I must say, that for some unknown reason, I tended to dislike any dark oranges in general for many years in any type of flower, and only liked a tangerine perhaps or lighter shades of orange, but nowdays I feel very different about the dakrer shades and just love them and want to add more. Those are good candidates I'd say, and very lovely! So far I love my Santiago Heat, and Mauna Loa, though obviously I have many more to choose from! In a much older variety with a bright eye, perhaps Hot Town?

Hunter, Palms arent too common here either! Some of the botanical gardens and zoos are catching on though and a few houses nearby do have palms, but its nothing that you would find too easily (unless you knew where to look). Virginia Beach has tons of palms considering that if you go just a bit north or west, you will barely see any! I think that VB is the farthest north you can go to get that Palmy southern feel (Norfolk, Virginia also has a few palms around and lots of other southern favorites like live oak, crape myrtles, southern magonlias, long leaf pines, camellias, and gardenias so it defintely feels a bit subtropical there as well, but not much futher north or west than that). Also, I doubt the sagos survived. It was a cold winter and even during a warm winter, they arent usually expected to survive (unless they have protection). Islandbreeze, the trunk and fronds on that palm looked a bit trachycarpus like to me, but they do look similar when very young, especially when there is a ton of vegetation covering most of the plant. Chadec, I will have to check that agave out! Do you have it and if you do, did it survive the winter? -Alex

Party Music, I guess I got that title a couple of years ago when I just fell in love with all the acorn items I was seeing on all the blogs!I think I probably drove these sweet gals crazy raving about acorns and having them go look at every blog where I saw some! ;o) Would you believe that my sweet neighbor/friend actually found a package of pencils and bought it just because one of them had acorns on it! She gave it to me in a cute little felt candy corn along with a pair of holiday socks. Jeanne, I hadn't even noticed the typo, totally know what you mean about fingers going faster than brain. I do that myself way too often. Yes, I do love being "corny" and surrounded by my fall goodies especially the acorns. So funny how certain things just really appeal to us. Janet, I know you are covered in lots of snow right now. Was so glad to know you were warm and safe during the blizzard. Don't worry, in a few years your little ones will be like mine saying "Grandma, your Halloween stuff is too cutesy, you need "scary". LOL Punk, so glad you got to go with little DGD on Halloween. You will have lots of years for staying home to hand out candy when she is older--enjoy every minute with her NOW is my advice. I had so many sweet comments from parents of the Trick or Treaters about my outside decor. I never think of it as being much, but I guess the flag, wreath, witch, old crow gal, yard stakes, and some pumpkins do make a nice setting on the patio. Made me feel glad that I had taken the time to dig stuff out and decorate. Now on to Thanksgiving. Honestly, how did the year go by so fast?????? Luvs

