Remembering you in my prayers and hope all goes well. Won't it be be exciting to hold and love that little fellow, in the flesh! I know with my two children and two DGS's, I loved them before they were born but just couldn't wait to see and hold them.

Believer & Sweeby, thank you for the good wishes. Haven't heard anything yet. I told DS & DDIL to have someone call me WHEN they wanted me to get there. Also told DIL if she needed me to do something to tell me, otherwise I would visit for brief periods. There are no hard feelings between anyone but we all know how overbearing her DM is. I just let her do her thing. They don't really want her there during labor but my DIL is so sweet she doesn't want to hurt her feelings. She did tell her when things got further along she would be asking her to leave. When my first one was born I just didn't call my parents until it was over because I felt that time should be for just parents & baby. Just to give you an example ~ her DM told her she would be coming to their house every morning but would have to leave to pick up other g'kids from school, would take the baby with her to do this, then come back with the 2 boys and stay the rest of the day. DIL told her the baby wouldn't be leaving the house and it would NOT be necessary to come back. My thoughts are that a new baby that may have some minor problems don't need to be around school children to start with. DS & DDIL have finances under control even though he isn't working right now. She plans to stay home for 3 months. My son hasn't asked for anything since he graduated high school and got out on his own. Doesn't mean I haven't given them things but he is very independent, thank goodness. When you have as many as we do it's not possible to do too much even though we're retired and living comfortable. DS's bio-dad has big $$ but my son doesn't want any part of it. Sweeby, that's a good idea to fix some meals and honestly I hadn't thought about it. I seem to just have baby on the brain right now. With the previous grands I wasn't nearly so excited. And my count was off (easy to do when you have this many). This will be 8th bio, I wasn't counting the 2 greats. Yes, I'm ancient at 66.

Yep, I only water "new implants",and last time I was there I did test the soil with my moisture-reader of a couple of them, and the soil still registered as "moist" ,so I haven't yet started watering. In any case, this year there's only 15 new ones,since I could only start gardening after Christmas, due to the hip operation. What's more, I do have quite a lot of water stored up out there; it's just that, as a principle, I like to always replace the water that I use as much as possible. But these past 2 years have been so hard: last summer, since I was doing chemo, I had to break my rule and use water without replacing it,my water-catching rooflet fell down, and un-wisely, I put off filling up one of my 5 big water tanks-I didn't forsee my car having problems. So, things are far from "desperate", lol-it's just frustrating. For at least this up-coming week, I may have to avoid trying to go out there;the forecast is so bad! extreme heat, no favourable wind (for me, favourable is south-west ; makes it bearble temperature-wise and keeps the mosquitos, flies, etc away). Among my future projects is to build myself a sort of gazebo, so I'll have a place to sit in the shade and just look. Also adding trees, though it's tricky. The view is so beautiful, and I don't want to block it too much, but it is towards the south-west . So I am trying to guess spots in which I can put trees that won't block the view completely, yet will provide some protection from the afternoon sun. But I get so little morning sun, and I don't want to block that. I'm also trying to think of ways to shade the roads that I must use to get down to my garden. For the main one I'm going to try to plant tall -growing climbing roses that I can train over rebar bent to form arches, in the hopes to create a sort of rose tunnel. On another path, within the garden,I've decided to not replace the roses that I removed -they were doing so poorly!-and instead put in a redbud or two. I've got 2 wisterias planted that I'm hoping will help shade the entrance gate as well. Gotta build support structures for these things, though...so much to do! but for now it's best that I just sit tight, and try to be patient.

Thanks everyone. Not sure how long it will take....we're going to a one-man shop who does restoration and repair. He has an upholsterer he works with as well. I have so many projects going on right now that they are welcome to take their time!