The vast majority of my daylilies are in the front yard due to the way our lot is laid out, and I like to keep it clean-looking, so I have been cutting the spent blooms off for appearance-sake - - for the neighbors more than for me. I try to cut at or a little above the area at the base of the flower where it begins to broaden out and have had no ill effect to setting pods. (If there is any doubt about the areas I am talking about, look on the AHS web site daylily dictionary at the picture of a "spent bloom." The area of 'widening' should be easily seen in the picture.) I do the cutting the evening of the next day after the flower opened. If anything, it helps me from knocking into the dried bloom when I am working around the flower area over the next couple of days until the time that it would have normally fallen off anyway. If fertilization has occurred, the pod will grow and push the remainder of the dried blossom off in just a few days. Larry

Great swap package Sharon, I love all of the things you chose for Diane. My eye is especially drawn to that lovely bowl, I can imagine all sorts of good things to eat being served from it. Pretty napkins, and they will go with lots of different settings too. The gravy pitcher is the perfect size - I'm thinking warm maple syrup as well. And the best ending of all, a big jar of homemade pickles to serve with Thanksgiving dinner. Enjoy it all Diane! Sharon, you did real good:-) DONNA

Hi everyone. I am so touched by all of yours thoughtful comments and suggestions. You're like my invisible friends whom I can turned to during this difficult time in my life. I can't really share with anyone in my circle of friends/family at this stage since I want to protect my wife's just in case we are going to work things out. ( For those who want to correct my English and have bias, please take your comments elsewhere. It's not welcome here. The last thing I want to do now is to correct my English. I just type away hoping that it makes sense). So far I haven't taken any action. I just want to think it through carefully and consider all of my options. I am actually very upset but I want to give myself sometimes to cool down and to collect myself so that I can sit down and talk to her in a respectful manner so that I don't hurt her pride. It's amazing that there are so many thoughtful and observant contributors on this forum. Marco keenly identified that I am actually Asian. And yes that is how things work in our culture. Case and point: Her parents ask to meet me first and talk to me before they give the OK to take their daughter out for a coffee on our first date. Not like in our culture here where one doesn't meet the parents until both are serious about getting married. For those who replied and took the moral high ground of respecting privacy, trusting and all that. Give me a break. I am glad you happen to have good marriage and you never have to think about snooping around. Like 'Jenny alabama' & 'labmoma' said one will be curious to find out what's going on especially when your spouse is behaving cold/distant from you and constantly deny and often refuse to talk about the subject of the heart. I can't recall when was the last time she look me in the eyes lovingly. And as I said am a very passionate person. This is where I got an uneasy feeling but didn't confront her on the wedding day. I wanted to make it the happiest day of my life. This is where it hurt me second to the recent event. During the ceremony she didn't even look me in the eyes as she repeat after the pastor and exchange the ring with me. During the entire day she seem to be pre-occupied with thoughts and didn't seem to pay attention to me. Am I too sensitive of a man? I asked her about it later she told me that she was nervous planning for the rest of the day. My thinking was, what else could be more important than spending those precious moments with your spouse in front of God as a witness. And now I am thinking maybe she didn't want to look me in the eyes because she ashamed of facing God for making a decision not from the heart. Yes this is what I get for trusting too much and thinking that how can I go wrong with an educated catholic girl. Of course I respect others' privacy and I think I have placed enough faith in her for the past two years. We agreed that because of the long distance in order for our relationship to work it has to base entirely on trust. I even mentioned to her about the anonymous emails and have never question her. I didn't call around to check her out then knowing that I could very capable of doing that, since it's a small town and I do have relatives who live in the city. She came up the explanation that made sense to me at the time that it was co-worker jealousy. Right before she came over some of my relatives did give me some vague warnings that they just recently heard over the grapevines but they don't want to tell me everything because they don't want me to be unhappy or talk bad about my wife. It's hard to hear that your wife has been around the block. I do find comfort in reading 'bnicebkind's' reply. Yes she does miss home naturally from being apart from her parents and friends and adapting to a new way of life. I do my best to understand and comfort her. She talks to her sister who live in a different state on the daily and call her parent on weekly basis. I find that this might be what she is going through: "Bushduh, sometimes after marriage (and especially after a baby) a woman may start thinking about a past boyfriend, and become obsessed with the fantasy of "what if". It does not always mean that if she actually had the opportunity to be with him again, that she would really want him, but sometimes women fantasize about that person, building him up in her mind to more than he ever really was in real life. Perhaps he was more romantic or made her feel beautiful, or wanted/loved in a way that marriage and the reality of real life cannot measure up to. The "reality" of marriage, responsibility, laundry, and dirty dishes, make some women yearn for the carefree life of a single woman just wanting to be loved, and the romance and excitement of it all. Real life with all of its responsibilities of being a grown up intrude on the fantasy. " Thank you 'bnicebkind'. I wouldn't have the experience and the insight to think of this. As you can see this forum helps me alot. Back home her mom cooks and if needed she simply swing to the corner cafe and get something to eat. Now she has to go to school and go home and cook. She certainly not ready to do that day in and day out. I offer to help cooking and I do the dishes. The problem is most people from a third world country form their perceptions though movies and think that the US is a piece of heaven. I have never promised her of heaven but did tell her as much as I can about how impersonal and busy life here is. Yes money is tight because I am looking for a job. But we live in a nice home. Some how she had a vision in her head that when she come I'd take her traveling before settling down to work/ or go to school and I'd take her on a shopping spree. So she was kind of disappointed when that didn't happen and I only took her to sight seeing locally and shop just enough. I am sure if I were to be well off go out eating often, travel, and shop without thinking then she's not as sad as she is today. But if she can find happiness in little of what we have and build a life together with me then we're in for the long term. I sure hope that it's a phase that she is going through. But for now I have a lot of doubt that is the case. For the life of me I can't understand writing to someone else about missing, hugs and kissing them while being married. But there is more...there is a little details I almost forgot to mention. She actually writing to two guys, one from her home country and the other I don't know(could be here in the US) with similar tone of voice. I am not sure what this fact tells me. Either she is as manipulative as others have warned me or this is how she deals with missing her home. Until we have the 'talk' then I can better judge the whole situation. I hope I am not naive then and accept one excuse to the next. I hope I have a clear vision to see though it and decide once and for all. Like Marco said: "Life is too short to be with someone who doesn't love you back." Thank you for reading my lengthy writing...please check back with this posting regularly and give me some insights.... Bushduh

