Like so many of you, I started with plants when I was very young. I remember my grandmother had the green thumb - she always had petunias that were gorgeous. Of course, many years later, I know the reason they were so gorgeous was that she dead-headed every single day. Yuk! I hate deadheading petunias, they're so sticky! I was in 4-H and there was a "home beautification" project I was in. Mostly just planted flowers - annuals and perennials around the home. But I started learning varieties and care of these. Then my family moved to a hobby farm. My mom and I had some veggies then and, through the soil conservation program, planted trees as windbreaks. We ordered about 200 trees and planted them all. I spent that summer driving around in the truck with a huge watering barrel on it, trying to water all these trees. The next summer, for some reason the ditch company expanded the ditches and over half of my trees were uprooted. In the end it was a good thing. This was back in the '70s and we didn't know much about invasive plants - the majority of the trees we planted were Russian olives! My mom and I still laugh about this - about all the work that led to nothing and ruefully, about how stupid we all were to plant Russian olives. After college, I lived with my brother for a few years while I was in graduate school. He and I had a very successful veggie garden. Then I got married (20 years ago now). We lived in a succession of rental houses - always houses, not apartments, because of dogs. At each house I had a few veggies, mostly tomatoes, and as many flowers as I could jam into the ground without doing major sod removal. I remember one house in particular. The landlord almost never came by the house. One summer day, after we had lived there a few years, he came by. I had tons of impatiens in the front yard. He was stunned. I don't think the house had ever seen flowers before. Eleven years ago we bought our first house here in ND. It was new construction and looked every bit like so many that people post here on the forum, except it didn't even have the requisite meatball shrubs because I asked for a blank slate. We "hired" the local nursery designer to help out. This was one of those deals where you get the plan for free if you buy your trees from them. No problem, we needed trees. I did not like the designer, he didn't listen to my requests (and put the soon-to-be-outlawed lythrum in the plan against my wishes), but he still had some ideas we liked and incorporated. I spent seven years with that house, and learned a lot (for example, I will never again put orange and pink together). It was not a knock-out landscaping, but I think it was pretty good for someone who knew nothing about design. We moved to our current home four years ago. Some of you may remember my first post to this forum. My first reaction was "oh my gosh, I get to landscape 20 acres, this is going to be SO fun", dreams of magazine-worthy gardens, garden tours, etc filled my head. I immediately began planning all the things I wanted - a 3 acre native prairie, 12 acres of native, but enhanced woods, huge veggie garden, flowing perennial beds, etc. Within two years I was panicked. My thoughts now were "oh my gosh, I HAVE to landscape 20 acres, I have no clue what to do!" Now I've slowed down. We are taking it a step at a time. Last year, and continuing to this year, we are concentrating only on the front yard. We hire out jobs that we don't have the expertise or equipment for. You all have provided an enormous amount of help. Ideas from threads, not just my own threads, pictures, philosophy, etc. I have begun to learn to think differently about the landscaping. I have become more observant. I am starting to think about how everything fits together. It's fun again because we have learned to only do what we can. We don't have to do it all in one year. Or even in five years (which was my original intent). Thank you all for the help. Sorry for the long saga. The short answer is that I have been growing veggies and flowers for about 35 years. I have been trying to fit them into a design for about 10 years. I have learned to appreciate that landscape design is far more than putting a few perennials along the foundation of the house in the last two years! Maybe in another 10 years or so I will be able to say I know something about landscaping. Thanks to all. Ann (complete amateur)

"There's a difference in having "rights" and forcing something on someone. "Rights" are like gifts given to us. We can choose to accept them or not." That is true. But, whether you agree or not... it's not forcing his rights, he has the same rights as the mother on the day the child is born if he is the biological father. A man should not have to go to court to obtain his parental rights any more than a woman should have to. Sharing DNA gives him the same rights as the mother, the child gets his/her DNA from BOTH parents and both parents have equal rights... until a court says otherwise. That comes with an equal responsibility... to support and have a relationship and parent the child. If a parent does not want to exercise their rights or accept their responsibility, they need to have a court, legally terminate those rights/responsibilities. It is not the same as your right to bear arms or your right to vote... you can choose not to carry a gun or not to vote, you cannot (legally) turn your back on a child... until a court terminates that relationship legally. BTW, It is the child's rights, not the parents. The child has the right to both parents and the answer isn't for some people to pick and choose which 'sperm donors' get the right to be a father or get a pass on their responsibility... otherwise, I know a few mothers that don't deserve that title.... deadbeat egg donors. But a guy can't make that decision, why should a woman get to decide if a man should be given the same rights she has the day the baby is born? I'm sure a Judge may not give a drug dealing low life deadbeat very much in the way of rights, but if he doesn't want the responsibility, then he can terminate rights and responsibility since they go hand in hand. and if a good man wants to step up and be named the father, and take responsibility and rights of a father to a child that is not his biologically, he should adopt.. just like a woman should adopt a child that isn't hers biologically if she wants the same rights and responsibility as a bio parent. I'm not preaching that deadbeats SHOULD have rights but it's not for US to decide. I sure would not like it if someone made me fight to get the rights that are mine... just because they didn't like me or the way I live my life. A court would be able to, and that's why we have courts.

I watched most of the OK dream sequence, and I'm not sure how it is unPC, but I might be missing something. Evidently friendly (non-sexual) affection is now not PC, and I hope this trend reverses itself. Americans are already cold and unfeeling to each other, and I was taught in 1969-1970 (through sensitivity sessions as well as psychotherapy) that physical affection is important. I think Italians today are still more affectionate than Americans and that Americans are still having to deal with the horrors brought in by the Puritans, who wanted religious freedom for themselves but not for anyone else. I would move to Italy if I could. We watched Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice last week-end, which was filmed partly at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. I've also been watching Escape from Polygamy recently, and that is just scary, but all the episodes are very similar, and so I'm not watching it anymore. The Bye Bye Birdie reference reminds me of the Flubber movies. In 1955, my mother was taking Benzedrine that was prescribed by her doctor for weight loss, even when she was pregnant with my brother Mike. BTW, I also used to make stage costumes when I lived in San Francisco, for a couple of different (radical) theater groups.

Story telling through film has evolved over the decades and that evolution is what we see when we watch films from each decade. We see that evolution in story telling, filming, dialogue and music. So much has changed! I like to see the movies of those late 20th century actors who I consider to be the last of the real talented ones. But a film made in 1990 is vastly different from one made in 1930. The old pre mid century ones had lots of dramatic music for each drama scene. We recently watched a Bogart film that I had never heard of. Bogart was very young and I think it was just pre WWII, The name of it is "Black Legion" and it is a drama of a real happenign here in America and it has an errie and unsettling parallel to what is going on in our political and social climate today. I had never heard of the Black Legion. It was just an awful organization based on hate and violence. Lots of relevance to the present day. Bogart was almost unrecongizable as the actor that he came to be known as. It was on one of those "you might like" list under Casablanca. I find so many modern movies to be just brain droppings and trashy cheap humor. Or, they are action or fantiasy flicks with no real character development but lots of "action". How utterly boring!