I'm not sure where you are in central Texas, but I'm in New Braunfels, in my fourth year of butterfly gardening, and as most people will agree, it's a trial and error thing. I'm always digging up plants that don't work, and trying different ones. Some of my staples that I would not be without are... Pipevines- lots and lots of them, and you will be inundated with pipevine swallotails. Rue- I've had black swallowtails and Giant swallowtails lay eggs on the same plant. Milkweed- I get even numbers of both Queens and Monarchs on my wilkweed. Mexican sunflower (tithonia) attracts more hummingbirds and butterflies than any other flower in my garden (other than mistflower.) Greg's Mistflower- Queens will flock to it. I've counted more than 30 BF in my small patch at once. It does spread out and take over, so make sure to have room. Pentas- the pipevines especially love these for nectar. Buddleia- almost any variety There are many more in my garden, but these are must haves for me. Hope this helps, and good luck. It should be a good year, as we've finally gotten some rain

I am so sorry for your losses. I had a similar situation, but mine was my mother and brother. My mom had a heart attack and while she was in the hospital she also suffered a stroke. We had all of our attention on helping her get better and my 47 year old brother had a heart attack and died. On the day we were having his viewing they decided to send my mom home from the hospital. We were all in shock over her sickness, his death, and then we had to get her home and settled. My brother wasnÂt married, and he lived with my mom. I have 6 other brothers and 5 sisters all scrambling around to get things settled and get to the viewing, so some of us were there at different times, and not all of us at the same time, which probably seemed strange to friends and family that werenÂt aware of the situation. Anyway what IÂm trying to get at is we didnÂt feel we gave him proper attention during his death, so when the 6 month mark came, my mom was doing much better, and we were still in numbness and grieving, we decided to have a celebration of his life. We got the activity center at our church, invited friends and family to celebrate with us. We asked that each person write down a memory they had of my brother, and if they had any pictures to attach them to the memories, and we made them into a scrap book. It wasnÂt anything formal, just friends and family and memories. We were able to laugh and cry together and give our undivided attention to his memory. So I think maybe you could do that for your son, and get some closure to your feelings of not giving him your full attention. By the way, I think you gave all you could give considering the circumstances. Again, I am sorry for you losses!

I went into my steamy kitchen where the natural light is fading now but the brightest in the house, cranked up the ISO to 800 and took this one. I shoved all my paint project aside to do it, it is too hot to paint and too humid. You can see that they were not that bad. You can also see that my mother was not the same size as my father, had to fix that and that was by trial and error resizing by percentage until they matched. I took all the color out, (desaturated) then put some back in using color adjustments, same settings for both, that's how I got them to match, tonewise. Then I had to make them a little more contrasty. The problem was when I got the photos and zoomed them up, there were all sorts of little linty, dusty, oddish spots on them in addition to what you can see here. Some of it could have been on the photos or in the photos, from the print process back then, wearing; I don't know. I hate those brownish shadows. I know how to get rid of them, but this is straight out of the camera, no sharpening, straightening or anything. You people here have been the only ones to have anything positive to say about them other than my sister who was delighted with them unless she was being gracious. No, she wants me to retouch one of her daughter's wedding photos, so I know she likes my work. I posted them a couple times elsewhere, and none of the pros had anything to say about them. I do use unconventional methods to get what I want. They would have some long drawn out tutorial, so I just used my intuition and what little I did know about the brushes, etc.

My Mama passed almost seven years ago, and I am still working on her fabric stash, but with materials used for quilting and also every other type of material one could need. I started quilting about a year before she died, and my first quilt was a Christmas gift for her, I finished in February. I kept company with her as I was quilting and she watched it come together, not knowing it was for her. She had always wanted to make a quilt, and had started the blocks for a Cathedral Windows, inspired by a friend when we lived in Missouri, as state just famous for it's cottage quilt industry. When one drove through the Ozarks, it was commonplace to see them hung out on clotheslines, to catch the eye of passers-by. She had also made some yo-yos but they disappeared sometime and I've never found them. I wish you much enjoyment with your new hobby. I think you'll find yourself close to her spirit as you work, as I find myself close to my mother when I am in my sewing room, handling the fabrics she had saved over the years. I have made about thirty quilts since then, really surprising myself since making ONE quilt was on my bucket list. LOL. Welcome to the forum, and my condolences as well on your mother's passing. BTW, that is one beautiful design you will be finishing. I also have a quilt cat who loves to lay on my blocks and scatter them too. He keeps me company each morning as I sew, and prefers my sewing room to all the others in this house.