Thanks, Dave. I am glad you explained that the plant germinates new growth to compensate/survive. It makes sense. I have grown tomatoes for years and have never had this happen. I've been spraying my plants with Serenade every week because I tend to get Septoria. I was fearing it was bacterial wilt. The leaves get wilty and quickly become dried up. I pulled off the bad leaves and eventually the plant came back on the Mortgage lifter. It is starting to be healthy again. This was the first one to have these symptoms. Next, it happened to a Paul Robeson that is at least 25 feet away. Paul seems to be slowly dying. It also happened to Black from Tula. This one had those branches that seemed to "move away" from the bad branches. It is producing fruit and is not putting out any more of those wilty leaves that dry up. Thanks for your help. Gladys

What a tough day, you are a hero, you know. And a good vent can be very satisfying. What about putting her in an Adult Day Care program every day. They are very good, it will give her a chance to get out of the house and do things, and give you the break you need. They are well worth it. Your mother sounds bored - she's needs to "keep busy" and she finds whatever catches her eye, and does it, even if it makes no sense to you. Of course she doesn't want to go to a nursing home, not too many of us wake up and decide today is the day to move to a nursing home. But it looks like it's time to get her out of your home. It's not doing your or your granddaughter any good having her there with this much chaos and anger and frustration. The tables have turned, now you and your husband have to make that decision, and see that it gets done. But..... once there, she'll be fine, she'll be happier there than at home with you. Good nursing homes have lots of activities and lots of supervision, and good care. And your weekly visits with her will be a treat, not an ordeal. Medicare won't pay for a nursing home unless she needs it for sub-acute rehab - and then only for a short time. If she has no money, Medicaid will pay for her care. If she has money, that would go toward nursing home expenses, she must get some money every month - Social Security/pension, etc. Why do you think you have to pay the entire cost? Your energy should go towards taking care of yourself, your husband and your dear granddaughter - his mother should not be at the top of the list. You know you are not going to hurt her, or your grandchild. That leaves you, and your marriage. And if your husband leaves, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he'll leave his mom with you. LOL You are doing an amazing job, and have every right to be angry with her, even if she doesn't know what she did. It's still a waste of your time, money and the food you prepared. My mother had Alzheimers, for 15 years, and my dad took care of her for most of that time, and she became very difficult. After 10 years, we sat down with dad and said that it was time to move to a retirement community, he fought us for almost a year. After they moved, he loved it, said it was the best thing he ever did. After a few years, we insisted mom go to adult day care, and he fought that, but she loved it, and he could finally do some things for himself. The next year it was clear that it was time for her to move to the nursing home in their retirement community. She had become violent and was hitting him, and didn't sleep at night. She got out of their apartment a few times, even with an alarm. Even so, he fought that too, but the move went well, she was much happier and so was he. She died 9 months later. My dad lived for 6 more years. For 4 1/2 years, he remained in his own apartment, with some help after he had a stroke. Eventually he moved to the assisted living facility, and 3 months later, to the nursing home in the retirement community. He died there a year later. Both of my parents had excellent care, they loved the staff, and we were confident we'd made the right decisions. Take a deep breath, have a good cry, and hug that wonderful granddaughter and dear husband.

Melanie- I live near a small town, in eastern Washington. Up here, people tend to be pretty independent, which means they don't mind some help, in bad times, but they don't expect it. We're used to being a little more remote, dealing with power outages and being snowed in. In other parts of the country, people have been dealing with hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters...and I think we're starting to realize that government agencies aren't able to do as much, as we may have expected, in the past. As a nation, we've become so dependent on others, that unless we're old enough to remember (or lucky enough to have friends/family who do) what it was like BEFORE all of our needs were provided for, it's going to be hard to take care of ourselves. Food and gas are trucked into local stores, our water, heat, electricity, internet and phone are all brought to our door, the government sends many people money each month, to buy these products and most of the rest of us, depend on other people to pay us money to buy these products. How many of us know how to do it on our own? Even if we stockpile, can we switch over to being more self sufficient, once those reserves are gone? The neat thing about the show I mentioned, in the OP, is that they didn't specify exactly what might happen, just if something did...how would we cope? Where would we get our food? What would we do without TV? Would we have batteries for radios and flashlights? What would happen, when they were used? How much do we take for granted...and how many of our needs are provided for...and would we even realize it, until they were gone? Anyway, I don't mean this to be some 'scary nightmare' but more of a wake up call. I think it's pretty obvious that we can't count on others to always take care of us...we need to know how to take care of ourselves. If you don't already know, learn how to bake, cook, knit, sew, milk a cow, raise chickens, build/repair a fence, basic repairs to a vehicle...and especially...learn to barter! Have/make friends, who know how to do things. Ask them to teach you...or take a class. Learn. Stockpiling is fine, but once it's gone (used or taken) if you don't learn how to provide for yourself, it will be difficult. Also, once you learn, teach others and make sure they know how to take care of themselves, too. If you can't do everything, make sure you know people who will trade with you. As for medicine, that's something I would check into keeping more on hand. When possible (and I know this won't work for everyone) find out if there is an herbal or other remedy that might help, if you can't get medicine. Make sure your tentanus shot has been updated. Like they say in the boy scouts...be prepared.

As I mentioned in the post that probably spawned this thread, I'm getting married next month and I, w/the prodding of several friends, got up the courage to ask for a pre-nup. It was really something that I wanted to avoid because I felt that I appeared greedy and lacked faith in him/us. This is not true of me or how I feel. I mistakenly thought that if I was smart about things and never commingled our money and kept his name off of everything, then I would be protected in case of a divorce. Not true. The clincher for me were my IRA's. I also got burned in my previous marriage. I am self-employed. It is tough being chief cook and bottle wash, much harder than being an employee. I don't get vacation or sick pay, I elected not to buy worker's comp for myself, I pay both sides employer/ee of FICA/Med taxes, when work is slow or somebody forgets their appointment, I don't get paid. To that there is all of the overhead. I don't live extravagantly and the one thing that I am determined to do every year is to fund my Roth and my SEP IRA's to the maximum allowable amount. I am counting on this money to see me through my "golden years" - not for trips, but just for survival. My job is very physical and as I am aging I am getting little injuries that don't heal as quickly. This is why I am in school again b/c I physically won't be able to continue my current occupation much beyond the next few years. I know that STBDH wants everything he owns to go to his Adult D's and he has said so many times. I agree that it should go to them. We are both to inherit real estate - the homes that each of us was raised. My STBMIL wants the house to be passed down to his kids, technically I would be entitle to half of it if we don't have an agreement before hand, and he would be entitled to half of mine. To add to this, the older DD is quite selfish and both STBDH and STBMIL realize that there will be a problem when they die b/c she will try to screw her sister our of everything. Both young women also don't know about our marriage plans next month (I think they should, but not my decision nor for this thread). When I asked him about a pre-nup, I mentioned that we should do this because his DD's will probably be very unhappy when they find out we got married and be even more insecure about me "being entitled to things that they believe are rightfully theirs", plus I explained the above. We came up with an agreement that is non-offensive to either of us, protects both of us and especially his kids - and I made extra sure to have a special clause that mentions his kids so that they know we considered them. In the eyes of the law marriage is a contract, although we know it is more than that, and I would have to say that a pre/post nup is just an addendum to that contract. If STB DH refused to do this, I think I would have retained an attorney for options and probably set up a trust for myself. It shouldn't be about business, but when money is involved that usually how it works. We've all heard about high functioning, intact families that come apart at the seams over the family estate.