There are a number of different sorts of dementia, so she may or may not have AD, or be in the early stages. How old is she? Just being unpleasant isnt the worst thing in the world, altho there is obviously a sliding scale of unpleasantness, ranging from just mildly annoying to horrid. My mother was depressed and negative about everything, and I realized that Dad, beforw he died, had always been the pleasant, social part of the equation, and he kept her from being too bad. AFter he died, she was miserable. And told me so every day. Sigh. OK, what to do with someone whom no one likes? You can check her into the AL home (will she recover from the broken bones enough to return to her home? What's THAT assessment?) and come out only for emergencies. As people get older, they tend to have more and more emergencies. At a certain stage, I figured that I had to be with Mother for every doctor visit she had, for every banking transaction, for more and more little things that she could no longer cope with. It would be a call to say that her TV was dead, and she needed to get a new one. She had merely hit the TV/VCR button (and there was no VCR) on the remote. I could not talk her thru it on the phone, and so I'd go over there and tell her that I needed to replace the battery in the remote, when all I really did was hit the TV button to make the remote work again. See what I mean? So you can leave her far away from family, by her own choice, but somewhere down the road, if she indeed does have dementia, AD or not, you'll find that family members will spend more and more time on a plane and in a hotel dealing with her problems. I understand all too well all the people in retirement homes or AL facilities or nursing homes who complain that their families are not visiting. Between you and me, many of these people have been unpleasant and actively driven off their families. Or their families just don't try to push thru just enough to make a compromise. As in, yeah, mother is a PITA but at least I can sleep at night because I see her for lunch once a week. Some people (and this is not a negative, IMHO) can sleep at night anyway, just knowing that Mother is housed, fed and safe. Families all deal with these things differently. Good luck. This isn't easy, nor are there any 'correct' answers.

2 question: 1) Are these new chalkboards mounted on the wall? 2) Are the backs reinforced across the glue-joint? If they're mounted on the wall (FLAT that is...!), little/no movement should happen at the joint. >>> IF the doors are SOLID WOOD, consider routing-out an under-cut joint. The BOTTOM of the channel will be slightly wider than the top, forming a "key" that cannot come out! * For the fillers...Minwax's 2-part filler. * Other very good fillers include "PC-Woody" 2-part, Durhams Rock-hard putty, and M-H Ready patch from Zinsser (get the stuff in the METAL 1/2-pint container). * The MH is more of a Heavy-Duty spackle-paste. * This assumes NO movement will happen!! Faron

No grass will thrive in shade. However, by the looks of your photo, like you have grass that has been established there ... It's just been abused and it's also not quite the spring growth period yet. You could look at options to reduce the shade, eg raising the tree canopy a little bit to increase the sunlight (and air flow.). But I'm willing to bet your real enemy is soil compaction + turf stress both caused by the lacrosse abuse. Rye grass loves sun. It won't thrive in shade but that's ok. Your challenge is getting something to grow there that will prevent it from going completely barren; nothing will thrive with constant abuse. If you cover the area up, you risk "damaging" the soil by blocking sunlight and water. Plus, I would imagine it would be more likely that someone could trip or slip on whatever it is that you are putting down. Another option is to just let it be. In the fall, reseed the area with Turf Type Tall Fescue. That does better in shade than Rye Grass and Bluegrass. Another option is to buy some sod and roll it out after lacrosse is over. You wouldn't want to put sod down while they are practicing because it needs time to settle and dig in to the soil. You also would need to keep off it for a period of time and keep it well watered (and fed) to encourage this. Another option is to just give up on grass there and go a different route, eg groundcover, mulch or gravel. But where's the fun in that? Personally, I would go with my original idea. Regularly throw down Perenniel rye grass during lacrosse practice while separately growing some more desirable turf (eg bluegrass or turf type tall fescue) in some pots to plug in later.

I think this is one of these things that should have a "post-game analysis" of sorts. I don't mean to be critical, but this will be analytical and it may help someone else who builds a house in the future. The idea here is nice, and the essentially linked windows are similar to a true palladian window, with the tall window in the middle and subordinate windows on either side of a height equal to the bottom sash...fine. But you've kind of backed yourself into a design corner because these particular windows need to be covered, and yet you don't want to cover them too much, or all the time. A palladian window in an 18th or 19th c house would be treated like this: The walls would be thick enough that shutters would fold over the small windows and fold back into shallow pockets in the jambs when you wanted them out of the way. The larger window would be elaborately draped because of the curve or possibly mostly left bare,depending. If you were to design this over again---or if your architect does do this again in another house---a peak that was wide enough to allow a single rod or top mounted treatment that was wide enough to cover all three windows completely should be one thing considered, or more room for shutters to be folded back would be another, a shorter or differently proportioned window in the middle another. I think that windows are often designed as if they can all be left uncovered because nobody's windows need to be covered for privacy or light control. And really the opposite is true. Almost Every window should be designed if it will need to be covered for privacy or light control, and if it doesn't great, but if it does you are not faced with several less than ideal options and possibly some really awkward options but no perfect options.