I have been absent for a while now too Remy. I had a dear friend who is in Biloxi, Ms. and have spent all my free time trying to locate her which I finally did a couple of days ago so now I have a little time to peruse the forums. My regular hummies have headed south but I am getting quite a few migrators now. They have discovered my alcove bed with the balsam from the swap along with several salvias, perennial geranium and cannas from the swap and another agastache and are all over everything. My plantz are still going strong in fact a little too much so. I have created a virtual jungle this year and it is almost impossible to tell where one plant ends and another begins. My vines are climbing over one another at this point and I have had to wire one arbor to my fence to keep it from toppling. Husky, yes some plantz are still growing in fact some salvias are over 6 ft. now. My cypress vine has left its trellis and has been growing up the side of the garage in between the siding and is headed for the peak of the garage roof. The morning glories have topped the neighbors 15 ft. shrubs and are up in one of his trees now LOL! Next year I really need to be more conservative in planting out my wintersown babies. The stone patio that I dug out over the summer has been staked finally and we are ready to add the crushed stone as soon as I remember to order it. We won't get much use out of it this year but hopefully it will be finished and ready to use come next spring. Penny

I am not sure that I agree Rosewood, even though what you suggest is the direction most people are taking. I stand by my entries on this thread that I made on Wed. March 16, 05 and Thursday, March 17, 05. Scroll up. Please read if you passed over it, because I still feel the same today, ten months later. After hanging out in the step parent forum for awhile, my views on this are stronger than ever. Letter after letter talks about re-marriage after the divorce, and when many of these men re-marry, several of these new young wives on the forum resent and hate the children from the previous marriage...especially after they have new babies with the husband...and they want to have their own new little family, without the previous children, in fact, they want those children to just disappear! To some extent, I am now beginning to think that when we become parents, it is no longer about following our whims, or our feelings (which are fickle at best, and deceive us) but about what is in the best interest of the children we have brought into this world, and loving these innocent, beautiful children enough to fulfill our responsibility to them, by giving them the best possible childhood we can, whether we feel like it or not. IMO, when he made vows to love and honor his wife, and brought these two babies into the world who have their whole childhood ahead of them yet, he lost the right to chase after the new honey at the office. IMO, he has lost the right to whine and say he does not know if he is happy right now, and run around with the girl friend while he decides. It is such an incredible injustice to his wife and two babies, who trusted him to lead this family like a man, and put aside his childish whims. He is robbing his wife, by threatening her future, and the future of her children. It will affect them on every level, for years to come. He has robbed his wife of the ability to enjoy her new baby, and her two year old, because she must now worry where he is, who he is with, why hasn't he called, and the security of knowing their future is safe. Then, I imagine he will marry one of these honey's - and then, the step parent issues begin for these children. His new honey will hate money leaving her household, to his ex-wife, and his kids, and will resent her and the kids for this. It cheats his wife and children out of the future they SHOULD have had. A future with two parents who love them and strive to give them the best childhood they can. A family of their own, with two people who are willing to step up to the plate and do the right thing...whether they feel like it or not...with a smile for these beloved children. Giving them the gift of a family who loves them and are on their side rooting for them every step of the way. Parenting is hard under the best of circumstances. But we are called to do our very best, for these children, and not give up! There are days in parenting and life that we all will look at our spouse and wonder "what in the world was I thinking, when I chose him/her". Or we will look at them and may not feel anything at all. But on other days, we are so thankful that this person is by our side, and feel so blessed to have them share our life. Our feelings evolve over time, and can become so rich if we treat each other with excellence!

Hi Bill, Sorry about your back. My friends gave me a "Merry Christmas" hat on Christmas Eve ... that the high wind blew off of my head after Christmas Eve communion at church, as I approached my back door. Found it in the morning ... frozen in. Slipped on ice, chopped it free with shovel, took it to the giver's house ... who took a pic of it, with ice on the peak, while it sat on my head. Later in the day, going to a friend's house for Christmas supper, slipped on glare ice while retrieving the hat to show him, fell heavily. A couple of days later, felt twinges in back, it got quite hurtful for a time when I moved in certain ways. It took about two months for it get back to normal, and during that time I'd have had a hard time getting down to pick up money, whether a penny or something more, or other thing of value, on the ground ... but, as I'm reasonably (or unreasonably) stubborn, I'd have probably found a way! Anyway, the back's almost completely back to normal now ... and I don't think that it cost me any unretrieved pennies during the ordeal (well, not really an "ordeal", unless one chooses to more or less make a mountain out of a molehill). Found a couple of pennies on the ground in the last while. By the way - how many coin slots in pay phones do you check out, for coin taking their ease therein? I haven't found any in quite a while, but find some from time to time. Once, when a couple of charities were collecting at the exit from a chain grocery ... I found two coins, in two phones ... and they got them. Don't think that I'd ever found two coins in two phones before ... or since! Good wishes for keeping our eye out for pennies! And not only hanging on to yours ... but putting them to work wisely! ole joyful

Well, it ain't over, and these people are turning out to be PITAs. They had until today to remove their home inspection and financing conditions. They didn't want to hire a real home inspector, so they had my agent do some questionnaire thing about any known problems... which we did earlier this week. They wanted to do an walk-through from 1:30 - 2:30 today with their realtor, to do their own 'inspection'. No problem. My realtor made a point of being there during that time. I got home at 2:30 and they were still there but just leaving. There's also a home inspector there. Okay. My realtor calls me in while they hang outside, and goes over a few minor things that need fixing. The screen on the basement window had a little tear I didn't know was there. No biggie. A hinge needed on the door from the garage, per bylaw. No problem. And - apparently there are 3 VERY superficial cracks in the foundation. The kind you get from the foundation settling. You'd probably be able to find at least a few in any house you looked at. They're not causing any structural or leaking problems. They know it, we know it, and the inspector knows it. But, they took the opportunity to try to get us to knock $5K off our price. There is also a couple VERY small chips in the grout in the main bathroom, and they wanted that all re-done. Our realtor told them to blow it out their ass (not in those words). He told their realtor that not another penny was coming off the house, so if they want to walk - do it now and stop wasting our time.. and that we'd go back to our first buyers that they bumped out. He grudgingly crossed those last 2 items off the list. The house is 12 years old - give me a break. We're building a brand new home, and our site superintendent told us to EXPECT a few foundation cracks from settling. They'd come back 48 month later and assess if they were worth fixing or not. Anyway, these people still have to sign the release for the financing and home inspection conditions.. and I haven't got word that they've done that yet, so we'll see. They're also wanting an August 28 closing which means if they're removing their financing conditions that means they've gotten approved to bridge, but they're going to drag out the house sale condition until their August 10 cutoff date JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT. ugh.....