jterrilynn - " We always feel like we lost our puppy or something" I have two boys and that's how I feel when a girlfriend is gone. My eldest son went out with a girl for two years and everyone really like her. When they broke up his cousins asked him if they could keep her and get rid of him. :) Back to topic- When above son was in high school he was part of a group of kids who were/are good kids - smart, responsible nice kids. They weren't the in-kids or the jocks but they were the kids who accepted the nerds and the new kids - the social group where parents wanted their own kids to be a part of in school. They weren't perfect but the silly things they did never overshadowed their reputation. In first year college he met a new male friend and started hanging out with him. I think there was some thrill to hanging out with this kid.This kid didn't have a good reputation (drugs were the issue) and that's how I approached the problem. Instead of forbidding him from seeing this new "friend" I talked to him about reputations and labels. My son (and his friends) had a good label and this boy did not. I explained how easy it is to go from a "good" label to a "bad" label or reputation and how so very difficult it is to get back that reputation. I explained that even though he may not do anything wrong the bad label is easily transferred. People like to talk about the bad kids but seldom about the good kids because that isn't tantalizing or scintillating gossip. I explained about the purpose of gossip and how stories can get exaggerated and with the advent of texting and tweeting how quickly things can spread. So I asked him what kind of a label did he want for himself and what kind of a reputation did he and his friends want for themselves - for now and for the future. My son chose to get rid of this kid but I think it was hard for him but he had goals and figured out that being involved with this kid could hamper those goals. Selfishly, I also told him that I didn't want this kid and his reputation to hamper my reputation. As my son's mother I could get dragged into the gossip as well. ( what was she thinking allowing DS1 to hang out with that kid, etc) I just explained that he would eventually be moving out of the neighbourhood and I wouldn't be.

With my MIL it was "all about her", but you need to let that just wash right off your back. That's sounds like my MIL. She'll cut you off if the subject of conversation doesn't interest her. But.. if you talk about her, you have her undivided attention! When my daughter was little, my MIL would ask her how she was doing. Before my daughter could say one word, my MIL would turn away and start talking to someone else. My daughter would stand there with a puzzled hurt look on her face. All days, any hour, she thought she was entitled to just turn up My MIL used to drop in (only visits when she wants something) at 11 pm, sometimes 11:30pm. DH finally told her not to bother dropping in at that time again because DD has to get up early for school and it's not a time to visit people. He even told her about calling so late. Now she'll call at 10:30pm LOL. My DH often says that if he was married to his mother, she'd drive him to drink like she did with her 2 husbands! He once told her that he thought she was bipolar and all she's really looking for is a slave, not a partner/companion. My DD (16) told me just the other day that she thought her grandmother wasn't too bright about things. That her grandmother could only talk about certain topics because she can't hold a conversation about too many things unless it's about her, her belongings, her house, her garden, her thoughts. It's always all about her! This somewhat concerned me a little cuz I didn't want my DD to think that of her grandmother, but a person would have to be deaf not to notice. When one of her granddaughters, who lives about 5 hours away, came to see her one day. All my MIL could do is complain about her. My DH started telling me about it and was somewhat in agreement with his mother. I told DH that I thought it was cruel of her to complain about that since the granddaughter came all this way just to see her when she had a break from school (GD is 21). MIL complains that she's lonely, and complains when she has someone stay over. You can't win with her. She's never happy/satisfied. When DH's baby sister and her husband moved back home from out West, they stayed at the MIL's house for a couple months. SIL told us that "I love her, but she drives me nuts! I can't understand why she never wants to go visit family." At one point, when SIL and her hubby finally found a place to live in a city an hour away but had to wait a month, they told us that they couldn't wait cuz MIL was always putting SIL's hubby down with rude comments. Since they've moved out, MIL drives down to see them once a week! LOL So in a nutshell, I just listen to what she has to say. Sometimes I even ask her a question about something to show interest in her and she gets all excited and acts like I'm her new best friend! LOL It makes her happy (she's 72) and it makes my DH happy. My MIL, however, has never told us how we should raise our daughter and I respect her for that. The one thing that I feel for my DH is the fact that his mother was there more for her "friends/employees" than she was for her own kids (8 of them) and her grandchildren. Now that she's retired, she's a very lonely woman. Her children are scattered everywhere throughout Ontario and she doesn't really know all of her grandchildren (except for the first 4). MIL often comments on how she doesn't really know our daughter, making it sound like it's our fault. DH tells her that it's because SHE's the one who never took the time to get to know her. This hurts DH and our DD because she sees for herself how her grandmother was with her other grandchildren. MIL once commented to me that my DD was very close to my mother. I said it was because my mother gives her undivided attention when she sees her and shows a genuine interest in her. My MIL then said something like.. well it's different when you have grandchildren when you're young cuz you can do more stuff with them. When you get a little older, you don't do as much. I told her that my mother was older than she was and still did a lot of things with her grandchildren. My MIL didn't say too much after that. She was just trying to justify her not taking time with our DD. Geez... for the first 8 months of our DD's life, my MIL lived a 2-minute drive away and never came to see her once! My parents live 15-20 minutes away and came once a week, every week!

