Hi Zeffy - I'm glad you took the time to catch us up on your life, I've been wondering. In fact I have a Thanksgiving card in front of me on my desk with your name on it and cannot find your street address! So now you know how cluttered my office is, because I know it's here somewhere, just not in my email address book under residence, or my regular address book either. I'm so happy you are feeling better - it doesn't sound perfect but better is good if it's letting you enjoy some things again. And I love the idea of two turkeys to cut down on your work Thanksgiving Day (read your other post on the day-before gravy). I'm the gravy maker in our family and will cook that at my Sis's house; last year my brother put the turkey in a roaster in his Traeger grill (uses wood pellets) at Christmas and the bird was great but I had a heck of a time with the gravy, the drippings had a distinct smokey taste that I didn't like and I couldn't find anything to add to diminish the smoke flavor. Thought I might roast some hind quarters or something ahead of time and freeze drippings to take this Christmas on the chance he does that again :) Maybe I'll even just roast a small bird for leftovers and use the juices from that. I think Robyn can count on her children seeing the divorce differently when given some time to mature and get used to the change. It would be nice if it was sooner, but if she's patient I'm convinced they'll come around. When my sister and her husband divorced, to her credit she never once said anything critical about him to her kids and they blamed her for his unhappiness and their own. Once grown, they came to understand on their own and to trust her completely while with their dad, they realized (finally) they were always trying to please him enough to 'deserve' his love. In fact, in court (huge battle over custody) the judge even said HE trusted her enough to put the kids ahead of her own feelings and make sure they had quality time with their dad, he didn't believe the same to be true of her ex, told him that, and she was given full custody. Celeste, I hope you have a lovely holiday too - what a difference a year makes! I think you have an angel on your shoulder watching the loving care you give your mother - that mother who looks so content in the pictures you've shared.

Wow, thank you everyone, the warm welcome brought me a much needed smile! I must confess, Im in a bit of a depressed state here of late as I just lost my baby brother to cancer in April. I am fighting to keep myself from going under and I knew I needed to reach out, meet new people and find some other connections. I am disabled due to my health so I donot get the chance to physically go out and meet and connect with others. I remembered the KT and made the leap to try and re-connect. Oh and how many pounds of chocolate shall I bring? I make some pretty delish choc covered pretzels :) and my coffee pot is always full and ready to share!!!

Went through your build blog a bit and let me just say it will be a while before I pick my jaw up off the floor. Wowzer! What a journey and what a house it will be! So glad to be on the building forum at this time or it's unlikely I'd be in a position to follow along. This is going to be amazing to watch!

Nice blooms, Kim! I love the color. It certainly looks reasonable to be Jackmanii. Do you hard prune each year in really early spring (before it leafs out) down to about 3 buds per stem? If not, Jackmanii is one that blooms on new growth each year, and so if you prune it, it sends out a bunch of new stems and so you have more blooms and they tend to be arranged over the whole plant. A sprinkle of rose food (similar wants to clematis) or alfalfa meal in the spring and then mulch around the plant to help keep soil evenly moist will help increase potential for bloom as well. My hard prune clematis end up the same height as they started when I hard prune each year, so don't be afraid that you will harm the plant. I see other trellises; what are your plans for them? The gladiolis is lovely. I don't grow them because it is too cold to overwinter them here, and I am too busy in the fall to dig them reliably. But I like yours. You might want to add your location to your name so that it posts automatically and we know where you are, though it's obviously warmer than NH. Here's how since they don't make it easy to figure out: Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone. If you add info on your state or the nearest large city either here or on the profile page under the name posted, you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures. Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing. Glad you have come back to post here. Houzz doesn't make navigating the GW part of things easy, so here is a link to all of the GW Forums so you can bookmark it and navigate to the forums you want to visit from the bookmark. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/