Jen, he only had white and yellow left, he just sold the hot pink tree. He had Daisy Wilcox, ruby two and the other names I do not remember, since I was looking for hot pink and reds. I was not interested in white or yellow. He has at least 50 large plumeria trees in his yard. Its like a plumeria forest. He was getting ready for the plumeria society plant sale when I was there, he had an area with nothing but 1 and 2 gallon plumeira plants that he had removed from his greenhouse. I think the sale was in April. I went because we traded cuttings. He wanted Magnum Opus and Siam Ruby, and I got Embers, and was suppost to get California Sally, but he could not find his main plant, he could just find the small plants, so i settled for Thorntons Madi Gras( is it diffrent than Madi Gras? I also bought 3 other cuttings, but I can't remember what I bought. I did buy one plant a Thorntons Lemon drop. The plant was $25, and the cuttings were $10. Both men are in their late 70's, and truly love plumeria. I could listen to them for hours. I hope one weekend you can come down with me, and we will drive to Corpus so you can meet them. They take care of the plumeria trees at the Corpus Christi Botantical Gardens. I wish I would start to feel better, I spend most of my day sleeping. Barbra

I had hoped for more writers too. I have been encouraged by my son, mostly, and I think that perhaps you have to be older and have that 'encouragement' to do it. My son, is (ooohh) 52, and is just curious to learn how we got to where we had been before he arrived on the scene and my remembrances of our "gypsy" life during his childhood. We 21st century old folks have lived during such huge changes in our society and in our environment...and even in our values....that we really owe our children a glimpse of how we rose to the occasion of those milestones. Just a thought! Nanny BTW....some old movies that are shown today, show many scenes that our parents aspired to, rather than the fact of life. Not always, but when I see some of them I realize that some of the ideas that my mother tried to make me believe were things that movies told her to aspire to in a subliminal way. Today's entertainment is much more realistic, or is it? I really love the writings of John Steinbeck as he told the truth about the pain of the depression and of the lives, sometimes of desperation, that many people lived. And, yes, I wonder as I see men and women "pan-handling" on the streets of our small community being homeless...are they feeling that same kind of desperation? TMI, sorry.

Students should not be punished by being required to write. Perhaps that's one of many reasons that people tend not to like to write. Additionally, writing 500 sentences as a punishment for 2nd graders seems excessive. I would find out more about what is happening in the class. Does the teacher talk a lot with little opportunity for student interaction? Then she should consider providing opportunities for small group collaboration. Are the students talking because they're bored? Then she needs to experiment with different ways of apporaching instruction to find out what will engage her students. Student talking is the result of an underlying issue. Rather than trying to bully students into submission, she should try to discover and address the underlying issue. I'm not trying to sound judgmental. I am a former teacher who has sucessfully taught in innercity schools. [I am no longer in the classroom because I train teachers now.] When I first started teaching, I used to punish students for inappropriate behavior. I spent a lot of time putting out behavioral fires. Once I realized that student behaviors are the result of classroom, community, and/or home conditions, I focused on addressing the underlying issues. After that, I had few behavioral problems with my students and student achievement soared. I also agree with a previous poster that telling your son that he is an exception to what the teacher has said is counterproductive. He may come to believe that school rules only apply if his mother says that they do and it undermines the teacher's authority.

When I had the master suite created in my DH's home up north, it was crowded for bedside tables too. So I got two wooden tall plant stands, with 12x12" tops. They fit perfectly fine. Then swing arm wall mounted lamps for each side of the bed. Enough room for a book on the shelf below and a glass of water or whatever. I never just use an end table when there is an option to have a small chest beside the table. That works even in a small room with limited storage space. Every item has to WORK to make the cut when space is scarce. And, in the bedroom in Alabama, I am going to be sorry to leave it for the BACK bedroom, which will become an ensuite master, because it is beginning to look SO comfortable. It is a west-facing bedroom, on the street. It has two PAIRS of windows, and the closet and entry to the bedroom are on a third wall. That leaves one wall which has no windows and no doors or other obstructions. However, I did not want the bed to be sideways in front of the entry door, so had to put the bed first diagonally in the corner between the two pairs of windows. This worked fine for a while, with the wicker chests I use for bedside tables centered between the windows. However, it was hard to make up the bed. So I decided to center the bed in front of the windows on the street wall. I closed the blinds to block the high heat coming through those windows anyway. And then I found some floor/ceiling grommet drapes at Tuesday Mornings! That is when I got DH to install crown molding wide enough to mount the double drapery rods, and I started planning 3 layers of curtains...grommet drapes wall to wall on both window walls, sheers on the second drapery rod, and finally the top-down roman shades using 90% shade cloth and Thermasuede fabric as a liner. I am almost done with the curtain project, but even with the shade cloth pinned in place on the west wall, the difference in heat gain is significant. This room is 12 x 12 give or take an inch. We changed out sliding closet doors for 2 pair of Jeldwen bifold shutter doors which I painted to match the crown molding and base boards and other wood work. The wicker chests are on either side of a full sized bed, with lots of breathing room. There is a rocking chair near the closet. There is a third chest between the closet and the door to the hall, and a wall mount TV is above the chest. So now I've ordered the Hudson queen size storage bed from Room and Board in cherry. It should arrive this month. I can hardly wait. It is a platform bed with no footboard, and no box springs, and it measures 60 x 80. A full bed is 54 x 75, so only a few significant inches of comfort which I look forward to having. But when the contractor finally comes, and bumps out the master bath for a tub and a long walk in closet, we'll be moving this new jewel to the back bedroom. This current bedroom will convert to a nice study/guest room. Only we seldom have over night guests, and may just put desks and bookcases in there until we move the contents of the up-north house. It seems to me that we have plenty of space in the 12 x 12 bedroom. Since we've repainted and made the room so peaceful, I will now take a horizontal break to meditate or read or chat on the phone. It looks good in natural or ambient light all times of day since northern exposures give true light, and the shade cloth gives a sense of separation from the street. Keeping active pursuits out of the bedroom is conducive to rest and separation from the cares of life.