Is it possible that you are separating them too much? When we added a new kitty recently I was a little nervous because the office I got him from said he was found (trapped) in an abandoned house situation (probably feral). He hid in the back of the cage when we visited several times before deciding to take him and taking on the issues with the feral personality possibilities. He has been with us for 6 mos now. Still a little skittish,but he relates well with the other 2 male neutered cats and is attached at the hip to my daughter. He usually runs from me but I think that's because she was able to build a relationship with him since she got him during the summer when she had big blocks of time to spend with him in her room while he was first isolated from the rest of the animals. It was so funny the first few days. He kept approaching our middle cat, Handsome (under supervision, of course) Well, Handsome wanted nothing to do with this new addition. He was a little more than angry that this new kitty appeared at the house. Actually we got the kitty to be Handsome's buddy because the oldest cat is kind of antisocial and doesn't play much with Handsome. Any way, when Louie (new kitten) came anywhere near Handsome he freaked out. Hissed, spit ran from the upstairs. That was the first couple of days. Then Handsome took to laying on a dresser in the upstairs hall and watching Louie and every time we would allow the new kitty out Handsome would spit and hiss but keep his post on the dresser to watch him closely. BTW during this time Handsome hissed and spit at everyone in the house, cats, dogs, people. He was just plain miserable. We were floored because Handsome is such a lovey kitty thought for sure he would just love having a new bud. My daughter was in tears for fear it wouldn't work out but we told her just give it time. Have had plenty of cats over the years and it always does. Haven't ever had a situation where it didn't. It did. After a few weeks of angry Handsome behavior they made friends. Now they are inseparable. I am so surprised that things aren't working out differently for you. Handsome used Louie's box of course to mark it but he didn't spray. I don't know about the male/female thing since I've always had males. I hope somebody has a solution. The only thing I can think of is just bringing them together more. As for the peeing thing. Did you have her checked for any type of urinary infection. Cats that are litter trained usually don't go outside of their box unless they have a medical issue or I guess a behavioral one. My SIL cat started going out of the box once but that was because she has 3 cats and one box and wasn't the best at scooping frequently. Hope you don't have to give the kitty up.

When I looked at this I remember the Insinkerator having a smaller distance requirement than Waste King or any other disposer I could find. The Insinkerator Evolution Compact had an even smaller distance requirement than Evolution Excel, but the difference is only 11/16" (4" + 6" instead of 4" + 6 11/16") so it didn't matter -- I had to move the drain pipe no matter what. You have to factor in both the distance from of the bottom of the sink to the disposer drain outlet and the minimum distance from the drain outlet to the wall opening. So for the Evolution above that's 10 11/16".