My husband died last month and I am not grieving as most would be doing. I grieved and shed my tears while he was in the care home 9 months before his death, I have no more tears to shed. He had Alzheimer's and he fought the aides every time they tried to help him. It took 2 men to hold him and one aide to change or bathe him. About the dating, no way will I ever have a serious relationship again. For the first time in my life and I am 70 I am free to do as I please without being criticized. Half of our money went to the care home, but I am still ok financially. If I marry again, my new husband will get half of everything I have left. If I liked the guy and was happy with him, I would be faced with losing half of my money AGAIN if he had to go to a care home. About internet dating, be very careful. My neighbor's daughter married a man she met on the internet. She met him once, saw pictures of his home, his grandchildren talked to her on the phone and called her grandma. I met him, he was a prince charming. But I thought she was crazy. She quit her job, sold her car and took her possessions to Texas. He filed for divorce 3 weeks later, turns out he is a serial psychopath. He's not a killer, just a guy who courts, buys gifts, wins the family over, marries his bride then the fun is over. He locked her out of the house, got rid of her pet yorkie and wouldn't give her...her possessions. They are still waiting in Texas for a court's decision on who gets them. By the way did I mention she was his 12th wife.

I commend you for trying to do the right thing. I think your obligation ends at the plan and the effort put into the plan. You are never obligated to employ someone unless your have created a contract with them. It appears you are still in a proposal stage so no contract obligation. In this situation I think I would pay a fee for the plan (if they will release it to you) and leave it at that. 30% would be way too much though. Years ago, we went to several cabinet shops, got several plans and quotes but the one plan that we liked was from a shop whose cabinets we could not afford--way out of budget. There was one specific use of space with the plan that no one else had come up with so we really wanted to work from that specific plan. We explained the situation to the KD and asked to buy the plan. We then took the plan to a custom shop that was able to produce cabinets within our budget. The price of the plan was a small fraction of the price of the cabinets (maybe 5%--it's been a long time and several houses ago so I really don't remember). So in your situation I would offer to pay a percentage of your budget for the plan if it is complete enough to work from (rather than asking them for their price). If the plan is just in conceptual stages I think at most, I would pay a nominal fee for her time and leave it at that. Regardless of whether they sell you the plan or not at that point you are clear to work with another shop to develop a plan to your liking. Elements of a kitchen design can come from anywhere and are generally a joint effort. Unless they produced a plan that has elements that have never been done before the ideas are not really original just unique to your space. If there are truely unique aspects to the plan that you intend to use then you do have an obligation to compensate for that I think.

serenity, the reason they try to dig up old posts of mine is to justify their own wrongdoings in regards to chidlren/stepchildren(kind of like "your SO is this or that so it is OK for me to do XYZ", but one has nothing to do with the other). I expressed my opinion in one of the threads that when divorced parents (and stepparents are often behind that or at least involved in that) enter power struggle with each other dragging each other to courts etc, they subject their minor children/stepchildren to uneccessary drama and suffering. iamommy and others didn't like it (I guess it hit the nerve) so they had to find excuses for their and their spouses behavior by pointing out that I had these or those irrelevant problems some time ago. lol It is childish. People feel defensive and cannot think of anything more than come up with irrelevant stuff. It is like once imamommy gave me a lecture why my exhusband does this or that. LOL i have been divorced for 17 years and what my exhusband does or doesn't do is not in my control, like I care or like I can divorce him one more time LOL I think the reason some stepparents feel so defensive is because they know I am right. One of the major reason of their stepchildren being that dificult or being so emotionally disturbed is because of a power struggle between parents/soemtimes stepparents (both parents, not just BMs). They know I am right, but they don't want to admit it so they dig up some stuff out. My life is not conflict free or perfect of course not. But i raised a well adjusted succesful adult (raised by divorced parents) and I can offer some pointers how to raise children with less drama. Did I ever feel like throwing something at my X's head yes, but did I? No. Not worth traumatize my child. People want drama and power struggle, then they deal with consequences. When I offer my opinion instead of paying attention to someone who did pretty succesful parenting/coparenting, people get defensive . By the way imamommy said i was a single parent. No I never was. That's incorrect. majority of our divorced time we lived close by and we had 60/40 split. Then later on when we moved further away from each other, our arrangement was 70/30. It did involve travelling and effort but we co-parented so it worked. Now when DD is in college there is no custody of course but her time off is split about 60/40 (60 wiht dad, 40 with me, she lives closer to dad now). So i can offer pointers on dealing wiht exes wihtout drama. But people are welcome not to listen and be defensive. Do i care? no. I do care though about those children... As about relationship with SO's grown children, it is nice and of course it improved (I do not even have much to post about it because there are no current issues). As about my relationship with him, I do not know where it goes, I like to take things slow, having a man is not my life priority. It's never been and as i am getting older it is even less so.

I usually do 1 organic feeding per year but the majority of my nitrogen comes in the form of urea in the fall. My lawn is about 1/2 acre and too much to irrigate so in the fall I drop urea anytime we will get enough rain to wash it in. Outside of that I use fertilizers from the local farm supply. They have a really good selection and typically I can come up with a combo that supplies what the soil test says it needs.