Lisa, I can see where you are confused. When I said our youngest son "treats us wonderful", I mean he calls every night, he visits frequently, we go out to eat together, he calls when I'm sick, etc. He does things a son should do to show love. Our oldest son seldom calls us, seldom comes to visit, never knows when we've been gone a week on vacation, etc. I should have said he treats "me" wonderful. His dad rarely calls either one of our sons, until I remind him he hasn't called them in months. He doesn't even know our youngest son's home phone number. Maybe this is just a man thing, but something I'm not used to. Re: the one acre. This acre of land was given to our son strictly by me, not my DH. For years, I have asked my DH to sell this big house so we could get out of debt before retirement, and we could pay cash for a nicer/smaller home. We had this one acre to build on. He said he would NEVER build a house on that lot and to never ask him again (we had this land surveyed as two lots and this one acre is a corner lot and he doesn't like corner lots). One day when our youngest son was visiting, I said, "why don't you build on this acre and start building up equity in a home, and quit paying rent?" I was surprised when he later called me and said he did want to build on this acre. Surprised because he left our home because he couldn't get along with his dad (a combination of youth on his part and depression/anger on DH's part). I felt like I was doing something good; to help him get a start in life. I won't even go into the negative comments I have heard from my DH (my son knows nothing about these comments and never will, but I'm sure he knows his dad has said things. He doesn't need to know "words" that would hurt him that come from a mentally ill person. He even asked me not to tell him anything negative his dad said. I know his dad is happy for him, as he walks over to the land daily to see what progress is being made, and today wanted to buy him a refrigerator for his home, and that's a lot of money. (This is what depression does to you; the mood swings. I never know when he's going to have a good day or a bad day). I have learned to realize that a lot of things he says, I know he doesn't mean or doesn't realize what he is saying. I also have learned not to get hurt so much over his words and a lot of times I ignore what he says. How else would I be able to live with him so long? LOL! Re. the comment: "neither one of our sons have a good relationship with their father", that is very true! Neither one of our sons would go to their dad with any problem they have. I don't call that a "good" relationship, do you? A son can treat a parent "wonderful", and still not have a good relationship. By "good" relationship, I mean a "close" relationship. There is no doubt he loves his dad, but the closeness I have with my sons, he doesn't have this. I think this is because of his depression and the mood swings brought on by depression. Re: grandchildren. I don't think I have posted anywhere that I am "without" grandchildren. I would never deny my grandchildren. I may not get to see them much at my house, but I have a 6 yr. old granddaughter and a 15 mo. old grandson. I think you are confused as when I said "I want to build a smaller home and be a grandmother", I meant I will finally get to be a "grandmother" when my youngest son has children, to be able to paint the spare bedroom pink or blue, and put a swing set in my yard. (Of course, all this depends on my DH's behavior; and whether they can even have children. He is real close to his fiance & I see a wedding next year. She is moving to his new home as well.) Last summer we went to one of our granddaughter's ballgames and my DH was going to walk to the concession stand with her. Our DIL pitched a fit and told me "she is NEVER to go anywhere with him!" I felt this very rude, and I don't know who heard her. You could see the concession stand from where we were standing, it was very close. She asked him to go with her to get some bubble gum. In Feb. our youngest son invited me to go the circus with them, as he was taking our granddaughter to the circus. Our son said, Mom, I know you have talked so much about wanting to go to the circus, Barnum & Bailey. I said, sure. When our DIL got to his apartment with our granddaughter, she refused to speak to me! I had done nothing to her. She told our son in the parking lot before they came inside that "she wasn't told I was going". This upset me so much, I couldn't hold the tears back. She stormed in his apartment, totally ignoring me, and they left after she told our son "we will be here to pick her up". I told them "oh, there's no reason for you to have to get out at 12:00. I'll drop her off." I followed them to their car, she got in with our grandson, and I asked my oldest son, "why can't I bring her home?" He just said we'll come get her, and he got in the car and left. He seemed embarassed, and he didn't know what to say to me. He had to do what she said, regardless of who it hurt, and just left me standing there in the parking lot. Since this circus incident, I have not been to their house much. So there is more than one side to all this mess - my DH's depression and behavior and my DIL's control/anger, sometimes unwarranted by both of them, and me just going with the flow. I hope this helps clear up any confusion. I am just trying to live one day at a time, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I am not unhappy in my marriage as someone has suggested. We have a lot of wonderful days and a lot of good times together. I am unhappy mostly because of this difficult situation and longing to be a grandmother. I just wasn't willing to "give" if they weren't going to "give", but after reading these replies, I don't feel like I have any other choice. Maybe if I give first and show them more love, they will slowly start caring more. All the replies I have received has helped me realize that unless I change myself, I am going to be missing out on a lot of closeness with my grandchildren and I would have no one to blame except myself. There are many days I get off work early and I could head toward my DIL's house. I say I have no hard feelings toward her, but I have a lot of resentment, so I just stay away. My DH works both Sats. & Suns. and I have plenty of time. p.s. I have never asked if I could take our granddaughter to McDonalds or anywhere with just the two of us because I have always felt guilty doing that behind my husband's back, as I know he would never be allowed to do this. I feel like that would be mistreating him by me doing that, so maybe I need to change my way of thinking on this.

