The plant retail business is not for me, thankfully. I've seen enough, like all of you, to know that most consumers are common-sense-challenged when it come to plants and keeping them alive. It's one thing for a plant to not flourish under correct conditions and ask for a refund, but people generally abuse their plants and expect garden centers to refund money. Most of the time, the plant is planted in the wrong spot, not hardy in this area, overwatered, or underwatered. A neighbor of mine bought 6 jasmine trees and planted them around his home outside. Of course they died over the winter becayse they are not hardy for this zone. He actually dug the dead trees up and returned them to the store. A friend of mine asked me to look at her dying shrubs and plants which she paid to have put in by a landscaper recently. Everything looked bone dry and I asked her how she was watering the plants. She indicated that she sprinkled water over top of them, but the thundershowers lately did the job so she didn't even have to water with the hose! Where do you begin with someone like this...LOL. I had to explain that overhead watering is not the proper way to water, how much water plants require, especially new plantings, and that pop up thundershowers only wet the soil surface and do nothing really for the plant. She was ready to call the landscaper and have the plants returned, geez. The hanging basket people get me the most. They water the plant and it comes out the bottom of the pot, but they really have let the plant dry out so much that the soil is repelling water down the sides and running out. They return the plant half dead and wonder why. Basically, they didn't know how to water the plant properly. Etc...etc...etc...The only good benefit of half dead returns is that they may get clearanced and I'll buy them to rejuvinate and plant at local schools and public places.

Yes, because my daughter is 28 and has multiple developmental birth defects, I recently went back to college to get a degree in Human Services so I can level the playing field. After 28 years of doing what I do, I consider myself an expert on programs and entitlements at least in a couple states where we've lived. I have been through it all including widowhood and 2 marriages while raising my daughter. My goal is to keep her OUT of institutional living. I have fought all the way to the governor and won. There is no fortitude like a mothers! My daughter has her own home ( I designed it wheelchair accessible) and she qualified for every program under the sun. She has limited income, in-home caregivers and lots of technology to make this work. If there is any one out there who would like some advise I may be able to help. The whole thing is "equal not more" I have been working in this field for 28 years and I give away my input support and encouragement because I can. There are many of us out there raising adult disabled children.

Hi sunnygardener, Sorry it's taken me a while to find this, but I've been hard at work the last couple of days. I think this problem may be a combination of things: 1) When people are nervous, they tend to talk a lot to fill the silence. I know I was uncomfortable with my stepmother for a long time and would search for things to talk about. Obviously, these kids spend a lot of time with their mother, so she's going to figure in their conversation. Add to that their nervousness and awkwardness about being around you and you have the uncomfortable situation you described. 2) They may be looking for common ground with their dad and the connection with mom is the only way they can find that. There are a lot of memories tied up with parents. When the family dynamic changes, it's difficult to change with it. Pointing out the comments to your stepkids might just make them feel more uncomfortable and widen the distance between you. When my stepmother first came on the scene, she made a big deal about how she was absolutely OK with us talking about Mom (who was deceased) and that we shouldn't feel the need not to bring her up. Two years later, she threw a fit and said she was "sick of hearing about your saint of a mother." After that, I felt very inhibited about talking to her because I was always editing, in my mind, whatever I said before I said to make sure there was nothing in there remotely connected to my mother. Now to my advice: This is going to sound a little crude, but you'll get my point. When one of the kids brings up a comment about their mother, why don't you treat it as you would when someone passes gas in a social situation. The polite thing to do is to ignore it. I'd do the same with the comments. Respond quickly and change the subject to something else. If the kids are bringing up the subject to make you uncomfortable, the lack of response should remove the motivation for doing it. If they are doing it because they are nervous and don't know what else to say, your change of subject will eventually sink in and will give them a gentle cue to change the subject again. Good luck.

This is a topic I was interested in reading more about, acutally. I am currently reading "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (I've never seen the movie) and it's going pretty well so far. I am a fan of Shirley Jackson (best known for her short story "The Lottery") and found out she wrote a novel called "Hangsaman" about a girl with mental illness. I can't find the book anywhere... other than at the local university(it's not due back until July!) so I may have my SO check it out at some point. The next book that came up in my search was "The Bell Jar" and I have wanted to read that, so maybe that's next. As for the realistic nature of the portrayal of mental illness... I'm not sure, to some extent this subject tends to be auotbiographical and so as far as you can trust personal experience it's accurate. When I think though of Bertha in "Jane Eyre" I'd like to think that that is a totally inaccurate portrayal of a person with mental illness. Bertha is a described as a monster and as inhuman, two things mentally ill people are generally not and it would not be PC to describe them as such currently.