I love beets. Especially ones fresh from the garden then roasted. Then there's Harvard Beets and pickled beets. I've been craving roasted brussels sprouts, but neither husband nor dd like them...dd used to, but now she's so anti-mom she's sworn off lots of stuff she used to like. Grits I learned to like when I was in Grad school in Billsburg, VA. I liked to go to the Chickahominy House to have a Virginian breakfast: eggs over easy, a slice of Virginia ham and grits, with a buttermilk biscuit. You could have redeye gravy, but I preferred to smush my eggs into the grits. Then there's egg/cheese/grits casserole. Cornbread is best slathered with butter, or drizzled with honey. I rarely do both anymore, but I used to. I brought rolls for the trip to MI to have Thanksgiving. I was up until 2:00 am on Thursday making them. I intended to make whole wheat "brown and serve" rolls, but I didn't hear the timer ding, and so in a panic, I baked them completely so I could taste test and make sure they were edible (they were, although some were big enough to be hamburger buns). For the young fry I made PIllsbury crescent rolls...as I know that dd and others prefer those. On the way home today she was munching on one and said "Oh, what is is that makes crescent rolls so yummy." "in a word," I said, "lots of fat." I have to say that driving up to Hastings, MI on Thursday morning was wonderful. A typical Michigan Thanksgiving day--misc. flurries and the sun breaking through glowering clouds over golden and russet fields which had been lightly frosted with a diamond dust. Breathtaking.

I am another rose nomad. I've visited all four public rosariums in Sweden, a couple in Denmark, Sangerhausen, Mottisfont Abbey and San Jose Heritage Rose Garden and all the rose nurseries I have been near. But large rose collections can be overwhelming with the roses becoming a blur of colour where you don't notice the individual rose. But I've been inspired to get some roses from these gardens, Radiance, for instance, several Geschwind roses and a few Horvath roses. The Austin roses at the Rosen-Jensen nursery in Germany made me stay away from Austins. I didn't ask if they were newly planted and would get bigger with time but the small shrubs with oversized blooms didn't appeal to me. I am a member of the Swedish Rose Society and a big benefit is the chance to visit other members' gardens, the best way to find out how a rose does in my climate. Sweden is roughly the size of California so sometimes we have to travel some distance but we pack in as many people as possible in each car or hire a minibus. Last summer 10 members hired a boat to get to an island in the Baltic where a member grows 400 roses in very thin soil over rock and with constant winds. My new Valdemar climber is a souvenir from that trip.

1. Pay off the improvements that we have had to make on the new house despite having a mortgage and heloc on the old house (furnace, exterior doors, insulation) 2. Make that savings account we are all supposed to have with 6 months of expenses (thanks terriks). 3. Get new windows to replace the leaky aluminum framed ones. 4. Hardwoods or cork floors in halls and kitchen/dining and den, tile with an electric heat pad in foyer, tile in half bath and laundry room. 5. New cabinets and an island in the kitchen with 38 inch counter height and a single bowl sink with a decent garbage disposal and nice laminate counter tops. The cabs may be locally made custom, but I can save $$$ by getting laminate counter tops. 6. Hardwood on bedroom floor or tear out the 1978 main bath and redo with new tile and tub and decently high cabs with drawers for storage. 7. Whatever we did not do in #6. 8. OMG! We still have that hideous wall-o-brown-brick 1978 fireplace in the den! DO SOMETHING - cover with wood, tear 3/4 of it down and make the smaller fireplace nice by covering with stone, do something to lessen the dark cave effect. Put in an efficient gas insert or a pellet insert if gas prices have skyrocketed. 8. By now it is time to re-roof!

@ justmetoo----His now 21 year old son assaulted me, not the one that lives with us now. His mother does feed him stories and has for years let them in on the finances and done everything in her power to cause trouble and discontent. To be honest, in my opinion, this all went off the rails with this particular child when WE bought him a car. After my husband and I did this he kept the ca for about 2 months and decided that he didn't want it anymore. I had a truck that we were not using so SS came to me and said he wanted to buy it because, a. he wanted a truck, b. it would teach him what it was like to have financial responsibility. I should have seen through that right there, because I don't know many kids that would say that. I was honestly against it because I saw nothing but trouble, but after all the hounding I got from my husband and SS, I gave in just to shut them up. I stipulated that there would be rules, the vehicle would not be his until he paid it in full, it could not be driven out of the local area further than 50 miles, and since it was in my name and under my insurance he was not to haul all his friends around and he had to let us know where he was going. Keep in mind at the time he was 16, so I don't think I was being to unreasonable. That was fine for about 2 months and suddenly he stopped paying (payments were $50/month), breaking curfew, rude, sassy, etc. He wants to put the vehicle under his mothers insurance, because she doesn't have to know where he goes. Then he decides he doesn't want this vehicle and he wants to sell it and buy something else. Now I have no way of knowing what my husband and his son discussed or concocted, and they are famous for making little deals and leaving me out of the loop. (That's another issue) So, I agreed to allow him to sell it with the stipulation that he only keep what was leftover from what he owed us because I just wanted to be rid of the situation.. Well you would have thought I was asking for his first born, because suddenly he doesn't understand why he has to pay for something that had been given to me in the first place and why did I not just give him the vehicle. So he sells it and when my husband does not turn over the full amount to him, he says, "Mom told me you would not give me what you owed me!" HAHA BINGO! So I told my husband, BM is obviously planting seeds in his head, which you can't reason with this woman she is a nut job, we have tried. He gets a new car with his mother and adds it to his insurance and in even more attitude, he came over one night to fight with my husband about this entire transaction. Do I know if my husband has lied to him? No, I do not, however that is no excuse to talk to your father that way. In my opinion, bottom line SS is mad because he did not get what he wanted from us. This is the same child that asked his Dad to change the custody agreement so that he could stay with us more because he did not like living at his mothers house because everyone fights there all the time, per him. My husband even gave him $400 to register his new car that he got with his BM with the understanding that he would pay it back because he is working. This was 6 months ago and the boy has yet to make any attempt to give us anything, in fact he told his Dad in the past few weeks, "I don't have any F*&^ing money, so why would I give you any? I'm not paying you back." NICE! My husband left his son OVER $300 for lunch, food, etc whilst he has been away, gives him money to eat when the SS is at work, school, to go out with his friends....but the boy has a job, he is already in college. I feel that we have done so much for him and all he does in expect more and disrespect more. He will walk right past me in my home and look right through me and not say a word. I feel that I have done more for him in the 5 years I have been married than his own mother does for him. Its just a mess and it makes me very sad because it was NOT always like this. We used to do things as a family, have dinner together, go on trips and now I can't stand the sight of him.