Sweet Xuan-thank you so much for your good wishes! I would love to visit your country. I don't know if Dennis could handle it, though. After his Nam tour he came home very scarred. When we first got together he would have feverish dreams and the sound of a helicopter would send him over the edge. He is a very strong man, but war memories were difficult for him. I would cradle his 6'3" frame while he was struggling with nightmares and I would whisper that it was all right and he was safe. He was in a very speciallized field, working on the mechanics on turrets in certain tanks. Those tanks got deployed again after 9/11. He was one of 6 people (5 men and 1 woman) still alive in the US specially trained in maintaing the turrets. He instructed people on the maintenance. Luckily (I would have built a cellar to hide him!!) they had enough younger personnel to maintain them. Still, I think he would probably love to see a country he once visited when wracked by war and pain. And see it back to it's peaceful, beautiful existance. I have to tell you, the grandbabies are AWESOME! So energetic and smart. We had a wonderful time with them. I think being so active in my younger years and being totally happy with myself and at peace in my soul, makes me look and feel younger than my 56 years. In my mind, I think I am 30. (Even though Soultan thinks I am boring-LOL!!!) God bless Xuan, I will certainly let you know how things go for me. You can't keep a feisty, fun-loving, happy, energetic, crazy old Italian broad down! I hope you will share more about your country, photos and it's history. Maybe we will come get you to go to the beach one day!

Nancy, I thought someone would get that - I just did a jump to the left* Ryan, That's terrible - I admire it greatly. *Disclaimer - Movie reference (The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Disclosure - I haven't seen it nearly enough, but there's a light, over at the Frankenfurter place (breaks in song).

Hi Deborah and all I will definitely pick up Rescue Remedy and keep it for those times at work when I feel like biting heads off! LOL I only took the kava once today because I was off on a vacation day...............no stress. Getting off of HRT was not an easy decision for me at all. I was feeling so wonderful with my every other day regimen, I wish it could go on forever. But then I stared to think about the five years I have been on different HRT and thought maybe I should try it ala natural! Things are getting better now, but my life has certainly changed. For one thing I was never ever warm...........cold yes.warm never! That has changed..sometimes I get those warm feelings and I feel so uncomfortable and then it passes. I think I slept deeper when I was taking FemHRT...now I awake several times a night...........no biggy because I do go back to sleep...but still that's not the same. You know about the nerves, but thank goodness for my Kava! LOL The weather her in NY is to change drastically tonight, so maybe I will be cold once again. Have a good evening everyone.

Carol, It sounds like you and I are planting in the same style---sticking plants in the ground whenever it finally is dry enough that maybe they won't suffer too much from waterlogged roots. I have a lot of peppers in the ground, but still have habaneros, serranos, one Anaheim, cayenne and something else I cannot remember waiting for a little spot of drier soil. This really is starting to feel like 2004 or 2007 all over again and I had plants in June both years still waiting for the ground to dry out enough for me to put them out there somewhere in the garden. I also have about six dozen ornamental peppers that are still smallish. I'm not in a big hurry with them. Every year when the ornamental pepper plants hit the stores ,practically full-sized and covered with peppers, in June or July, I wish I had some of them. You know that I won't buy them when I know that I can raise my own, saying to myself every time "I could buy one packet of seeds and raise 30 plants for what they want for that one ornamental pepper plant." It happens every year and I ask myself why I didn't plant some (or more) ornamental pepper seeds, knowing I'd want them in summer. So this year, I raised my own---probably 5 or 6 or 7 varieties of ornamental pepper plants. I am going to pot them up into larger cups of soil-less mix on these rainy, dreary days and let them grow on, in flats sitting on a table near the patio, for a few more weeks. When the ornamental pepper plants hit the stores in hot weather, I'll have my own supply right here and can tuck them into spots in the garden where cool season plants had been growing or where excess water has killed something or whatever. Bon, Yay! I'm glad you got to do some work in the yard and get something in the ground. Any day I get to play in the dirt (even when it is mud) is a good day. It rained on and off all evening, and of course we have new mud and new puddles, but we only got 1.2" so the garden pathways shouldn't be so wet that I cannot venture into the garden. I'm hoping to at least get some weeding done, especially along the fence lines where the weeds and grasses get tall and try to creep under the fence and into the garden. I find it hard to weed the fencelines once snake season starts, and technically it has started, but I wouldn't expect snakes to be out and active on a cool, rainy morning with temperatures in the 60s. This ought to be my chance to clear out the garden's fence lines. I can tolerate just about any amount of rainfall, knowing the rain is so beneficial in so many ways, but when it falls too heavily as tomatoes ripen up and it waters down their flavor, I get cranky. I don't have much hope for the tomatoes we'll harvest in May. Their flavor is likely to be watered down significantly, but maybe the ones we harvest in June will be better. It is the luck of the draw. I'd rather have rain than not have it, but it is hard on the garden when it is too much at once. I still can make salsa with the tomatoes even if they are too bland to be very enjoyable for fresh eating since the tomato flavor is just the base flavor and the stronger flavors of the onions, peppers, garlic, etc. dominate the tomato flavor in the salsa anyway. My bean plants are having a great spring. They are too wet and the water logging of their roots (even though they are in raised beds) is causing a lot of yellow leaves, but they are covered in blossoms and small beans so at least they are having a great spring in the excessive rainfall. I'd rather deal with bean rust than spider mites any day of the week, and that is the difference in a wet spring and a dry spring. Dawn