I so appreciate your thoughts and kindnesses. Suze, I want you to plant that FOTW and see what a beautiful rose it is for yourself. Lisa Lou has already responded that she will root one soon, so unless she gets hit with another Katrina type year, I am sure she will. She is such a sweetie but your kindness is always indeed appreciated and never underestimated as very genuine and special. I feel pretty sure the reason we have had such a small amount of damage secondary to animals through the years was due, at least in part, to our chow and our tuxedo cat. We miss them for more reasons than that but in their declining years we started noticing more evidence of critters/varmints in our garden, loss of all bulbs, corms, rhyzomes, etc., and the small roses and now the brazen buggars are getting braver and taking down the big ones. Perhaps if we had an outdoor cat, that would help and maybe even 'bulk up' our collie's spine. When I had a copperhead snake come in my house about 10 years ago, my neighbor's aging father told me I needed a cat that was hungry to find it, that my cats would not seek it out. Interestingly, it was our Persian who is afraid of doorbells and telephone rings who alerted us to its whereabouts and DH came in for the kill but I think the Persian would have been the loser had a battle ensued, but I am just guessing. He has never been outside save once when he sneaked out unbeknownst to us, and was missing for several days. Subsequently, he has learned to stay away from doors which lead outside. On my way to doing battle with the remains of the day (uh, the garden).

... DESERVE to be low-balled! By both you and the appraiser! What kind of hoser allows his family to live in a house with obvious (and CHEAPLY corrected) WIRING faults? And the FURNACE thing, WTF? I know of AHJs in the northeast that will DENY YOU A C.O. for such lack of major infrastructure! Throw in the shabby roof and it would require ALL my self-control to not be openly snide with such sellers! You "done good" to just remain civil. Perhaps these sellers hit the HELOC "ATM", but spent it on everything BUT the house?... like maybe... recreational chemicals? =:O Very odd situation... as noted above, you might be picking up this same house in a foreclosure auction, not too far in the future. Feel for ya inexplic... buying a home for your family to live in naturally gets more emotional than looking for an income property you'll never spend a single night in. Next time be working a few in parallel. Nothing wrong with that in a buyer's market. PS: Don't do the long letter thing anymore... casting pearls to swine. But DO tell us more about the seller's appearance, behaviors, nervous tics, etc. ;')

