It dropped to 46 degrees here last night. I tried leaving a bedroom window open all night but had to get up in the middle of the night and close it because I was freezing! By 8 a.m. it had warmed up to a toasty 48 degrees. Paula, my peppers are loving the weather too and so are the green beans and cucumbers I planted for fall. They all have lots of blooms. The tomatoes are 'iffy'. The few remaining from summer still have some fruit coloring up and ripening although I lost a lot to major weather-checking and cracking during the endless days of cloud and drizzle. The fall tomatoes have small fruit but whether they will ripen before a freeze is just dependant on when the freeze comes. Ironically, we often have an early first freeze here in our area along the river because it is, after all, a low-lying river vally. So, sometimes we have our first freezing night a full month before the thermometer officially registers a freeze in Marietta which is on somewhat higher ground and farther from the river. I will cover up what I can when temperatures are forecast to go into the low 40s because sometimes (though rarely) it will get as much as 15 degrees colder at our house, although more commonly we only get 8-10 degrees colder on some of those early cold nights. Once they forecast 50, and we went to 32 or 34 a year or two ago. I'm going to keep hoping for that Indian Summer even though it likely will be nonexistent or just very brief. With our weather, you just never really know because sometimes it seems like we have fall, winter, summer and spring all in the same week. Jay, It sure has slowed up ripening....not that I have a shortage of tomatoes, but I'm afraid that all the greenies on the plants will turn red or pink or black or yellow the same day and then I'll have to can 'em or dry 'em because it will be too many at once. Everyone, after starting the week with 1600 peppers to process, I am down to one quart of peppers (habaneros) left on the counter this morning. I have a huge batch drying in the oven--one-half (stemmed, seeded and cut in half) is going to be ground down to powder after dry and the other (stemmed and then shredded in the food processor) is going to be habanero flakes....like red pepper flakes only hotter. Since it is cool, I have all the windows opened, and the pepper fumes are still impossibly strong all over the house. If I couldn't open all the windows and doors, the pepper fumes in this house might be lethal. Dawn

My DH was once drawn to slogan t-shirts (thankfully, not so much anymore). A few years ago he received a shirt in the mail emblazoned with "She Looked Good Last Night." Apparently this is a quote (or was on a shirt worn by a character) in a remake of the movie, "The Bad News Bears." He thought it was funny. I thought it was incredibly lame, and I told him there was no way I'd be seen anywhere in public with him wearing that shirt. I don't believe the shirt has ever been on his body; in fact, I think it's long since just disappeared. This is just to say that my DH is ordinarily a very sensitive, thoughtful man and I know he wouldn't purposely offend someone. For whatever reason, that particular shirt struck him as being so funny that he had to own it (however briefly), which just tells me that even the good guys can have less than stellar moments from time to time. ;-)

Thanks for your reply Ashley, it helps to know that there's people out there who understand, even though our situation is not exactly the same. We might see the skids more, but BM's influence is still very very strong so we have a similar outcome. And just this week there's another great example of it. The skids were supposed to come to our place for a week because it's holidays. They might be coming from Fri.night to Sat.night, but this is not even sure. The reason? Because it's holidays they want to spend more time with family. You can imagine how FDH felt when they said that :-( SD14 often writes on her facebook page that family is most important, but I doubt she'd think of us when writing that. It's just so important for BM to prove the point that we don't really count. For example birthdays. When it's the kids birthdays she'll make sure we don't see them on the day. She used to make skids believe that FDH didn't care or make an effort (while turning FDH's request to see them down), but now that they are older she can't do that anymore. So now she keeps them busy and because family is most important, especially on a day like that...you guessed it already. FDH's birthday is not a day we get to see them either, even though this is not an important 'family' day on her end, she'll still keep them busy. She's clever in how she does it because she doesn't deny the kids access to FDH. When they ask if they can come here for dinner on FDH's birthday she'll say "of course you can honey". Then she'll organise something and give the skids the choice, making a point of it that they should feel free to choose and not pressured by FDH. They always choose her option, no need to say. And not just that; by always telling them that FDH shouldn't pressure them, they start to perceive that FDH pressures them, even when he's not. It's programming, that's all that is. Another example when my family visits (from other side of the world, maybe once every 2 years) BM will keep the skids away from us, also normal visits are cancelled. That is when she plans 'family' time and family is more important. And you know what? I agree that my family is not so important to the skids. They have only met them a couple of times, they don't have a bond as such, they hardly know each other. My parents send birthday cards, that is it. And that is ok. FDH and I are not married yet either, they are not family to them. No problem. But, what's the harm in the kids meeting them when they visit? Why can't we have normal visitation? We do not ask for extra time or changes, only to see them as per normal would be nice! I kid you not, when my family last visited they saw the skids for 2 hrs...

Re the conversation, I think she likely had much that was important to say, but we're just looking at a still picture, not the conversation, and discussing as we would that nightmare of a dress Heidi Klum wore to the Emmys. Re appropriate: Big prints are in for all ages. Peplums are in. Women her age who are very soft, not just untoned, wear sleeveless and don't get any guff. I used to dread conferences with a large coterie of menopausal ladies. I didn't mind wearing a sweater indoors, but when they demanded the air conditioning be down so low that my nose wouldn't stop running, I was most offended. So, any of you who have been through that, can we please have some compassion for a woman who has to look calm and cool under the extremely hot lights of television? Age inappropriate would have been if she'd been wearing the matching mini-skirt, which I'm sure was made. Dark pants and a Summer top are perfect for the transitional season. She probably had a jacket for when she wasn't being roasted like a rotisserie chicken. Her outfit is the epitome of what is meant by "office casual" or "dressy casual". Something we've discussed at length because it's so hard to get right. It's the right dress code for a chat show. Edit: I've looked at the video. They're not leggings. They're straight leg pants. I didn't see anything wrong with the way the pants fit her, and we've all agreed that the peplum wasn't well fitted or flattering. There's a lot of fabric and structure in that top, and the pants aren't plastered on for all that they're fitted. I just don't get what the big deal is. I guess some people don't like a first lady with cleavage, but when larger ladies show cleavage nobody gets on their cases. It's not like she's wearing a spaghetti strapped camisole.