I guess I tend to be on the "spirit sensitive" side and have encountered all sorts of activity. The earliest I remember was when I was 4 or 5, on Christmas Eve at my grandmother's old house. The room seemed full of people rustling and whispering and one woman even sat on the bed and sort of "petted" me. I stormed into the living room where the grownups were and complained that "the people" were keeping me from falling asleep and that they would ruin everything because Santa wouldn't come if I were awake. Of course, the grown-ups chuckled and advised me to go back to bed. It was quiet when I returned and I learned later that Grandmother's house had been the town funeral home and that my room was where the bodies were laid out for viewing. Visitation, indeed! As a teenager, I saw a young girl in that room with her back to me, who seemed to be unaware I was watching her. Suddenly, and I mean so fast it wasn't human, she whirled around and rushed up to me, glaring and then glided through the closet door. Yikes! Note to self: don't sneak up on ghosts. They don't like being spied upon. I lived alone in an old apartment with a disagreeable, mischievous spirit. In the sunroom, I would tie all the matchstick blinds the same length and come in the next day to find they had been rolled up and down at different heights, all re-tied. Things were always disappearing and reappearing in other locations, if at all. A friend of mine named the ghost "Lucinda Huggins" to sort of keep things light while I tried to be patient with the tricks and mild hostility I was sensing. I pretty much let Lucinda have the sun room--it got too uncomfortable to hang out in there. One time I did a calligraphy project for a friend's birthday and I left it out to dry overnight before erasing the lines. The next morning, I found that Lucinda had poured ink over the whole project and screwed the lid of the ink bottle back on. Dang! After I left that place, I was chatting with a client and learned she had lived in that same apartment. She looked at me strangely, "So....did you have any encounters with the.... little spirit?" The next old house I moved to (it would probably be helpful if I didn't keep living in old houses, lol) was full of action, all mostly harmless. There was "someone" in the living room but he/she seemed warm and inviting to me. The most active "The Boot Ghost" who walked up and down the upstairs hall very loudly. Never saw anyone, but it was nerve-wracking when you were alone downstairs wondering if it was the sound of an intruder. Then there was the "Squeezing Ghost" which was like the Old Hag Phenomenon. You'd just about drift to sleep when suddenly you were being hugged tightly by something dark and awful and...knowing. Terrifying. Got me twice and my husband 3 times, one of which he found his feet being lifted. We moved from there to a 100-year-old house around the corner and I keep my antennae pricked for any presences and there are none. Like kframe19, it feels so odd and lonely! Been here for 7 years and the only strange activity seems to be a ghost cat, which will rub against your legs if you're sitting at a table and jumps on the bed and walks across you. Infrequently I'll see a little cat-sized shadow pass by a doorway. But that's it.

I agree with Popi's post. Our relationships with our adult daughters is quite a dance. We have so much loving advice to give them, and we want so much to help them all we can. Sometimes it's easy to forget that our daughters need to feel free and confident to find their own way and make their own mistakes. I'm assuming your daughter is a good mother. If so, then think about what you're saying in your post. We have advised her of keeping her daughter warm arriving in 17 degree weather with no jacket or hat .She started saying I'm just going to the car but all we wanted was to keep her daughter warm. Each time any thing that is said to her about taking care of her daughter she gets very defensive and angry which makes us feel incompetitent. Probably you are making her feel incompetent as well. You say, "each time anything that is said to her about taking care of her daughter", but are you considering that each time you are telling her she isn't taking care of her daughter the *correct* way, you're telling her she's incompetent to make that decision? I told her you make me feel like a irreresponsible teenager. Probably she feels the same way - that you make her feel like an irresponsible teenager. When your husband calls her husband lazy, he's basically calling your daughter incompetent to choose a husband. And of course she's going to tell her husband what her dad says. You mentioned in your post that you are overprotective. I think most mothers would sympathize with you about being overprotective. Our daughters are so precious, and we love them so much and want to protect them as we raise them in safety and love. I think a lot of us, if not most of us, could be called overprotective. I was raised by overprotective parents. If you were an overprotective mother, it's quite possible the dynamic you've set up all these years between you and your daughter has a lot of bearing on how she relates to you. Some of us daughters of overprotective parents have our adult boundaries set in stone. Mine are. My daughter and I had a rocky road together during her teenage years. One thing I did was to take her to lunch once a week at a place she liked. That was our "safe" place. There in that place I bit my tongue off. We talked about what she wanted to talk about. I tried not to give advice or criticism or ask questions about anything she didn't want to talk about. Sometimes when a relationship gets rocky, it helps to have some healing time when you just enjoy each others' company. The other advice I would give is to try not to mind so much about some of the things you mention. Not mowing the grass is not the end of the world. Mowing the grass is VERY important to me and it would annoy me and grate on me to have one of my children chronically not mow the grass. Trust me, I feel your pain. But it's not the end of the world. If he has a job and loves his wife and daughter, not bringing in firewood or mowing the grass might be small potatoes to her. And it's her opinion of him that counts. Not having a coat and hat on the baby - maybe that's small potatoes, too. My son got hot easily as a baby. Older people frequently said something to me about not keeping him warm enough, but the pediatrician specifically talked to me about not keeping him too warm. If I was just going back and forth to a close parked, warm car in 17 degree weather I probably wouldn't have put a coat and hat on my baby, either. Not letting a dog owner keep a baby - there are a lot of mothers like that. I hope you can work something out with your daughter. Sometimes it's hard to work out those mother/daughter relationships.

We used to have a pretty good sized avocado tree but the heavy rains one year took it out. I was bummed...my neighbor grows them in pots and sells them...thats how we got it. I would love to have another one but Dh said we have no room for it now...we have since planted 3 more trees. His friend and our neighbor keep us supplied but this year we have tons from the friend tree.

Thanks for telling me about the online / in-person sample difference, Raynag. My husband went into Detroit tonight for a friend's concert, driving my car, and someone broke into it. They smashed a window. I can handle them getting my credit card, and bank card, and driver's license. I'm so sad that they got my diaper bag (bookbag style, not designer but not cheap plastic) and folding potty seat (ordered online, no clue where) and, worst of all, digital camera. I took the kids to the petting zoo today, with their preschool class, and took pictures. I left the diaper bag in the front seat of the car, with the camera inside. Last minute, I asked DH to take my car instead of his, because mine's in better shape, safer on the road. I feel so sad about the camera. It was nice, Canon XS or something similar, and felt like a splurge a year ago. These jerks probably thought they had a nice find there, but now I just can't take pictures of my kids and my kitchen. I know this is no big deal in the big picture but it's just so rotten. I bet they don't think about the hours and dollars of clean-up it costs us, to fix what they did. So, no pictures for a while. Okay, unlike Igloo, I'm whining. Done now. D@!*it.