Thank you Rick. Thank you all! Heather, I just dropped little bit of the 10-10-10 about couple weeks ago. I got a 1 year old and it's smaller than this 6-month old. I planted more than 20 seeds last November and got only one survived. That was my first time doing seedlings. Brian, I will definitely let you see when the buds blooming. I got these seeds from a friend of mine in Taiwan and don't know the varieties. My white DR that I got from Walmart a year ago had seed pots in March. It's blooming again now. The picture was 2 days ago. I planted all of the seeds on 8/25. 98% of them germinated which I did not expect. I just repoted them last night. I am hoping they will get bigger before the cold weather coming. It's still 80F+ during the day here. I have started thinking what I am going to do in the cold weeks with these about 100 seedlings. You all have a great weekend. Melody

Pots are tricky. Try to put them outside someplace the sun will not cook the pots during the day just so they can freeze solid at night. I hide my potted trees in a sheltered area under a dogwood. GENERALLY I assume a potted tree has a one zone colder experience in the winter than one in the ground.

Hey,imissmydad, I understand what you are going through. My dad died in April, the six month anniversary of his death is coincidentally my son's birthday. I recently had my first birthday without him, getting a card with just my mom's signature on it and not getting my "happy birthday" phone call was difficult. Unlike your dad, mine went fairly quickly. He was diagnosed with cancer, and lasted just 4 months. We barely had time to get used to the idea and he was gone. Although I miss him very much, I take comfort in the fact that I think he is watching out for me and my family. Since he died, we have had a string of bad luck that just doesn't sem to quit. My husband had an emergency appendectomy 2 days after my dad passed. The appendix had a small rupture, and the surgeon told him that if he had waited 12 hours more, it would have been too late. He and my kids were unable to attend the funeral (it was 2000 miles away), but he made a full recovery. Three weeks ago I badly fractured my toe, and needed surgery. Two weeks ago my son was injured in a hockey game and needed stitches (not serious but scary). And just when we thought things were calming down, on Sunday my husband totalled my car when he tried to avoid some debris on the road. He walked away from the wreck and it was a miracle that he survived. I have to believe that my dad was working overtime keeping us safe. I can just see him up there saying that he can't even get some peace and quiet when he is dead. The first year is the hardest. While you will always miss him, it will get more bearable, and you are definitely not alone.

I sat in court last week (haha, they issued a bench warrant for BM's arrest because she didn't show up for TWO hearings... the first for DCSS ~requesting an order that she seek work since she has not paid in over 6 months, the second ~ a contempt DH filed for her not paying her half of SD's medical bills) but being so close to Christmas... lots of the cases were about that. It was really pathetic to watch two people fight over how to split up the kids' Christmas day. One mom wants until noon, the dad wants them at 9am. I remember splitting it with my son's father & once, his wife came outside & assaulted me during the exchange... cops were called & of course nothing happened because she told them I hit her... they offered to take both of us to jail or do nothing. It was NOT the way any of the kids should have to spend the holiday... my son or the other five kids in the car that witnessed it. It is just so much better for the kids to spend the day with one parent & celebrate the holiday with the other parent on a different day. After the 'cops on Christmas' incident, that is what I did. and of course we had to get an order for every other year so we no longer split the holiday at all. We had to do the same for Thanksgiving but now that he's in his 20's, I look back and it was more harmful for HIM to split up his days. When the parents get along, I think it can work out fine.. but if they don't, it will ruin a kids holiday so what is the point of even getting them? I see many parents doing it for themselves, because THEY have an expectation of how they want their holiday to be. They are not thinking about what's best for the children. The sad thing is when one parent is going to see relatives for a holiday or vacation, that may be getting together from far away & they only have that one opportunity to see them but the other parent won't let them go.. it's the children that suffer. I see lots of that too. For that, there is no answer except that sometimes we have to sacrifice so the child isn't placed in a situation that makes it worse for them... and know that when they grow up, they will see through it. And there's no guarantee that they ever will see the truth. My son is almost 24 & is trying to plan part of his Christmas weekend with his dad, whom he hasn't spoken to since before he was deployed. We don't even know if he's incarcerated or not (he's been in & out of prison for many years) but my son has the hope that his dad will step up to be a dad to him & a grandpa to DGS. I had to talk to him when I was getting guardianship of DGS... he actually told me that he's fine with it as long as I allow him to see DGS when he wants. I said that's fine, anytime you want to see him just give me a call. That was several months ago.. not one call. (well, first he wanted me to agree to an every other weekend visitation schedule... and I said "you're going to come get him every other weekend?" and then he changed it to "let me see him when I want." I think he just wanted to see if he can engage me in a battle but when I refused to fight over it, he went away.) My stepmom always said, "kill 'em with kindness" because they thrive on conflict.