet, just going by what the neighbor tells me) include crepe myrtle (3 in the back), a Rose of Sharon, irises, hardy hibiscus (looks like 4 of those), daylilies and some other lily the neighbor wasn't sure of the type, clematis out front, what appears to be a lilac someone tried to chop down that is coming back but is probably too close to the house for good air flow, and some boxwoods up next to the front of the house. The boxwoods look nice but stink so I am going to try to relocate them farther from the house in the front yard and create a flower bed with them as a back drop. To replace the stinky bushes up close to the house I have already acquired two blue hollies, four mini roses, a peony, azalea, hydrangea, blue lilac, and a romantica rose. I'm probably going overboard, but my gardening for the past 20 years has been limited to pots and whisky barrels on an apartment patio, and I'm just so excited to have a house with lots of room for gardens now! My biggest problem is that a large part of the backyard is heavily shaded due to the evergreens, and, especially around the perimeter, there isn't even much in the way of grass. Lots of weeds in the areas where there is grass. I'm looking forward to finding out all the creative gardening things I can do with my new house! I've probably rambled on long enough now. Going to leave work early today to have lunch at the Arts Festival then home to plant and transplant! Debra

socks ((thanks so much)) for you thoughts..I really do appreciate them very much. This I understand is a little bit more in that realm in that it does ask you to stay still...but it injects a drug in the area where as this test requires taking spinal fluid. This is a test where they insert a needle into the spinal colum and extract spinal fluid for testing. I have been going through several years of testing to understand my neuromuscular condition..I am slowly loosing muslces to atrophy and they don't know why yet....this is the next to last test. We are waiting on yet another MRI series of a specific nerve group that may prove to be somewhat treatable. Hoping some here may have some insight into how this test really effects people...right now I am saying no to this. Thanks Taigen

mdln, thank you for posting your information and experience. It is helpful. I appreciate your mentioning psychological therapy, especially CBT, as a non-drug treatment for depression. It is one I left off the list...my bad. My fear and experience may have led me to overstate the side effects of SSRIs, which are, as you say, supposed to be better than earlier generations of drugs. But then again, from the NIH However, questions about the safety and tolerability of SSRIs have emerged with their continued use. For example, in the original placebo-controlled clinical trials of fluoxetine in depressed patients, sexual dysfunction was reported in 1.9% of trial participants receiving fluoxetine. However, postmarketing clinical trials have reported rates of sexual dysfunction as high as 75%. Given that these drugs are viewed as relatively safe and efficacious heavily marketed by drug cos prescribed to larger populations including even preschoolers prescribed for use beyond depression prescribed for longer periods of time preferred by insurance cos as cheaper than therapy use of these drugs has skyrocketed. According to the CDC, antidepressant use has increased 400% from 1988 to 2008. Moreover, less than one third of those taking a single antidepressant have seen a mental health professional in the prior year. Add to that evidence that these drugs may not as effective as purported to be... Altogether, there were forty-two trials of the six drugs. Most of them were negative. Overall, placebos were 82 percent as effective as the drugs, as measured by the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D), a widely used score of symptoms of depression. The average difference between drug and placebo was only 1.8 points on the HAM-D, a difference that, while statistically significant, was clinically meaningless. The results were much the same for all six drugs: they were all equally unimpressive. Yet because the positive studies were extensively publicized, while the negative ones were hidden, the public and the medical profession came to believe that these drugs were highly effective antidepressants. Moreover, ...he observed that even treatments that were not considered to be antidepressants -- "such as synthetic thyroid hormone, opiates, sedatives, stimulants, and some herbal remedies" -- were as effective as antidepressants in alleviating the symptoms of depression. Kirsch writes, “When administered as antidepressants, drugs that increase, decrease or have no effect on serotonin all relieve depression to about the same degree.” What all these “effective” drugs had in common was that they produced side effects... See The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? So, IMHO, what we have are drugs with potentially serious side effects, of questionable efficacy being prescribed for mental health conditions and other conditions by non mental health professionals at increasing rates for longer periods of time. Especially when there...

I'm 58 had no periods for 8 yrs now ..lately I've been getting feelings like being on ur periods ..dragging feeling ...funny reading all these comments got the feeling ...weird ....I've mentioned it to my Dr ..doesn't seem concerned ...although I've got .small polip and small fibrod.. Don't know if related to them ..