Eduarda do plant a winter jasmine I think you will really enjoy it, this is a bit long winded but....I also grow winter jasmine, mine is quite old somewhere around 40 years. Not only a beautiful plant when covered in flowers but is also very attractive when in the green, so to speak. It is tough and reliable, depending on the weather it can start blooming in November and continue on through the winter or if it's a really cold and stays cold I've seen it hold off on flowering till the beginning of March. The year it did this it put on a magnificent show. My or I should say taken ownership of W.J. is growing on a trellis on the side of the neighbor's carport, why on the neighbor's carport you might ask, well my neighbor at the time planted it on her carport but it's planted in our driveway. Years later after their place had been sold several times another survey was done and what do you know the carport encroaches 8 inches onto our property as does the concrete retaining wall. The poor lady who owned the house at the time had just sold to a young couple and the whole deal was going to fall through, we went to her lawyer with her and signed a waver to the effect the new owners could have access to our driveway if they need to work on their concrete carport. I've also claimed my side of their concrete retaining wall (on our property too) I've covered it in ivy, clematis and other stuff. This is now the wall that helps contains my little courtyard, use to be the top end of the driveway but that's another story :o). I prune the jasmine right back to stubs every spring and I'm rewarded with fresh green growth by summer which is lovely to look at even when not in bloom. Annette

I have the tendency to overwhelm myself. I'll decide that since I have ricotta I could make lasagna, then I'll decide that I should really make fresh pasta for it, then I'll decide that since I don't really like meat in my lasagna, I should also make some grilled chicken, and while I'm at it, I should cut up and roast that squash that's languishing on the counter, and then it's 9 pm, every dish in the house is dirty, and dinner still isn't ready. Thus, my resolution is to aim lower. I might operationalize this desired simplicity as follows: -at least one dish must contain two food groups (defined as protein, carb, veggie) or the veggie must be microwaved with no additional fuss or the first dish must be able to wait while the second dish is cooked in the same vessel. -dry carbs prevail: Sometimes I end up cooking two carb dishes because the meal feels too wet. If I know I'm going to want crackers or with my soup, I don't need to put rice or noodles in it. If I know I'm going to want toast with my eggs, I don't need potatoes too. -one vegetable is enough -the refrigerator should remain 25% empty, or be subjectively easy to navigate. -I will start the week with one or more of the following: washed and chopped veggies, cut up meat, raw dough, plain cooked rice or pasta. -I will use my gift card to the World Spice Merchants to buy whole spice blends. I will use them, and I will feel like my one-pot meal is legitimate cooking.

Congratulations, Donnakay!! I resolve to stop waiting for stuff to arrive and to actually have a kitchen. I plan (but not so strong as resolve) to have bi-weekly dinners for family and friends ostensibly for conviviality and to nurture relationships, but also to experiment on them as I learn to do all kinds of things with my gonzo new appliances that were just not possible with the half dead old kitchen. Cat_Mom, I had the whole recipe problem until one day I decided I'd just had it with the multiple pages of notepad paper with family recipes, and the clipped outs, and dumped them all on my desk. Turned on the TV to interesting but not very visual entertainment, and didn't get my desk back until I'd typed my way through the lot. My recipes directory as all kinds of sub-directories like a cookbook but with my own kind of categories. It makes it SO easy. I do print out ones that need specific following, and keep the print-outs in a basket in the kitchen, where they're handy to give away to those who ask, or to reuse. But when I'm planning, making shopping lists, etc., or when one gets just too grotty, I can print out a new one. I highly recommend this!! In fact, I also resolve to type up recipes that I like that are in books, because I can't always find the right one. And since I use them as a starting point usually, remembering the outcome doesn't always help (as in the bread pudding recipe didn't call for poppy seeds...so which one was it now?)

Minflick, my condolences. I can believe it's very hard, but it sounds like you're pulling through. Good luck! I have unconventional ideas about Bermuda grass. Here's how it works with me. We have patches of it here and there in the garden, which I admit is a fairly wild-looking place. Like debbym we have summers that are too hot to garden in, at least for me, and so the Bermuda grass grows all summer long before I get around to attacking it when fall arrives. Well, we don't water in summer once a plant has been in the ground a year. Our heavy clay soil and high annual rainfall allow this, though we have dry summers. I also permit all kinds of annual grass and little wild herbaceous plants to grow in the beds: veronica, vetch, annual euphorbia, etc., and I mulch the beds lightly with old hay, pruning clippings, cut grass, and so on. Between the drought, the plant competition, and the mulch (which also lightens the top layer of soil so that the Bermuda grass can't root quite so firmly) the Bermuda grass can't get so far ahead in summer that I can't push it back again in fall. I can't eliminate it, but I can keep it under control, and mostly out of the beds. The downside of gardening this way is that the roses go into semidormancy in summer. That doesn't bother me, since we have a long growing season and when it's that hot I don't want to be out in the garden anyway. And summer offers other beauties. Shade also discourages Bermuda grass. My starting point in thinking about it was that in nature Bermuda grass doesn't grow EVERYWHERE, in some places it gets outcompeted. So it has to be possible to establish conditions in which it doesn't thrive.