raek, I understand you sooooooooo much and I really,really know where you are coming from. You say : "I said something like...Thanks for giving us that time together, it really meant alot to me." I don't really want to spend to much time on this point because it has happened in the past,....but ......i still think (please don't take it personnaly) that it was a little bit mean to do that. I mean who cares if she allowed your father or not to go and visit you. That was between them. If anything, it should have been your father who thanked her for letting him do something alone not you. Disengage, disengage, disengage. It's not with her you want to make a new start. It's with your dad. You don't need to be disrespectful towards your father's wife however. Did you notice how I am using less and less the words "" your SM'' or ""my oldest SD'' ( i did in an early post this morning, but I'm doing it less and less. Even when i talk about her to whoever. I know say : my DH's oldest daughter. Perhaps you could always refer now to your SM as your dad's wife, spouse, partner, lover, whatever but not ''My SM''. It's a little way of disengaging that I read about on this Web site. It helps. I agree with you also on another point you made. Why would someone travel somewhere when the people they will see aren't his or her friends. DH's oldest daughter just moved back in our city but for a few years she lived five hours from us with her DH and two young kids. You would not believe the number of times DH has asked me to go with him and visit them, the number of times his oldest daughter has begged me to go and visit her, the number of times her then husband asked me to go and see their place!!! Every single time I said NO, i found an excuse...anything, i couldn't leave the dog alone for so many days, I didn't want to put him in a kennel cuz it was too expensive and I didn't want to have to put him through a five hour car drive, etc.etc. I swear to god this went on for about three years and all the time I kept telling Dear hubby why do you keep on insisting on this issue. I will not go visit your daughter. One day he did it again. I said ok you want to push it well here is my answer why I won't even bother a single minute to put myself throught such a trip. I said '' Remember the day your daughter got married. He said yes. I said do you remember how she celebrated everybody she loved and wanted near her on that day by offering them a beautiful corsage to wear. He said yes i remember that. Well, I said, was I amongnst these people. Did your daughter offer me a corsage considering I had been in her life for 14 years at that point? DH said no. So, i said. why in the world would I want to go in your daughter's house when on the most important day of her life she ignored me like you ignore a dog and she has never, never to this day thanked me for the money we (DH and I) gave them as a wedding day!!!!!!! Since then DH has never bothered me or asked me again to go to her house and i don't intend to ever go to the new place she will eventually have once she leaves her mom's place. Finally, raek you say : "I start to remember that he didn't really reach out to me a whole lot even when she wasn't in the picture, but my dislike for her and her's for me has driven an even bigger wedge between the 2 of us." It is so true. I too for a long time really disliked DH's oldest daughter. I blamed everything on her but now i know that DH is just as guilty. He always put her needs first to the detriment of our relationship but things are starting to change. When i see he acts likes this, i don't take it all out on his daughter anymore. I tell DH how i feel about his behaviour towards me and how it affects me or us as a couple. Example : he got a 500 dollar bonus from work. He gave it all to his daughter so she could buy a second hand car. I didn't mind that he gave her money but I didn't want him to give it all to her considering we had bills to play. But oh non. DH had to look good so he gave it all to her. Of course, she never thought i might have some right on that money or that I might deserved to be also told thank you considering her father and I have been together for 18 years and share everything. So you know what I did. For the first time in 18 years, i got a big cheque and I put every single penny of it in my banking account. In the past, when I got some extra money, i was the first one to pay our bills or whatever bill there was around, i would buy him clothes, pay fines, whatever. First thing i knew, i had no money left! DH is not really happy with what I did with this last cheque but ask me if i care!!!! So far out of that whole cheque I spent a big 35 $ on him for a pair of jeans!!!! Enough is enough. I spent over 600 $ on an operation for puppy, i spent a bit on me and i will use the rest to buy some patio furniture! So whenever he complains about this cheque, i remind him I didn't spend it all on me. He will enjoy the furniture and the dog is as much mine as his. So there you go! Next time he has extra money, perhaps he will think a little bit before giving it away and disregarding our/my needs.!!! I keep telling my friends or anybody I know who meets a man who has children and it doesn't matter how old the children are, to run away as fast as they can from that relationship or at least not to get emotionnaly involved with the kids and to keep a distance from the children for a long, long time before they all become buddy-buddy. Knowing what you know today, you must thank the Lord that you are not in that relationship with that man you met who had a child. My alcoholic father left my mother alone with four children. She raised us alone and we lived on welfare all our lives. At one point, my mom met a very nice man. In fact they went out together for 14 years. I really, really loved him. He didn't treat me like he was my father. He was always our friend. Everybody kept asking my mom she wasn't living with this man. She also said. these are my children and i will raised them on my own. I will not force them upon another person. I think my mom was very avant-gardist just like when she decided to register all her kids in an English school when we were living a totally french environment, didn't have english speaking friends, didn't have a cousin or uncle who spoke english, (not even my mom spoke English. She always said she did that so her children could have another culture, be independent and be able to travel. I love her! Sorry for such the long post. I don't know whats happening to me this morning but it sure feels good to be able to vent all my feelings like this. Thanks for reading me. Keep posting.