lindajewell, you are right about the reason for them not letting her have the water without the thickening. She did have a problem but it has since cleared up. Miss Julia, is 83 now and has many health problems. She has had so many near death episodes that we stopped counting. She is an amazing woman, with a zest for living, laughing and mostly getting her way. I love her beyond words, she has always been in my corner since the day I was born. I know I've told this story before but when I was in the second grade, I was my class representative for Queen at my school. Winning depended on the amount of votes you got which was of course was how much money you turned in. I went out and collected my votes. On the big night, I was ahead until my rival's daddy came up and put up a chunk of money for his little girl to win. Miss Julia then did what she does best, she waited til the last possible minute and then put her whole weeks pay on votes for her favorite niece. I won the crown and ended up with my picture in the paper. I was a pretty happy little kid but it was because my Aunt Julia loved me enough to give all the money she had for me to win. I know she won't be here forever and that we will have to say that final goodbye but I surely hope that she has that stubborn King spirit right up to the end, it keeps her going and I have to say I love it when she comes up with all these wonderfully funny ways to get what she wants.

I know exactly what you're going through. I moved at the end of June last year and the grieving process was started by me being unable participate or even to look at these forums, or buy any gardening mags and flip through them. The thought of leaving my 5 year old garden which I'd created from nothing - was unbearable. I'd read many tear-jerking posts here about the subject, so I knew what feelings to expect but it was still very hard. A member of my family moved into my old home and I thought it would be easier but its almost worse. My husband doesnt know why I can't go back there maybe couple of times in the summer and "fix it up a bit" LOL. The new owner said she couldn't wait to add to it and put her own touches in it, but I can see that she's not really interested, and by September last year it was so weedy and overgrown that I suddenly found it easy to say my private goodbyes and move on. So I concentrated all my efforts on looking ahead and transforming this place. It's 3 times bigger than the old one, and is much much emptier, so here I go with a soccer field again. Just a bigger one. There are some perennials here but its weird... I still don't feel much of a connection to them. Almost like someone else's kids were dropped off at my house. So from June to frost last year I begrudgingly tended to the odd combinations of yarrow and lenten rose... of ditch lilies and clematis... swore at the huge patches of mint and wild violets, swore louder at the price of plants down here (how does 3 x sound?), and looked for some strapping young men to dig a few new garden beds for me. One of them looks a bit like a burial mound so I'll be re-shaping that as soon as the ground thaws. There is no connection between anything in my yard yet, so I will enjoy working on that this year. I really need to keep looking ahead, instead of mourning for the past non-gardening year. Threedogsmom is absolutely right - don't look back. A very dear friend told me this last year -- your garden is a reflection of you, your artistic expression and your beauty. Without you, it has neither of those things.

I miss Aleene's but also Carol Duvall and all of the craft shows on "The Home and Garden Network" that appeared in the early 2000"s. Before the DVR I taped them and watched them over and over again. I was visiting my cousin the other day and she had her fall decorations out and I admired some pilgrims and she said, "you made those and gave them to me". It took me back to those days. I still love crafts and make an effort to balance work with crafting and art. I know my daughter's generation would watch and enjoy a Craft Network for their creative time with my grandchildren.

This is how it worked this time. I hadn't checked any matches for several months. Last week a guy that I've "known" for a couple of years did the test and came back matching me but not my aunt. So I knew he was from my mother's side. I had made a tree using possible parents for my great grandfather. On paper it was pretty darn good but I didn't have any document to connect them. Getting his DNA match gives me hope that someday I can find something that says, yes, you have the right ancestors. But anyway, since he emailed that news and then asked if another name was in my list I went to check and while I was there saw that my match list was huge and they were 4th cousin matches. Close enough to work with! So I emailed 2 of them and they both answered right away. One I was able to connect and the other didn't have her tree back far enough for me to work with. Our "in common" ancestor is very dead! We use GEDMatch and FTDNA to match. It seems like the people who really want to trace their family upload their DNA there and they answer emails. ancestry.com not so much. I was "talking" to another cousin about my good luck and she said check hers at ancestry to see if any of my new matches were there. Of the first page of 50, 22 had no tree, 4 had 2 generations, 4 were locked. So that's 30 out of 50 that we can't even look at. We could contact them but I suspect they won't answer. If you have done a DNA test but you don't have a tree, your tree is locked or you have you and your parents......?? What can we do with that? After you get your test results back your work is just beginning. That's when you have to look at both trees and go backwards until you find the same person in each tree. The match I had from the guy I already knew was easy because we had discussed it at great length for 2 years. We both had an extended tree so it was "easy" to go backwards and find a family name we knew. We had done that already. Getting the DNA match was proof that I was on the right track. The new guy I really had to work at finding the match there. His surname was my maiden name so I knew there had to be an ancestor in common. It took me all day but I got it. I had to build my tree out more on that branch but once I got the first lead it was pretty easy, just time consuming to add another 100 people to my tree. Findagrave had almost everyone linked and when I saw that name I was looking for I knew I was almost done. It isn't always that easy. It's hard. Experience does matter. Practice pays off. The gal who didn't have her tree built out far enough to show 4th cousins will have to work on her tree before I can find anything. Building to 5th or 6th would be even better. You need everyone; all the siblings, all the spouses, all the kids and their kids.