Just before Thanksgiving we took my aunt, who was visiting, down to Santa Cruz. I noticed this "little" plant in downtown: Ironically, one of the things we were up to that day was bringing a B. luxurians to a friend of my mom's. I had given it to her in August, but she forgot it up at my mom's. I since repotted it in a 1 gallon pot and it has grown considerably. Back to the topic of the post. The plant in the pot is recovering and has grown: The plant in the ground is also doing well and is technically taller than the one in the pot, starting at ground level (roughly 3 feet?): And the plants that I rooted have continued to do well. Here are 4 that I'm putting up for trade here (I have several more, and I may follow up). I'll send #1 and #2 (separately) for postage, and #3 and #4 for trade. If I don't find anything for trade I'll put those up for postage as well. If I don't hear anything here (or by email) within a reasonable period of time I'll also post on the Begonia exchange section. (I believe #4 was rooted prior to the plant collapse) As far as trades, at the moment I'm looking for Aristolochia grandiflora (see link at bottom). There are a handful of other things I am looking for, such as blooming size plants/divisions of Masdevallia caesia, Cymbidium tracyanum (but not other Cymbidiums) and cool growing Stanhopeas. I'm also interested in Platyceriums (besides bifurcatum) and unusual epiphytes. For trade, B. luxurians could be combined with other thing(s) mentioned in the link at the bottom, or perhaps other things I can propagate. In general I'm out of space, and so am limited in the sorts of things I can take. Besides space, one thing I lack is full sun. I might be interested in more Begonias; maybe not. Here is a link that might be useful: Partial list of some other plants available

It's the morning after, and I am thankful for all you good people who took the time to post and get me through a bad moment. I learned from your posts, and I laughed with your posts. Most importantly, I found out that even on a cooking forum, not everyone makes the perfect, flaky, homemade pie crust. Thank you for telling me that I am not alone. I am through with pies and pie crusts. This year will have been the 20th year of trying, and it was the worst yet. It is time to move on. I am a market gardener, and I grow wonderful organic strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. When I bake with the fruit, I do a crisp, a cobbler, or a tart. DS has a love of pumpkin pie, and I think my efforts are emotionally entwined with being the "good mother", but I am going to find a good bakery next year. You are all right- there is more than one way to skin a cat (that is a horrible saying isn't it?) I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. You all helped make mine a good one. :)

I grew up on a dairy farm and that was operated in the same manner as the Amish do today. Grandmother had an 8ft long coal stove in the kitchen and our idea of running water was whenever one of us boys entered the kitchen Grandma would hand us a 5gal pail and say, "Run out to the spring and get me some water." The next boy in the room got handed the coal bucket to fill, and the next boy had to take a couple 5gal buckets of vegetable timmings out to the hog lot and more often than not during the canning season one of the younger boys got detailed to stay at the house and assist Grandma in the kitchen. As a consequence I began learning how to cook when I was about 5 or 6 years old, and I don't regret a minute of that time. Dissassters? Wow, I could write a book about dissassters I have made in the kitchen but one will always stick out in my mind. At about 13yrs old my cousin & I got the silly idea to make some home made rootbeer. (In those days you could buy Hires Rootbeer Syrup in a tube like a huge toothpaste tube in the spice section of any grocery store for about $1). My cousin and I spent about 3 weeks rounding up empty soda bottles & washing them out, all the while saving our allowance money to get the rootbeer syrup. We finally had enough bottles washed out, got the syrup, set up the bottle capper and commenced to mixing our brew in a huge 5gal crock. First you add the water, then the syrup, then sugar and finally a cube of flieshmans yeast, mix it all up and let it set about 24 hours then you bottle it and let it age 14 days to make the fizz. When it was all done my cousin and I each took a bottle from the basment up to the kitchen to get a bottle opener. I snapped the opener on the bottle cap, started to lift it and WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM, the lid flew off and the rootbeer spurted up out of that bottle so high it hit the ceiling. Talk about a mess...LOL...My cousin tried opening his with exactly the same result. What went wrong we wondered? Then we got to recounting our mixing procedures. It seems that my cousin had not seen me put the yeast in, so without saying a word, he put another cake of yeast in. But as is true of teenagers everywhere, we weren't gonna let a little thing like atomic fizz prevent us from drinking our rootbeer. We just put a dishpan in the sink, then one of us would carefully open the bottle while the other one held a pot upside down over the bottle to catch the spray and let it go into the dishpan, which we then poured in our glasses and enjoyed out rootbeer, even though it did have a rather strong yeasty taste..LOL

sylvia, voice of reason...:) yeap, it is the same one sylvia. yeap, unhealthy. the younger one does not have "daddy" issue. I do not know what is the reason for this, it must be somehow related to her not talking to anyone else in the family and having no friends. I understand she is upset with parents' divorce but according to SO she was this way when parents were married. last year she refused to fly with mom and younger SD to grandpa's 80s birthday. That was the time she prefered to go to a romantic getaway with dad. BM was very upset. and it was strange that SD wanted to go with dad while younger SD was gone, it would make more sense to go both sisters with dad. This year she asked dad to take her to Bahamas, (what???) he said :no. DD went on vacations with dad but she lived primarily wiht me and when visiting dad they would go on vacations but they also had DD's brother with them and X's wife. And none of these vacations were romantic getaways. SD always went wiht dad on trips even when he was still married to mom. And she is 26, not a teenager. I don't think there is anything very sick about it, but there is some kind of element of sickness in it. Younger SD has nothing like that. I don't know about keds, but maybe time to shop for a good pair of running shoes lol...