Ok as far as the poison ivy ... I get rid of it every spring but as most of you know its a weed it comes back several times throughout the summer well I cut it back as far as I can but it comes back when it was green all summer she knew to stay away from it ... no clue if she is allergic or not none of the kids have ever had poison ivy ... so just in case they know what it is and should stay away from it. But in the fall poison ivy turns a beautiful red color ... deep dark red... but because I am not allergic to it I don't know if at the end of the season its just as contagious at the beginning not a horticulturist so no clue ... I recite the little ditties ... furry rope don't be a dope stay away, leaves of 3 be sure to flee .... but in the fall no clue how to keep them away... don't touch red or you'll be dead? no clue anyway... Now DSS yes they are the same thing as CPS in our state. Mom called DSS back in July because I wouldn't let her talk to her daughter on the phone and I prohibited SD's access to her mom via the phone ... long story ... after she had been on the phone with her mom for 4 hours I took the phone away and said you do not need to talk to you mother anymore till daddy gets home.... because she was reciting the court orders to me and demanding I tell her where they are so she could show me "she can talk to her mother anytime she wants" and she was also screaming at me about being hormonal and having anxiety all while on the phone with her mother so after hour FOUR I took the phone away and unplugged it. Because I told SD9 that she was angry and not having an anxiety attack "I disregarded her mental health issues" Hubby who was at work that day was alos charged with neglect because he wasn't here to comfort her in her time of "need" mom was also chagred with neglect because she failed to retrieve the child while she was suffering from an anxiety attack ... you see SD9 wanted her cousin to sleep over and when she was told NO she "began having anxiety" so mom picked her up 8 hours later the cousin slept over and SD9 came home the next day no problem and while snapping her neck at me said "Ha Ha I got my way!!!" I said what does that mean ... "Cousin got to sleep over anyway" so I ask was that anxiety or manipulation?? so because I said it was manipulation instead of anxiety I am "neglecting her mental health issues" Then in August Mom took SD9 and SS10 to file a police report against hubby because they feared coming back home (2 days before going to court) Because they were fighting over the x-box and he took it away and told them to go to their rooms they refused he carried SS10(who weighs 130lbs) and walked SD9 to her room. Mom told the officer they were afraid to come home because he picked them up and "threw" them in their rooms. But during DSS's investigation they found Mom to be neglectful and Hubby to be neglectful but I was not. So because DSS has charged both parents with neglect of SD9 not the 2 boys ... we are all involved and have to meet with DSS monthly to discuss any issues that arise. So our service plan states we cannot yell in the presence of the children. Among other piddly stuff like counseling for the kids and medical appts for the kids (Imagine DSS says I have to take the kids to Drs. Appts.) and family therapy sessions. Mom's service plan is no yelling as well drs appts, parenting classes, family therapy, and domestic violence classes, she can only call one time a day for 15 minutes, she is to let SD9 enjoy her time with her father and she is not to interfere with their visitation times. DSS meets with us monthly DSS meets with mom weekly Mom has a parent aide come into her home from 5-8pm every night we do not Mom has a parent aide come into her home on weekends from 1-4 pm we do not Mom has to have a psychiatric evaluation. We do not. We each have to meet monthly with the childrens counselors on an individual basis ... the children go to therapy every 2 weeks except SD she goes weekly more if needed... For atleast the next 6 months to a year we are all going to be spending alot of time with DSS and different counselors who also have to meet with each other to discuss a "family service plan" ... So 4 kids 3 adults = 7 counselors 2 DSS workers Multiple parent aides. Then another "team" of people to evaluate the whole situation. So all in all this should be a fun year.... they are suspecting mom has an underlying mental health issue herself and want to "help the family in the best interest of the children" ... Serenity ... I know this is going to sound stupid but SD9 has figured out if she says bad things about me and her dad her mom pays attention to her and the boys... she takes notes she has them sit down while she records them and has them tell the story of how they were mistreated at our home ... like when its 11:30PM and we don't let her talk on the phone with her mom, or when after they have been fighting all day and all around nasty to each they have to go to bed early, they have put their own clothes in their drawers, and how we make them take showers even though they just took one yesterday and how we don't let them go out and play til their homework is completed. Thats makes us horrible parents I am the evil SM because we have rules here .... we don't let them play games or be on the phone all night long we have a bedtime. She greets her children with "what did daddy/pseudo do you last night?" "did you get punished yesterday?" not hey kiddo how was your day? you know normal stuff. Junegemstar.... she didn't take the microwave but she took all the hannah montana and high school musical bedding we bought to her mom's house so she could have it there since "she doesn't live here anymore" also took most of her toys to mom's left stuff that she never plays with behind. Left 3 outifits and no shoes packed all that stuff up. I know some of you think I am nutz for staying but I am "hoping" someday someone will tell mom besides me and hubby she is off her rocker. Maybe after the parenting classess and family therapy sessions. Those should be some fun posts. SD9's counselor called me yesterday to set up a meeting with her ... she told mom she called me ... mom flipped out on her saying "since when do SM's have a say in how a child's therapy goes" and counselor told her "if you didn't want me to talk to her you shouldn't have signed the release" Meeting with her Monday.

I'm not an MD or a Vet and have never played one on TV (or radio), but...don't people diagnosed with Lyme take antibiotics for *many* months??? Not necessarily. It depends on a number of things, including the duration of the illness and the number (and identity) of any co-infections. It's very hard to say if an individual is getting proper treatment. As for me, I could pinpoint the day my symptoms started (before I found the tick), and I thought, based on my reading, that there was a good chance the bacteria could be knocked out by a month of doxy on top of the 10 days of amoxicillin the doctor had already prescribed. So far so good, although I'm still nervous about the whole thing. If any symptoms come back, I'll have to resort to seeing an LLMD (Lyme-Literate MD). I would not look forward to that. There are no LLMDs in my area, so I'd have to travel--and probably pay quite a bit if s/he doesn't take Medicare.