Thanks everyone for your help. Ok, I'll leave the yews. They were pruned in that weird shape before we bought the house. You can't tell fom these pics but there is a cherry tree in front yard closer to driveway. We ripped out some old ratty looking shrubs when we moved in and easily 12 inches of much and leaves. I know new shrubs will take a while to grow to size, but the sooner I get them started the better. My winter project is going to be learning a landscape software programs, for now I am making do with graph paper, and all of your help. pls8xx: The extended landing looks good, it helps to see it done this way, and the shrubs near it look nice also. So this will be my next big, project. aegis500: The extra tree is a good idea, and the shrub placed near large picture window is perfect. I think 2 more similar but not necessarily the same shrub would do well on either end of house. karinl: Thanks for the compliment for the work done near the house. I admit I started there because it is something we see everyday. And I liked the shoes & clothes analogy. There must be something to it - I've always enjoyed shopping for shoes more than for clothes. jant: Well, we just replaced all the shutters, so to keep peace at home, they have to stay as is. Door color can be changed. But, WOW, what a difference when the big white vinyl siding matches the house color, and I did like the door color, would have never tried that on my own. Not sure how it could be done, can vinyl be painted? It is the eastern side of the house and the winter sun is strong in this part of the house. I don't get why that siding is there, the rest of the house is aluminum siding and brick. brent in nova: I ran out at bought that magazine, had to go to 3 stores to find it! It was good, they added a lot of box wood for winter season interest. I think I can use a lot of what they showed. busyd95: That is a good way to put it: with no front walk and plantings so close it doesn't feel welcoming. There are no sidewalks along the roadway, so people either use the steps from the driveway or cut through the front yard. I did plant the Nellie Stevens holly to help block that view. I think I'll plant 2 more so there is a grouping of them. Thanks again everyone.

You have the right attitude. In response to your statement "I've been through too much in my life to let some farm animal intimidate me. I will improvise, I will adapt, and I will overcome. But I will not quit." One of our earlier presidents (Truman?) once said, "A cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig looks a man in the eye and sees his equal." (I do not remember the exact quoteÂbut this is close). I would add that a pig does not adapt to man, but man adapts to the pig! That said. In my experience (quite a few years), pigs are very motivated by the feed bucket. Sometimes a nice treat is the best way to reason with them. Here is an idea for your electric fence. Some pigs, being the intelligent critters they are, will decide they will absolutely never cross a line where an electric fence once existed. It is wise to set up a gate that they will learn and trust going through so that you can get them out of their electric fence when the time comes. A small trailer would also work and be a good idea. You can train them to eat in the trailer or in a separate area where they must go through the gate everyday. Pigs are fun. They made me laugh and so I quit my high stress job. However, after raising them for about 10 years I did quit commercial operation. Someday, I hope to have a few as pets again. You choose your life and live it the way you want.

