It sounds like relations with your brother aren't so great, either, or else he has a bad conscience about his wife's behavior. For the sake of family peace, I'd be tactful, but I'd be clear and firm: express a willingness to share cuttings and explain how to get them to root, but make it clear that your sister-in-law is not to take cuttings without your permission, so that she doesn't damage rare and vulnerable plants. It might help if you explain that these roses didn't come for the nearest big box store, as lagomorphmom said. If you can work in an implication that she'll have a better garden in the long run if she has you as a friend and gardening ally rather than as an enemy, so much the better, but unfortunately a lot of people don't understand this line of reasoning. Good luck!! Melissa

This is the first time in a while I've had a chance to read through the more recent posts. I have to say my heart goes out to Melissa Stewart, who never did post again, sadly. My first impulse was to suggest putting a lock on the bedroom door! BTW, maifleur01's post of August 28, 2016 wasn't very clear to me. I think what she was saying was that AL facilities might be helpful to early/moderate dementia patients, but not all of them are willing to be moved there. This is very true. My MIL did not want to move. However, we did not give her a choice. She had lived with us for 7 yrs and it was stressing my DH's (her only child) health. The facility we found for her is a world away from the "just sitting in chairs" places. It is a 5-acre secure campus, complete with its own senior center and as mentioned before, a full schedule of activities every day. The regular routines and voluntary activities helped very much in slowing down the progression of her dementia. Her anxiety lessened, and she no longer needed the anti-depressants or BP bills either. She was the ideal candidate for a facility because she was very social but personally awkward at making friends (she felt it was being "pushy" and unladylike to be the instigator). The casual, regular social interactions enabled her to finally make new friends. This non-profit facility is the third-ranked of its type in the state. It has the lowest staff turnover percentage and one of the highest staff-to-resident ratios. The downside is, you need $$$ for this. Without exception we found the better quality full-care facilities did not take Medicaid patients. IF you passed the interview, had a signed evaluation of your mental/physical health from your doctor, and could claim sufficient financial assets for at least 5 yrs of rental expense, you could be accepted as a resident. In such case, as a current resident if you needed care in the future and ran out of funds, the facility can CHOOSE to apply for Medicaid on your behalf so you may continue to be a resident. Most non-profits will do this. Many for-profits, which unfortunately comprise the bulk of the industry and who are rapidly buying up existing non-profits when possible, do NOT do this. No funds = no residency. Always be sure, if you are looking for a facility for an elderly family member, that you make several visits, research their rankings (both federal and state inspections), and ask as many questions about "what if?" as you can. Just FYI, an article last week in the WS Journal on "We're running out of caregivers" said the average cost of a home health aide, full time (8 hr day) is now $49,000/yr. Remember if the aide is hired directly, you are also responsible for Social Security and other taxes, as an employer.

Happy 4th of July WWWonderwhiskers! It being the 4th of July and then seeing this old post revived reminds me of the 4th of July that passed while we were in the midst of building our house. (July 4, 2008). That summer was dry and hot and the 4th was a windy day. Since we were building out in the country, round mid-afternoon DH and I got to worrying about what might happen is someone started shooting off fireworks on or near our property. All that wood and sawdust in our less-than-half-completed new home and nobody to call the fire department if a fire got started! So we skipped out of the barbeque we HAD been planning to go to, dug up a couple of our battery operated camp lanterns, bought a bucket of chicken and headed out to the new house with our cell phones. We spent the entire evening perched on a 4x8 sheet of plywood up in the attic (roof wasn't on yet) of our new house watching distant fireworks and looking at the stars! Finally headed back home to bed around midnight when we finally stopped seeing or hearing any fireworks. One of my better memories of the house-building process... Happy 4th everybody!

Dh and I have lived in our current house for our entire marriage, 17 years. Truthfully, it was being built when we got married, so we lived in an apt for 2 months, then my parents for a month then it was ready. We live on the outskirts of a waterfront tourist town. We were supposed to be here for 3 years. Dh was in the Navy and this was not supposed to be our forever home as we anticipated being transferred by the Navy. However, dh realized the Navy was not meant to be his career as he didn't want to constantly move once we had kids. We wanted to live close to one of our families, but unfortunately, they live on opposite coasts. He is from the San Francisco Bay Area, and I am from the Wash DC area. Since it was the height of the tech boom at the time dh was getting out of the Navy, and we simply could not afford a home in the Silicon Valley, he got a job here, which fortunately is only 25 minutes from my parents. And here we've stayed. It is NOT my dream home. I don't even really like it. It was small when we moved in, and even smaller after having four kids! We looked around at moving to a different home, but absolutely love our neighbors and our community so finding a home that fit our needs was very difficult. We live in a high COL so home prices made it hard to find something that fit our desires while still being affordable. 10 years ago, we added on and while the space has helped, it hasn't changed the fact that our floorplan isn't desirable to us. We live in a waterfront community with very strict building codes, so we worked within that and have maxed out what we can do w/o completely gutting the house and starting over. With four kids in private school and one off to college in four years, I've pretty much resigned myself that we won't be moving anytime soon, nor can we really afford at this point to do any major changes that would help. I am constantly looking at houses for sale in the area, but the only affordable ones are in tract home subdivisions and that's not type of community we desire. So we make do with what we have. And it's not that my house is bad, but it's not set up well for entertaining, something I'd love to do more often, we had to give up our fabulous screened porch when we added on and cannot add another due to space constraints. I miss that terribly. On the bright side, we have wonderful neighbors, live in a waterfront neighborhood so the kids can fish, swim, kayak, ride their bikes freely (community is a peninsula w/no through traffic), etc. My dream is to move into the historic district in our tourist town where we can walk and bike everywhere. We live 5 miles from there now, but not on bike-friendly roads (though dh is an avid biker and rides them, no way my kids can). There are some really fabulous Arts & Crafts cottages, as well as many other architecturally interesting homes that date back to the 1700s. My hope is to move into one of them some day and have that be our forever home, with a second home in another climate. I wish I could love this home and think of it as my forever home, but it is not ideal for aging. We have three floors, with bedrooms all on the third floor as the garage/rec room are "under" the main living level. My parents still live in the house I grew up - they are going on 50 years there. They will stay until it's too much for them as it's perfect for aging, a rancher. All that said, as much as I want to move, the idea of moving is dreadful to me, which is probably one of the reasons I haven't really pushed for it. The thought of trying to keep my home in "show" condition with four kids, a huge dog that sheds, well, not fun. So perhaps a small part of me continues to find something undesirable about any of the houses I'm always looking at. I figure if I'm going to go through the hassle, the house has to be pretty close to what I want! Love all the interesting stories!