It's not much of a secret that my primary focus is bonsai .... and I tend to gravitate toward plants that are unusual and that I can manipulate into something unusual or more attractive than they would end up being if left to their own growth habit. I really didn't BUY those plants. We had a guest artist do a workshop for our bonsai club, and the selection of plants she had for the plantings was very limited. Those were the most attractive of what was available, so I just grabbed those, but I was really never pleased with the appearance of the plants, which, as you can see from the pictures above, quickly became unruly & to my eye not so attractive ....... so I was just looking for an opportunity to give them away. Using them in a demonstration allowed me to keep the tray they were planted in, so it all worked out. Some of you might be surprised at how much root pruning you can do without concern for the plant's survival. Here's a little boxwood I've been working with before root pruning: and here's what it looked like before it went into it's new pot: Plants are plants, whether they are houseplants or trees normally found in the landscape. They grow the same way and use the same nutrients in the same proportions as other plants, so 95% of what applies to trees applies to houseplants. If your houseplant has a branching root system, don't be afraid to bare-root it and root prune. You'll find it has a significant rejuvenating effect for the whole plant. There is a physiological reason for this that I've explained before, but I won't go into it now because I've already strayed a long way from my original intent, which was to thank you for your kind words. - Al

When I was a child, my dad always had to "work" Christmas Eve. He'd leave for work about 6 P.M. and Santa would arrive about 8. He'd then get back home right after Santa left, saying they shut down early for Christmas. I belived that line for many years. After we all married, Christmas eve was at my parent's home with all my siblings, their spouses, children, and grandchildren. There would be 26 of us. We'd meet at or after midnight mass. The living room would be almost wall to wall gifts. After the gifts were exchanged we'd all sit down for a really late night/early morning breakfast of homemade coffee cakes, waffles, sausages, bacon and eggs, and a ton of various cookies. We'd get home about 5:00 A.M. and go to bed, then get woken up at 7 as our children got up to see what Santa left for them at our house. Now, with my brother and parents dead, my wife and I spend our Christmas eves with our own family. As I get older, I'd just as soon spend the evening at home with my wife but, My children demand we visit each of them. When I was working, I'd decorate my bosses scooter as a sled and attach a pair of antlers and some bells to the front. I'd buy tiny candy canes, dress up as Santa, and spend the last day of work before the holiday break going around the plant on the scooter and pass out candy canes to every one. There were 1500 people working that shift at the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant and I gave everyone of them a candy cane and wished them a Merry Christmas. That was my only job that day. The rest of the year I was a production supervisor.

There are two. The first was a Christmas gift the year I was in the 7th grade (freshman in high school). My older sister and I had taken "Beginning Typing" in summer school that year (so it was the summer before I entered 7th grade). Daddy had told us that if we could type 45 wpm by the end of the class, he'd buy us a typewriter. This was back in the days of manual typewriters! Anyway, Sis and I both could type more than 45 wpm by the end of class, so that year for Christmas we each got a Smith Corona typewriter. Hers was green, mine - blue. I still have mine. The second is something my father gave me for my birthday the year I turned 21. Earlier that year, my apartment had been broken into, and among other things, my stereo was stolen. It had been a gift from my folks. My birthday is the day before my mother's, and all my life we had celebrated our birthdays together. Well, the year I turned 21, my mother died -- less than two weeks before our birthdays. One of the things my father gave me for my birthday that year was a new stereo system. I still have it, and will never, ever, get rid of it.

xamsx: I've seen plenty of bad photos that were from "professionals." Our local MLS is full of bathrooms with toilet seats up, fuzzy/dark/out of focus shots, kitchens with cluttered counters and dishes in the sink, backs of chairs/plants in the foreground, cats on couches, I could go on and on. We were FSBO for a while and had professional photos on our website. When we hired a realtor, we told them they could just use our photos, but they wanted to take their own set. I had to veto most of their photos because they weren't taken as well as ours. And they seemed oblivious to details like shadows on the front of the house, shoes/purses visible where they had left them, etc. So don't be stereotyping FSBOs. :-)