Kabir: The questions you are asking tell me you are not going to do well in a Sheriff's auction sale. Get a Real Estate attorney in your jurisdiction and work with her/him so that you have all the details necessary in place before you show up at the auction. Here in Milwauakee, Wisconsin, when any property goes on the Sheriff's auction block, there is NO MINIMUM starting bid. If the lein holders want a minimum amount, they have to bid along with everyone else. Some of the buyers hereabouts take cash with them to Sheriff's auctions, but most take certified bank checks premade out to the Sheriff's department. All of the few that I know are preapproved or cash rich. Using certified bank checks, you can't lose the money by accident or being mugged. If you insist on taking cash, let me know what time you will be there and meet me in the alley out back. Ruudman

Estellecm, If I have my math right, your DH was probably 20-21 years old when his oldest son was born. I am assuming that his deceased wife was that boy's mother, along with the younger two boys. One could assume that he met his first wife when he was maybe 18 or 19 years old --- not much older than his oldest son is now. His wife died VERY suddenly, during an event that should have been full of nothing but joy, the birth of his third child. He was unexpectedly left a widower with three children...a newborn and another child, not yet a toddler. His oldest son could not have been much older than the middle son is now. This is a lot for one person to handle. I suspect your DH was so busy trying to care for his boys, he may not have had the time or opportunity to grieve for the loss of his wife. He is telling you as much when he says "You don't know what I went through." What time of year did she die? When is the youngest son's birthday? I cannot imagine what that must be like for him...on the one hand, you would want to celebrate the birth of your baby; on the other hand, it would also mark the anniversary of the death of your wife. This cannot be easy for him. He may feel some responsibility for her death, irrational as that may be...if he hadn't gotten her pregnant, she wouldn't have gone through labor, she wouldn't have hemorrhaged, and she'd still be alive. Posttraumatic Stress is called "post" for a reason; someone can be symptom free for a very long time before something in the environment triggers recall of the trauma; you wrote you will try to talk to him like civilized adults and then "the tears appear." The first criteria in considering a diagnosis of PTSD is "the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others." Another symptom of PTSD is "irritability or outbursts of anger." Another symptom of PTSD is a "sense of a foreshortened future." Why discipline your kids if life is short? What is the harm in letting your kids watch movies rated for 16 year olds? None of us is going to live forever, afterall. His wife bled to death during childbirth. I do not know if your husband ever sought out professional help (or even a support group) following his wife's death. He was probably in shock, functioning just enough to provide minimal care for himself and his children; he may have been too busy just trying to survive. Now may be the time for him to explore what the impact of the death of his wife has been. At some level, he has to re-live the trauma of her death every year at his baby boy's birthday. For the sake of his children, his marriage and his own, I hope he will put his big boy panties on and go get help in learning more healthy ways to regulate his emotions. I hope you can help him in this healing process.

