And, Lux -- It IS difficult to photograph those purple shades. It was almost impossible in the day of film cameras, and it remains difficult in digital photography. Also, FRPP can (like 'Reine des Violettes') become quite shockingly pink, in hot weather. Many years ago, I got the dreaded "check mark" at an ARS rose show because my (really pretty gorgeous) bloom of 'Reine des Violettes' was -- poiple. Lovely washy shades of purple, just as described rhapsodically by Graham Stuart Thomas. The Rose Show Judge, who really didn't know Old Roses that well to begin with (tho he'd never admit it) lived in the San Fernando Valley. I live near the sea, where it is cool. He "knew" that RdV should be shocking pink -- not that silly purple! Jeri

my hubby has no problem going to the store for 'pom poms' (I have decided that this is one of my favorite miswordings from kids right now ;-)) or talking about anything female relating to me.... However, when it comes to his kids .. boy or girl there is a gigantic block followed by panic... We have talked over and over again about what is perfectly natural for kids but still... he has heart palpitations at the mere thought...I on the other hand have vowed to make sex as open as possible with the kids especially my girls... so when they do decide to have sex they can come to me and we can take the necessary steps to make sure they are protected... I refuse to be naive enough or stubborn enough to insist on no sex before marriage ... that being said I dont really care how bm feels or hubby feels ... if they come to me or I feel they need some advice I will talk to them... with or without approval.. simply because ignorance is not bliss it is dangerous and I personally feel the less it is a hidden mysterious thing the less likely it is that they will feel the need to sneak around and experiance it far before they are ready. And, ever since I was tutoring kids in elem school and I realized what second third and on up age children were talking about (and this was almost 6 years ago) I knew I would not hide one thing from my kids regarding sex...

Logan, Just wondering, do you want a small bit of the acorns I got from Williamsburg,Va? I can't say for sure they are 100% Live oak Q.Virginiana. I can send you a few and you can put them in a place out of the way in case they don't do so great. But, really, they should do fine in NC, unless you are having weather problems from hurricane Mathew, which I never did ask you about, I'm sorry about that. I was going to go to Florida and leave yesterday Friday Oct 14th, but there were several routes that were not open due to flooding from Mathew. So maybe next year 'll go to Florida. The best time to go is when it's cold in Pa. Like now, but, we would have to fly and we didn't have the dough to fly there. So Logan if you send me a message in my GW messages with your address, I will send you several of the small acorns from the Live oaks in Williamsburg,Va. If you don't want to give your email address etc it's fine. I also have some hardier acorns from a guy in zone 7a, I can send you a couple of them, if i remember.

Before buying a new sofa, new chairs or recovering the wing chairs, & where to put the tv, spend time figuring out a good arrangement for the room. You have a nice, large, almost square room but since there are 3 openings & a fireplace, it will take some time to figure it out. For arranging furniture, I use graph paper, being sure to include all doorways & windows and the exact size of the room, and cut out each piece of furniture to scale. You can use a few different sizes of sofas, & chairs. Measure your existing ones & ones you are considering buying. Be sure to include end tables, etc. Cut them out of graph paper first then you can trace them onto heavier paper like index cards, or for ease of placement, onto post-its. I worked with manufacturing design engineers. (masters degrees & PHd's). They all had the use of auto-cad and other very complex design engineering software. When we were moving to a different building, most of them (2 bosses had large offices, 20 others had cubicles) used graph paper & templates to decide on their office furniture layout of desks, work tables, file cabinets, bookcases. I got the idea from them and have used graph paper ever since. It's fun. There are also aps out there to use but I've never tried it.