Jamie, gorgeous plants. Thistledown has some real beautys. I ended up ordering another batch, but less than the first order. He even sent a freebie. Don't forget to leave feedback on Gardenwatchdog.com. He's a really nice guy, very generous, and honest. Your hoyas are good-looking, too. All your plants are. The first looks like a variegated Haworthia. I bought a similar plant on Ebay, same colors, thinner leaves, it's called Aloe 'wansley' variegated..very tiny. I'll have to snap pics. Thanks for turning me on to Thistledown. Let me know how your Fukien Tea works out. HD usually has them available. Do you know if it's evergreen or decidious? I love your CC..It's a true red. Walmart here I come. lol. Actually, I'd like a variegated CC, but they're hard to find. One seller on Ebay is selling a variegated 'cutting' for, are you ready? 49.99!! Right, I'll take 10, lol. Kim, why does Pilea freak out your b/f??? lol..that's hysterical. I'd understand if it was a 'Man-Eating-Plant,' lol, but a Pilea??? I just bought a variegated Euphorbia 'paddle plant.' The green are okay, but this guy is veryyyy pretty. Toni

Its so nice to see faces with the names, and even nicer to see roses with the faces. Im Renee, 49, a history professor married to Mike, an archaeologist. We live in Simi Valley on a semi-rural half-acre lot in the house grandpa built (I use the term "built" loosely), which we have slowly rebuilt over the last ten years. No kids. We have a twenty-eight-toed orange cat, named Sam; a yellow lab named Sam; two Wyandotte chickens named Quasimodo and Blanche; and a pond full of goldfish of which only a few have been graced with identities. Mike also feeds an assortment of finches, scrub jays, and fence lizards, the last of which now run up to people with sandals on and bite the toes to make the toes cough up mealworms. My mother gave me the gardening bug and shes still my main enabler. I spent my years in college planting seeds in dry, narrow, dark apartment "beds" or balcony pots, shuffling pitchers of water to them from the kitchen sink. Since then, I have remained an astonishingly ignorant and lazy gardener with no foresight or sense of planning. My garden has grown in an entirely haphazard fashion over the years and makes no sense in terms of high-water/low water needs, design principles, shade/sun needs, color combos, irrigation systems I never cared for roses. The roses I knew as a kid were left to their own devices on the edges of unkempt Bermuda lawns, so that the grass would grow up through the rose and the lone juniper or zonal geranium next to it. Ick. Then I started looking at the photos in the Rose Gallery. Yeah. I dug a new bed and planted it with roses; Mike built new arbors for roses, I am talking my both neighbors into planting roses in the middle of a drought. This forum has saved me from making several serious mistakes, and I thank all of you for your suggestions and wisdom. I am also heartened by your stories of how to cope with disability and continue to garden. Hooray for the Rose Forum! Me and the Girls (RIP, Audrey Hepburn) New Rose Bed with Julia Child and Marmalade Skies: Showbiz Bed: When my "Pinkie" climber gets a bit bigger, I'll post a photo of the arbor.

Since you have until May, you have time to read one or both of these great books! Living with Kids and Dogs without Loosing Your Mind, by Colleen Pelar Child Proofing your Dog by Brian Kilcommins Integrating a baby into a household with dogs is very doable, but you need to practice prevention first, and continue to provide lots of exercise and attention for your dogs. Congrats on the new baby, everything should be workable with some planning and an abundance of caution and you are obviously a good planner :) Baby gates will be really useful for you to keep things safe.

You have more than one 'issue' going on...best you deal with them as what they are. 1) The children's mother died. She did not divorce your husband, she died. Right up to the day this lady passed on she and your husband were a couple and the parents of these children...an intact family , if you will. Naturally these children loved their mother. They mourn their mother. They hold very fond and loving memories of their mother. It's not a slam nor a sign of disrespect to you. Fact, it's not about YOU at all. So what if they post pics of Mom? So what if they bring up Mom when occassionally speaking. She was their mother. Why would you expect them to pretend the lady did not exist now that she's died and their father has chosen to remarry? Again, it's not about YOU. 2) Of course your children would never dream of helping themselves to the home you live in. It's not their 'home'. It's a house owned by a gentleman their mother just married recently and moved into. Making a comparsion between the situation of the children's feeling of ease in this house is silly. 3) There is bound to be a lot of emotions tied to this current home your husband shared with his deceased wife and his children. Ever discuss with your husband that perhaps it is time to purchase a house together? One the two of you can claim and share as a new beginning for husband/yours relationship. One where none of the children overly feel attached to nor is filled of old memories. Are you next going to post this current house is still left exactly the way it was the day the deceased wife died? And then you sit and and wonder why you feel like the outsider being haunted by days gone by and overstepping children. Now, look at the other issue. The adult children enabling. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess these children are just doing what Mom and Dad always allowed them to do. Your correct in that these adult children should be earning their own way through life...but I'm going to bank their parents (yes Mom AND Dad) raised and enabled these 'kids' to be the self entitled dependents that they have turned out to be. Did your new husband and you discuss this issue before you said 'I do'? I guess I never quite understand how some ladies go into some of these relationships seeing how tings exactly are (or assuming things) and then get all outraged and shocked when they actually begin to wake up 'from the honeymoon' and find these issues are still very much present. The issues you find objectional didn't just poof because now you wear a ring. Sit your husband down (something you should have done before marriage) and discuss finances, household expectaions, go house hunting (who wants to live with a ghost so to say)and see where and what the two of you come up with. If you find yourself yards apart in your wants and expectations, you'll likely correct that there is not much of a future for your relationship. If you find you're both willing to work as a team to build a solid communicating, compromising future that works for both of you together then it's time to put the plan in motion and begin to work towards that future. This post was edited by justmetoo on Wed, Feb 20, 13 at 13:32