I was reading some of these stories to my hubby tonight and he reminded me of our neighbor Jen's story and I decided I needed to share it with the stupid garden tricks... Our neighbor across the street has been divorced for about three years or so..and let his lawn go to pot as a result..he is a really nice guy, but lost interest when his family moved out. About 6 months ago, he fell in love with a girl about ten years younger than him, she was just 19...and she moved in. He aplogized all over the place to everyone that would listen about his robbing the cradle and that she was so young, but begging everyone to give them a chance and accept it because he loved her. She is JUST 19 and niave....but quickly we learned to love her too..she is a big sweetheart, even if a bit naive sometimes. Late this spring, when my hubby and I pulled in the driveway she followed behind us on foot and asked what we thought of what she had done to the yard. She had pulled and piled his mountains of weeds. I am not kidding in the back yard, the weeds were taller than cars and unused lawn equipement had sat there for years and they had grown around them while he grieved his lost marriage. What was once a nice yard had become an eyesore. She had done a ton of work and we were amazed..she said her hands had blistered even with gloves because the weeds in the back were as thick as saplings. She then asked if we had any weed killer and a sprayer she could borrow. My husband impressed with her work so far said he sure did..it was even already mixed up and it was extra good stuff. He walked with her to our garage and got it for her, and I went in the house. In the meantime, my daughter called and we began idle chit chat, I heard my hubby come in and sit in front of the tube and never thought a thing of it. I talk on the phone and walk about the house and found myself near a window. I looked out, and there was that Jen out there spraying her yard away in the front. I never thought a thing about it, admiring her determination at such a young age with the lost yard. Then she happened to turn towards me and I gasped when I saw which sprayer she had. My husband had given her the roundup sprayer...assuming she was killing the big weeds around the fence and dead lawn equipment in the back that she had been complained about..but instead she was spraying her front yard randomly. I quick hung up the phone and hollared at him to go stop her. He felt terrible...she was mortified and felt young and stupid..she didn't know there was such a thing as roundup..she thought it would only kill weeds,not grass..so she was spraying every weed she saw in the front yard. My husband told her to water quickly and see what happened..he felt terrible that he had misunderstood what she wanted. He always uses granular on the lawn weeds, not liquid so he was not even thinking that way. About two weeks later, these HUGE brown smiley faces of grass began appearing in the lawn. We walked over to apolgize to them but they were laughing bout it. Being just 19 and silly..every weed she had seen, she said..GOTTCHA and after she spritzed it with "weed killer" she drew a smiley face around it... it wasn't bad enough she had sprayed weeds in the grass with roundup but she had drawn prety faces to announce she was in power now....there were dozens of dead grass smiley faces all over the front lawn for passerbys to see. My husband couldnt even look each time we left home. He felt partly responsible. I just chucked..what else can you do? :)

does burning up the four potholders count??? received them as a gift. they each had this lovely magnet in the corner that let you attach them to the appliances so you didn't lose them they stick just as well to the bottom of the cookie sheets you stick on the side to cool off between batches. you can hide one under each pan. I couldn't figure out what was burning until the magnets were pointed out after the pans cooled the second stupid thing was when i realized i had to make cookies in a hurry. while making ginger snaps i grabbed the small McCormick's jar of ginger to add to the recipe. put it in the batch, cooked them, and delivered them to the bake sale. only to get back home and when i began to put away the ingredients find i had put dried mustard in the cookies wouldn't have been so bad but i did the exact same thing two weeks later. I now buy the ground ginger in a glass bottle and the mustard in a can

This just happened to us- it was a failed vasectomy. My wife and I never wanted children, in fact we never really liked them. We don't hate kids, but we just don't enjoy being around them for very long. As I said, my vasectomy failed after about a year and in June my wife found out she was 6 months pregnant. If you're relying on a vasectomy for birth control, don't play around- get tested, get pregnancy tests. We gave birth to a wonderful 6 lb boy who we gave up for adoption- we don't regret doing so, and seeing how the adoptive parents responded (6 yrs trying childless couple), it was the best thing I've ever done for anyone. But the thing thats scaring the h3ll out of me is Janet seems to have gone off the deep end thinking about how nice it might be to have a child of her own. My feelings haven't changed at all- I love our son and he's in a home with absolutely commited, loving parents, but I really don't want to be a parent. If this is in fact how she ends up feeling after the post-birth hormones stop rampaging through her, I face the prospect of either divorce or somehow acclimating myself to being a father. I know many people must have gone through this, but I simply don't want it. Janet & I started out because we've always felt on the same page about this. I love her so much and I just can't see getting a divorce from such a wonderful woman over this- but I tell you I am possibly caught on the horns of a very big problem. Anyone who says "Parenting is the Natural/Moral/Good/Right thing- or Its The Will of Some Higher Power..." as the reason why I should somehow welcome this can stuff it- the world is a big place and more diverse than anyone can really know, and its not fair to put philosophical boxes around people. Some may welcome and/or desire parenthood, more power to them- I simply don't want it. If I have to, I will do my best, but I feel as if I will be abandoning the last shreds of control I have over my own life- and having to accept the consequences of the choices only my wife wants- for the next 18 or more years. If she really ends up wanting children, its not fair for me to categorically refuse either. I've been searching around for support groups speaking to this kind of issue, but they don't seem to have a very big presence. Gregm

Maybe they realized after they had eaten and felt better that what they did was rude, so they came back to try to be polite and make amends? It sounds like they were fine after they returned and sent a thank you note, which I find to be pretty rare these days. I still think the dinner invitation was a lighthearted attempt to assure the hostess that her food quality wasn't why they left. I guess I have a higher tolerance for people making etiquette mistakes than most people here. I always assume there's something going on that I'm not privy to and give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm socially awkward myself and I'm sure I've stuck my foot in my mouth a few times without intending to offend anyone.