Hi LisaMarie, It's nice that I'm no longer the only one who is FSM to a child who is not biologically related to SO. In my case, the guy who got BM pregnant (and then threatened to kill her) has been in and out of jail for the past decade and has never met "his" son. My BF started seeing BM when A__ (now age 9) was a month or two old and they were together for three years. BF is the only dad A__ has ever had. Just a little forewarning for you, there are occasionally people (both on the board and in real-world) who won't respect your connection to FSD, since she is not biologically your FDH's daughter. Ignore them. Anyhow, moving along... I was pretty alarmed to hear that she doesn't know FDH isn't her biological parent. A__ knows that "Mom had a different boyfriend when she got pregnant with me, and Dad became my dad when I was a little baby". I don't think he really understands genetics (considering that he's 9) but it's good that he knows. I don't think now (with all the other turmoil) is a good time to spring on FSD that her dad isn't her dad... But it's definitely something that will have to be addressed soonish. IMO, it's better to tell her when she's young enough that she has to get over it because she depends on FDH for food and shelter and the like. Maybe that's an odd viewpoint though. Anyhow, I'm also a motherless daughter (although I lost mine to cancer when I was 16). I was done with my first period, first boyfriend, and first breakup. I was about to start grade 12 and I was doing well in school. I had siblings I was close to and didn't have to move... and it was still really hard to figure out my place and learn how to navigate my life! I can't imagine how lost she feels right now! Even if her mom wasn't involved in her life, she has lost the opportunity to get her mom back, to have all of those things that mothers do with daughters. Another poster mentioned that you need to make a special place in FSD's life for her mom... And I totally agree! If you have photos or any personal objects, they could go into a few frames or a shadow box and up in her bedroom. FDH should sit down and write some stories for FSD about things Mommy did with her when she was a baby - anecdotes, worries, parenting style, etc - if you have some photos, get copies of them made and try to include a photo of FSD or BM with each one. FDH is her link to her mom now, and he needs to be able to talk about her mom so that she doesn't feel totally without. I agree with other posters about the "Big Sister" pin for the shower, and having her responsible for a shower game or something. She should get a little moment in the sun, but realize it isn't a shower for her. Oh, about always having roommates and such, my BF always had roommates too, so A__ shared his room when he was over, or more recently, slept on the couch. I understand that circumstances aren't always ideal, so don't feel that you owe anyone any explanations over that FDH wasn't able to provide a room for her previously. Housing is expensive and I assume FDH was doing the best he could. About how FSD treats you poorly... My guess is that she partially doesn't realize it, partially knows she can get away with it, and partially after lots of it, you may be oversensitive to it. I know I can be oversensitive when A__'s being a handful, or whips out some rude comment, and sometimes I just have to remind myself that I shouldn't take everything personally. My first question would be - what is Grandma and Grandpa's relationship like? Does GM do all the work while GP sits on his tooshie? If FSD is used to seeing GM get fresh towels for GP and her, and make snacks on demand for GP and her, etc, then she may think that this is just how relationships work and that the female adult partner does everything for everybody else on command. If that's not the structure of Gm and GP's relationship, my theory is out the window. As for GM's suggestion that you have to do fun things with her to make her like you, I say bullsh17! Personally, I think A__ and I bonded better on Saturday night when we wrote secret messages with salt water on black construction paper (the water evaporates and the salt crystalizes) than we did on Saturday afternoon when we were all at the arcade together. Little things, day to day things, are way more important, IMO, than "Disneyland" activities. I think you're better off to be going to her soccer practice every Wednesday than doing extravagant things every weekend. When I do fun things with A__, I tell him it's because I want us to have fun together. I have canceled fun plans because he pulled attitude on me and was rude all morning, so I said "The plan was for you and I to go have fun this afternoon, but with your bad attitude, I won't be having any fun, so I no longer want to go. We can stay home." I've used this on my multitude of nieces and nephews too, and it works extremely well to make them behave better to earn back the fun activities. I know that this is hard for everyone, but I think you've done most of what you can do (talking reasonably to FDH, talking reasonably to FSD, etc) and what she probably needs right now is time to get her head on straight while you're patient and try to help where you can. This isn't going to be easy, and I wish you luck!

Here are my thoughts on planning: while I agree that planning is important, I feel none of what I'm doing right now precludes any plants unless they are extremely acid-loving. My pH is 4.8 and the recommended ph ranges from 5.5 for acid loving to 6.5 for flowers. Changing the ph takes a long time and so far I've added 40lbs of limestone when I need 225 - 400 lbs! I also agree that using native plants is preferable, but that is limited by availability and cost. It's going to be hard to justify buying native if he cost difference is substantial. I have bought a few so far, listed below, from big box stores New plants: Gaura lindheimeri Salvia nemorosa Boneset chocolate eupatorium rugosum Salix integra brocade willow Pieris japonica If anyone has recommendations or websites to learn about native plants, please share. I feel like the far bigger limiting factor is the relatively small amount of sun I get, not my soil. Also, for any new subject, by definition my tastes are going to evolve, so I don't see much value in creating a plan upfront, when it's almost guaranteed that my tastes will change as I learn more about gardening. One example: I just learned about Swales and berms - something I'd never remotely heard of before. Now I want to learn how I can incorporate that in my garden!