Its been months since I posted but I find myself struggling with issues that the long distance may have started but I just don't know what to do now! Upon my arrival it was apparent that he had fundamentally changed in his feelings towards our marriage and so his attitude towards me has been extremely hurtful. Its long so please bear with me as I really need help. Just before I came back he told me he had only 1 hour online access at work and no access at his Moms, and he blamed this as the reason he didn't respond to my messages and emails, but as soon as I arrived at his Moms he said 'you can go online and tell the kids your here safe' I asked him why he had told me he didn't have internet at home and he flew off the handle denying ever having said any such thing! I logged onto our yahoo account as it is more reliable in the middle east, he has never been tidy with the yahoo account so it was overloaded with old emails spam and the conversation list was pages long. I started to delete and generally tidy up the account when I noticed that he had over 30 emails from a woman I didn't know, I opened a few of them and they were love/friendship poems and pretty gif art featuring hearts and romantic settings. I don't know why I did it but I forwarded a few of them to another account. after an hour or so he came over with a coffee and nearly dropped it when he saw I was using the yahoo account instead of my msn. neither of us said anything. Later the same day I logged on again and All OF HER EMAILS HAD BEEN DELETED nothing else just those and she was no longer in his contact list!! rightly or wrongly I said nothing for a number of weeks as I didn't want to put even more pressure on what was looking more and more like a marriage he no longer wanted. Over the next few weeks he was so changeable he would either be emotionally shut down towards me or very loving, he became very negative about our years together saying it was a mistake for us to ever be together then he would say things like your different I think we can make this work only to change his mind again a few hours later. He started asking strange questions like 'do you think I will marry again?' or 'what should I do if someone else fell in love with you?' what kind of questions are those to ask your wife???!! I still tried to stay calm and would answer things like that by saying ' I'm not sure I understand what your asking, why would you be thinking of getting married again? I'm here with you" but no matter what I did he would become frustrated with me. One evening he was particularly hurtful and I tried to reason with him but eventually we ended up in a terrible row and I let him know that I knew about the woman at work and had seen all the emails before he deleted them. He told me I was crazy he had never received such emails and certainly never deleted them!! He was visibly shocked when I told him I still had copies and that I knew her name her facebook account and so I also had a photo of her. (where we live adultery carries the death penalty) and I keep wondering if this was not the case he may have been honest about this emotional affair I don't think it went further than sharing a private office together but I cant be certain as he will not speak of it. He then later said he should be allowed to do what he wants as I used to have a work friend that called me a lot. the guy was gay and proud of it and I always took calls from him in front of my husband. His family have all been very different towards me and I have since learned that just before I came back he talked openly about me not coming back and 'moving on' they of course all said what he wanted to hear at the time things like: you should have children of your own/ you need a Persian wife/ it was never meant to be etc etc. and now they seem embarrassed to be around me unlike when I used to live here and they came to us every week for a get together. His mother was very very rude to me throwing things at me and when she realized we were moving into our own home again she kept saying things like you can go but he owes me his life he has to stay/ she would make hurtful comments like 'he wants his own children and a new wife' my husband never told her off for any of this not even when she threw things at me and so it got to the point when we did move out that I asked him to have no contact for a while as I belived she was not good for our marriage. of course the first opportunity he got he went to her and this caused me such emotional termoil, when he came back he could tell I was unhappy and he just kept saying 'I can leave if you want' or an hour or so later ' I think you want me to leave' I ignored it for as long as I could and after a drink or 5! I finally snapped and said yes just go back to your Mom! and so he quickly packed and did!! I immediately felt that I had blwn it so I called him and said I was sorry for getting so angry, he got his brother to call me from USA to tell me to leave the country as my husband was never coming back and didn't want to see me!! My husband texted me the next day saying he felt he couldn't come home but didn't want to go to his Moms I told him to come home and we would see what we could work out. After work he came home but was very very cruel and said things I never thought I would hear from him, and in the middle of saying such things he would look at me and say 'I could never have said these things before as I know it hurts you' but it was as if he was enjoying hurting me. later the same night he started having sex with me but he was very drunk and he forced me to have anal sex which was so very painful!!afterwards he just said 'go shower' and then went to sleep. I cried all night and all the next day I tried to make a joke of it! I know that sounds stupid but I didn't know how to deal with it. I blamed myself as throughout our marriage he has 'tried' but it has always been too painful for me and so he has always stopped. But I feel that because I've always been willing to try maybe he thought it was OK or I tell myself he was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing...but he was sober enough to tell me to wash. If Im honest my gut feeling was that his cruel words before and this forced sex act were a punishment!! He wanted to hurt me??? This was 2 months ago and we are still together, he still is very loving towards me but then doesn't want to be with me, he will often just come home get drunk or stoned and go straight to sleep, but other nights he is lovely to me. If I upset him at all he repeats things like I will only stay if Im happy./ I want a perfect marriage/ if I get to 40 and this is no good then I have no kids of my own etc etc I never promised to stay with you forever!! But then the next day he will say things like 'please don't leave me/ your amazing/ I love you/ I adore you !!!!!! Please help me I dont know which husband to belive? I feel truly suicidal at times Im so confused.

Don't waste your time ladies and gent.... She knows her BF is a deadbeat and she supports him. I wanted to say the same thing so badly. Life together, Quirk stated "you get to see how your partner parents. Not how they say they plan to parent, but how they actually do parent." Why are there not enough clues for you? It is all these types of things that happen over time you get to see and scrutinize to determine if this is the kind of person you want to plan a life with. What you are doing is deciding you want a deadbeat dad for your own child(ren); you are deciding that for your own children, you want not only a deadbeat dad but one who is emotionally abusive to them and to you; you are deciding you want a man who is so controlling you stay confused most of your life and there is no way you can possibly do anything right because he finds something wrong with everything (the subject of his daughter is only the tip of the iceberg); you are deciding you want a man who does not consider your time, your feelings, or your existence as a human being who deserves any kind of respect; you are deciding you want a man who use his passive/aggressive tactics to constantly keep you feeling guilty and make you think you are the one always in the wrong; you are deciding you want a man who will bad mouth you to your children, family, and friends. You are not special. You only fool yourself into thinking you are because you are the person with him and you just loooooove 'im. But when the two of you break up (unless you take his abuse for the rest of your life), you will see him do the exact same things he has done to his ex and his daughter. With each of your subsequent posts, you make clearer the things you stated prior. I don't know why we have to pull your teeth because some of the initial posts have lacked information we would need to in order to satisfy what you expect from us. They also made you look like the bad guy. A little of that part I still question but really think those circumstances were created out of your desperation to finally do something that pleases him - a man who cannot be pleased. But this is getting worse by the word. Sylviatexas had him pegged from the beginning. LOL I should have known better than to second guess her. There is nothing to figure. There is nothing to try an remedy. There is nothing to talk to him about to try to straighten out. The only thing for you to do is decide to stay (all the things you are deciding you want) or go. But that was never your question, was it? You already said you don't want to leave. Therefore, I hope you are able to eek out a happy life and smile through the misery.