The stockings were hung on the new drywall with care In hopes that the plumber soon would be there. Good luck, It's so exciting.

I don't have pictures yet, will get DH to snap a few tomorrow. Unfortunately there are a couple of issues. My run is about 14' with a 7' peninsula coming off the 14' run. I knew I'd need seams, two, one on the long run another for the peninsula. I was so worried about the seams and striations on the stone, but I forgot to consider colour variation. They did a great job on the peninsula seam, but on the long run, smack in the middle, there is a not so great seam, but the bigger issue is that the slab section to the left of the seam is very light gray almost white, the section to the right is from further down the slab, and it is quite a bit darker. The colour difference between the two sections is very apparent. I'll post pics tomorrow. We didn't discuss seam placement with the fabricator - I thought my husband did when he went for the final viewing of the slab, but no, the fabricator said there wasn't much choice given that we only have one slab and such a long counter. DH didn't get into it. Anyway, the seam and the disparate colour between the two sections looks bad, and it is in such an obvious location. A few tears were shed. This is mostly our fault - I had a crazy day at work and didn't go to the fabricator with my dh for that final viewing. It is natural stone and there were fairly significant differences in colour/tone throughout the slab. But, it would have been nice for them to have called us when they noted the colour variation in their selections. The good news / bad news is that they made another mistake on the back edge of the peninsula, the two sections are not flush and my cabinet maker is adding a walnut counter extension along that run. Their fault, so they are removing the peninsula section of the quartzite and the "dark" section in order to correct their error. They are also going to try to get a better colour match for me. Fingers crossed. I'm actually considering buying another slab from the same batch - I could get a perfect colour match then. But that would be insanely expensive and wasteful, and when I even hinted at the possibility DH nearly wept (this has been a long, hard reno, full of expensive surprises - the joys of fixing over 130 years of other people's mistakes. All that aside, the stone itself is spectacular. I could have avoided all this stress and worry by going with Caesarstone or Silestone and it still would have looked great, but this quartzite is just so luscious, so fluid and gorgeous. It is probably worth this seam/colour issue to have the beauty of the stone. Maybe. We'll see, I'm trying to stay positive. Better than crying. More tomorrow and next week when we figure out what can be done.

The description was something I worked on one morning and am now at the point where I'm stuck and can't figure out wording to change it. I have to be in the mood to sit and type something out, which is why I posted it, hoping someone would take it on. I never thought of the man / crawl space / boat thing, but will keep it in mind if I do get the chance to rewrite. With school in it's last few days & graduation I'm not sure I will have time. I also had something else fall in my lap that needs my attention more. The features I included are things that need to be spelled out (except the name of the pavers) because, being surrounded by lakes, most houses don't have boat parking. It's common to see boats on the front lawn :( - also being close to the lakes, many houses do not have basements; so the space where the water heater, softener and what ever else is down there is, is a major plus. If anyone's ever worked on a house with only a crawl that has outside access, it's the pits, especially in the winter when you have to dig it out to access the stuff. I agree about a larger green plant and have been shopping for one since February but have been unable to find them. Until this morning I never thought to look at Depot. I'm not a member of Costco any more; BJ's doesn't have it. I've been to every major store. The living room has more stuff in storage that we are debating bringing back. It will take a few hours to dig it out. The right corner actually has my vac which is covered with a doll I made. I grabbed the potted rose from the dining room for the pic. The 3 silk plants were purchased locally the day the realtor came to take the pics because it needed something & living where I do, we don't have many stores. Walmart is 30 minutes away. The realtor doesn't have the office pic up, I hoped she would but chose other shots instead. The master wasn't ready when she came and I haven't had time to get back there to take pics. Our realtor doesn't like to post bathroom or bedroom pics, something about personal spaces, but we'll try to get a master shot in. I live in the pines. A day of shopping means leaving at 8 and coming back at 3. I've done more trips then my body can stand. I will be going out today to do returns, not sure my back can handle looking for more props. Tricia, the fridge is not in the picture. In the pic, you see the built in freezer; the fridge in to the left of that. If we were staying, I would redo the cabinets, putting a pantry type one where the cookbook shelf is. The trash usually sits there, I took it out for the pic. I haven't posted the realtor.com link. IMO the pics were too low resolution and look grainy. I have to sift through the shots I have and send the originals to the realtor. She may end up posting the pics she took. She was having computer issues which is why she used mine. I'm so anal after reading here, I took my own shots just in case I didn't like the ones that were taken. Since mine were edited 1st, she went with it.