A baking center wasn't a "must have" for me, or even one of the priorities, but it made sense as our kitchen came together. In an attempt to maximize the use of wall space, we put a tall cabinet in a 2-ft wide space between a run of windows and our mudroom doorway. I really wanted canisters off the counter so we planned to put them on a pull out shelf, at counter height, in the tall cabinet. Then it made sense to put the mixer next to the flour. Then, since they needed to be stored somewhere anyway, it made sense to keep all of the other baking supplies and pans/dishes in the tall cabinet and the base cabinet under the mixer. Thus a baking center was created. I only really appreciated the baking area after we started using it. Our main work area is basically a "U" and the baking area is in a run of cabinets outside of the U. It's next to the small sink (usually called a "prep" sink but the big sink in the prep/cooking area is used more often for prep) and dw which makes clean up easy. My daughter is able to make dessert while I prepare a meal and we never need to cross paths. I have multiples of some items such as meas cups & spoons, rubber spatulas & scrapers, whisks, salt, cinnamon, so that I can have them in both the baking area and prep area. I have a cabinet at the elbow of our peninsula that can be reached from both areas and I keep some dishes that I use in both places there (ramekins, custard cups, liquid measuring cups, small prep dishes.) Stainless steel mixing bowls are in a cabinet that is easily accessible from both area. Kitchen storage was a matter of priorities and compromises for me. After 5 years, I'm still tweaking it. Some things had to be stored outside of the main cooking/prep area--and it made sense to keep all of the baking pans/supplies in one area. I tend to roll out crusts and fill muffin tins and cookie sheets on the wider peninsula in the cooking area but I don't mind walking around the peninsula to get the rolling pin and pie plates, cookie sheets, (for either baking cookies or roasting veggies), or other baking pans. Even though the cookie sheets are used a couple of times a week, they're not used everyday. The baking area is the approx 4 feet of counter to the right of the sink along with the base cabinet and tall cabinet to the right of the dw.