Laurastheme, where do you live? I live in Northern California, Redding area and there are other people making totems but I haven't seen any other flowers yet. I've seen a lot of really beautiful bird feeders at a fair. The prices are a lot higher than I charge so maybe this year I'll price the flowers at $25 and range my totems a little higher depending on the cost of the colored glass. After all, we make these treasures to sell. Sometimes I like one so much I keep it for myself. My hubby says I'm keeping too many. Winter is so dreary in the garden and a little bling makes it look better. Do you always make your totems to go on a stick or do you make them to sit flat? I never know which ones to do and end up making them for a stick.

Q. Why can't compost be used indoors? A. Because. There IS actually a very good and well documented reason why compost is not recommended as a major additive to container potting soil, either for indoor plants or outdoor plants. And that is how it affects good drainage, a quality that is pretty much paramount for any sort of container growing. Compost continues to breakdown even as a component of potting soil. The longer it goes, the more frequently wetted and the warmer the container is kept, the faster the material breaks down. And when that happens, the individual particles become tinier and more uniform in size, the pore spaces (the empty cavities between particles) shrink and the whole mix compresses. Compression and lack of pore space has a big negative impact on drainage and soggy soil and rotten roots tend to be a result. That's why most high quality purchased potting soils contain minimal - if any - concentrations of compost. It just doesn't hold up. If you are growing in containers short term, like very seasonal crops, compost can work as an additive (not the base) to potting soil. But for long term success - growing anything longer than 6 months - you want a durable, barky, textural potting medium that is not going to collapse and impact good drainage. The Container Gardening forum has a detailed discussion on this very subject that is the longest running (march '05) thread on GW. More than 2500 posts have entered into the discussion and the knowledge base is pretty high - in fact, the original author is considered an expert on container soils and container gardening in general Here is a link that might be useful: Container Soils - Water Movement and Retention

bnicebkind, I am sure you are suspect about my advice. However, I have an exact replica of OP's MIL. MIL is the most overbearing, rude, miserable, critical (and those are the nice descriptions) individual I know. I found that once I stopped taking her comments to heart and let it go in one ear and out the other (rather than engaging her and allowing her to make me feel insecure), I was able to straighten my back, listen to her comments, consider the source, respond politely and wait for her to leave. My MIL is a person who's thoughts never process in her brain, they come straight out of her mouth without thought that one or another comment may be offensive, hurtful, critical, etc. If you don't allow someone to hurt you, you take the power away from them. Fake it at first if you have to, and eventually you will actually feel it. I spent years crying to my husband when I would have to be in her presence and she belittled me. DH gave me good advice. Call her on it. When she says something that you don't like, tell her. I do now. I never raise my voice, I never get worked up, I just tell her straight up what I don't like. I do not let her ruffle my feathers. It works better to disagree with her in the moment and then there aren't residual feelings of hurt or insecurity. It actually works like a charm. The incidents are fewer and further between. I also realized that I did not want my husband to fight my battles and I certainly did not want my husband to insist his mother like me. If she doesn't like me, I no longer care. When I started realizing that my life was none of her business, I did have the backbone to tell her so when she asked an improper financial question or a question I felt was too personal. Everyone has to go with their own comfort zone. I hated that she got to me regularly. I was feeling insecure, which I hated since that is not me. MIL knew she was pushing my buttons and worse, I was letting her. I have now diffused her and she no longer has that power to aggravate, hurt or insult me. I posted about just taking a seat in another room rather than ruin the whole family dynamic. That is what I do. I don't want to be the cause of everyone not being able to celebrate a holiday together. If MIL has pi$$ed me off recently, I just say hello when I walk in and go on my way to a different room. Of course, we will have to sit at the same table for dinner, but there are usually other family members and actually, they all know how she is. It isn't just me she unleashes this behavior on. She is rude to everyone at times, including strangers in public. We joke in the family that she has Turrets. Who would be hurt if I refused to go to family functions that she was attending. My DD wouldn't see her cousins, I love my SIL and the other family members. Actually, I'd be spiting myself. When I came into DH family, the dynamic was different, I was younger. I soon had a baby with many health problems which were not expected. MIL found a place to be critical and be overbearing in the advice department. I finally just told her that I was following what my DD's doctors wanted me to do and that when she completed her medical degree I would take her advice. Now, I don't feel insecure at all, I ignore her, come back at her, listen and let it go in one ear and out the other, or whatever it takes so as not to give her the satisfaction of upsetting, insulting me. I think as I grew older I also got alot wiser and realized that in the whole scheme of things, MIL was a blip on the radar. Example - new floor laid recently in kitchen, laundry and my office. MIL comes over unannounced/uninvited. Comments how nice the floor looks but the color really isn't right, such and such color would have been much better. Response: This is the color I chose because DH and I like it. End of subject, diffused her. Do I hate that she is the way she is, yes indeed. Will I allow her to abuse me the way she did for years, never again, nor will I have my husband fight my battles for me. Example: I attend a family (DH relatives) shower. Arrive with MIL & SIL. We sit down to eat at a very long table full of women. MIL stands up and introduces SIL to several women SIL did not know. I knew a few, but not many. She did not even acknowledge that I was seated in the room. When she was finished her introductions, I stood up and introduced myself as my DH's wife. It got the point across that I am worthy, whether she thinks so or not. I think she also looked badly to the relatives whom I did know who were watching her intentionally ignore me. I am sorry if my examples seem pollyanna, but they have worked for me. I don't feel badly, insecure, hurt or any other adjective that I formerly felt when MIL would descend on my home or when I had to interact with her. I also have never asked my husband to choose to one of us. That would be wrong in my opinion. As much as dislike her, she is his mother, the only mother he will ever have. I wouldn't want to have to choose my husband or my mother, why would I ask DH to do so? The way I deal with this situation is not for everyone. You need to have alot of self-esteem and a bullet proof vest over your heart. It starts with mostly false bravado, which eventually becomes actual bravery.

man, I know what you mean...I could hardly wait, till my 50th birthday, so I could join the senior center...lol and now, at my own town's center, I get the 2 mornings of 2 and 1/2 hours of drawing lessons, or whatever medium we choose. some are doing oils, and there are the water colors, acrylics..I'm the one with mechanical pen drawings and others... then we go and have a great lunch for one dollar. or buy a ticket for ten lunches for $9 old is cool!!! (I meant 'older')