I've belonged to the New Paltz Garden Club for several years now and it is a really wonderful group. We do a lot of civic gardening including the lovely seasonal planters at the Thruway Exit 18 tollbooths, the garden behind the bench at Main & Chestnut, a perennial garden on Huguenot Street & another garden outside Deyo Hall. We work in teams to do all the planting, watering and weeding of those gardens. It's a lot of organizing and work but it really helps brighten New Paltz. We have meetings, lectures, garden tours, swaps (I organize that!) and some more traditional garden club events like a "Table Carousel" which is a kind of table decoration tea party fundraising event. This fall we hosted a judged district standard flower show. Our club has several dozen members with a wide variety of gardening knowledge, skills and styles. We have organic gardeners, master gardeners, rank amateurs such as myself, and some incredibly creative artists in our group. One of our members, Barbara Campbell, has been president of the Federated Garden Clubs of New York State for the past two years. Anyone is welcome to attend our meetings, they are usually listed in the paper's Almanac section and we get great speakers and have interesting programs. We are 99% female (landscaper and all-around good guy Mark Masseo is our sole male member at this point in time - he really helps us when we need some heavy lifting or equipment!) but all are welcome to attend. And did I mention we have killer homebaked desserts at the end of every meeting. : ) If you are interested in learning more about New Paltz Garden Club drop me an email or leave a message at (845) 255-7800. Celeste Cleary

Juellie, not what I expected to read when I opened this thread. Dammit, I'm so sorry you lost your Mom. It doesn't matter if it's sudden, or drawn out, it hurts like hell. My Dad was sick for weeks before dying, 25 years ago. My Mom died 13 1/2 years ago in my arms, so suddenly it was stunning. There's nothing anyone can say or do to take this awful pain away. All I can tell you is time. Time is the only thing that will ease the "knocks you to your knees, mind numbing" pain. Talk to us all the time about your mom. Talk, and talk and talk some more. It helps. It helped me. I will pray for you that you can find peace. Hang on, and let time do its thing. I'm very sorry for your loss.

I have been out of town for several days but came home to beautiful mail! Shirley (sjc) sent me a lovely snowflake card. I always enjoy your one of a kind cards. Thank you so much. Speaking of snowflakes, we finally got some last night. Around midnight, the rain turned to snow. We get snow maybe every four years but this was different in that it happened at night and it was blowing...a mini snowstorm....white all over the place. This went on all night. It is almost 11:30am out here and the snow is just starting to melt off the roof. Funny, people are coming from down the hill to snowboard in the hills, throw snowballs, build snowmen and frolic in the white stuff......CBS and NBC are out and about in their trucks reporting about the snow. Huge story....LOL! It is a bit nippy...temps are hanging in the mid 30's. That is cold for us!! But it is nice...very wintery! I better get outside and build myself a snowgirl........... Happy New Years to all. May your 2015 be beautiful, happy and healthy. Melinda and Heidi, prayers for you. Margo, so happy your son was fine after the car accident.... Thanks Shirley for hosting.....as always perfect! Happy Day! Annie

Hi Karin, Growth is good, change is good. You are the decapitation queen, and the only person I know who started hybridizng fifteen minutes after she had two violets in her possession. You like new, different, and nothing to hold you back. So cut your losses and set down roots somewhere else, in fresh, clean territory you stake out yourself. Suggest you start something new, all your own, independent of any club, and invite people to join. Annie of the All About African Violets podcasts wants to forge a Canadian connection. Maybe you can work with her. Maybe also revisit that first club and see if they would like your help. Sort of like what Anne Marie K did for Lyon's. And for National. She is tapping a younger generation and using embedded videos and all the tools on her blogs. I can already see the opening scene of your podcast, walking down a country road with your dog in all four seasons. Leave the present club alone. I have seen something similar in another club, not saying who or where, in which two competing FB sites were set up. Not cool and when clubs air their inherited bad feelings for each other at a public level on the internet, newcomers will not be interested in participating. These are the growing pains of the 1970's style clubs not being able to adapt to change. It goes on with many non-profits, not just AF clubs. Joanne