maryl The Garden Web Rose Forum Best of Show award goes to the best one stem rose in the show at the ARS National Rose Shows. Prior to this award, the best rose was considered the hybrid tea queen and ignored all other classes. Best of Show is picked from the winners of each class so it can be a shrub, OGR, miniature, floribunda, spray, or any other type as long as it's a single stem. Our thought in starting this was the word "Rose" in American Rose Society meant any and all roses, not just hybrid teas. Although most hard core ARS exhibitors still strive for the hybrid tea queen, there is now an award for others, who may not grow hybrid teas, to win. The permanent trophy, a sterling silver loving cup, was purchased with $1500 in funds donated by members of the Rose Forum. The hard core hybrid tea exhibitors and many others in the ARS didn't support our endeavour, but the then ARS president, Dr. Tommy Cairns, co-sponsorsed it with us and it was approved at the National convention in Portland, Oregon in spring, 2001. It's now awarded twice yearly at the spring and fall ARS National Conventions. It was first awarded in 2002, in San Jose, California. I was suppose to be there to present it in April of that year, but I had my stroke in March and was still hospitalized in rehab. I did make it to Philadelphia to present it in the fall of 2002. It's now awarded twice yearly at the spring and fall ARS National Conventions. Few Rose Forum members show at these conventions so I doubt any have won the award. I was suppose to be there to present it in April of that year, but I had my stroke in March and was still hospitalized in rehab. Just the fact it was awarded at the World Federation of Rose Societies International Convention indicates its standing. Few who post here now were members of the forum at that time.

I am going through this grief right now and it is possibly the most painful heartache imaginable. My adult daughter has alienated herself from me over a difference of opinion on the subject of abortion. I was at one time very much into the prolife movement. But because I've grown and learned, I've changed positions. I support pro choice. My daughter, who has suffered multiple miscarriages, read a comment I made on a discussion about the subject and was offended. She refuses to speak to me. I am beyond heartbroken. I feel as if my daughter wants to control my thoughts. She posts things on social media that lead me to think they are deliberate attempts to twist the knife. So hurtful they are, and she never considers that worse than losing a pregnancy to miscarriage is the pain of having your own child reject you. I have also lost a pregnancy to miscarriage, so I know what that's like. I've also lost my husband, her dad, and that was at the time, the worst pain I'd ever experienced. But this! This child of mine has cost me a lot in terms of sacrifice. At a time when I could least afford it, because I was home from my job for medical reasons, my daughter needed help paying her rent. I committed to help her. She got engaged to a man and mom paid for the wedding. A few years went by and the marriage ended. She needed help again to pay her bills. By then, I was old enough to take early retirement. It was all I had to give. So I did. It cost me half of what I'd otherwise have been entitled to. And that's for the rest of my life. My daughter takes little responsibility for her own affairs. And yes, mom's fault for bailing her out over and over. Her sister got saddled with her cell phone bill. Her dog damages property because he's not properly housetrained, and that has cost her sister a lot of money. My daughter owns 3 cars, two of them are high dollar cars. Her payments for those, she doesn't skip. But it's okay to let everyone else pay for her bills. And she says I lie when I say I love her,

It's pretty interesting how relative "essential" can be. When we were planning our kitchen (in our first home), I told my SO many GWers insisted a prep sink was needed for our kitchen layout, and I also tried to sneak a pot-filler into the bargaining as well. As I'm a clean-as-I-go cook, I didn't really have the dishes-in-sink-so-I-can't-use-it excuse. I went with the what-if-you're-helping-to-cook-and-we-both-need-to-use-the-sink argument. He said, I can wait my turn. So I tried the I-could-back-into-the-person-walking-to-the-fridge-with-a-pot-of-boiling-water line to which he said, don't worry; we have an ice maker. (This "sense of humor" may be why we do not have kids.) In the end, we really didn't have anywhere for the prep sink to really go that didn't involve trenching long distances through our slab for the water lines and drain lines, which we didn't want to do. As far as the pot-filler, I made the case that carrying a heavy pot filled with water across the kitchen could be disastrous for our lovely brand new bamboo floors, and he just looked at me and said, well, you would have to carry it back to the sink anyways, right? How could I argue with such logic?!

When I was last there, I'm pretty sure Margrit was the only moderator on all the forums, except I might've seen one name on one other forum. I remember wondering at the time how she managed it all- in multiple languages, and virtually alone. I can absolutely understand why she might've thrown in the towel. I learned a lot there, but I did always feel a bit out of my league. Hopefully she'll still be able to add to the species ID and information pages and so on. It really is a great resource.