PaulaB, don't give up on expanding your city lot. I know, I did some creative thinking and the result was quite unexpected and a dream come true. We got to stay in the same house, and we added to our lot size. Long story short, I realized our backyard neighbor was not using the last 25 feet (or more) of her lot, which was 100 feet wide. So, I asked if it might interest her to sell us a small slice of her 300 foot deep x 100 foot wide lot. It was the only game in town for us. No other piece of land would do. So it was indeed a seller's market. But here I was so fortunate that our neighbor is the best one I ever had. So we made a friendly deal for the land, which is now my Back40 where hosta are KING ... and QUEEN. I put up a chainlink privacy fence now almost covered in star jasmine....and right in the middle included a shorter 5 foot wide "neighbor gate." We visit all the time, my dachshund girls love to play in her yard with supervision, and she is delighted to have visitation privileges with the hosta! She even has one which she frets over, she is an old fashioned gardener yet fascinated with new plants such as hosta! I can see my grandmother in her. I'm just saying....this is a possible chain of events. Not only COULD it happen, it really did. Isn't life interesting?

I'm not sure what to think of her. There's no doubt she needs desperate help, but I just cant even begin to imagine what her thought process is when she makes some of the decisions she's making. I mean, she's hanging out with one of the paparrazi guys. I just watched video footage this morning of them hanging out in her hotel room on the balcony, walking hand in hand on the streets going to Starbucks, sharing a lollipop and him kissing her cheek. They say the agency he works for is making a ton of money on the pics/footage they're getting of the two of them together. I think he's using her and I can't imagine how she doesnt see that. And, he's supposedly married too. And what mother wouldn't fight tooth and nail for their kids? She acts like she could care less. I would die trying to get my kids back and do whatever it took. I think she's a lost soul.

I never saw yesterdays show and only saw todays because I was zipping through channels and saw that he was talking about the mom and babies. Did anyone else see in the audience, I am sure it was Kate from the Jon and Kate show, was it? I don't know what they talked about yesterday or who they had on the show. But todays they had this women who helps big 5 star people and where people talked about the hotel she moved into it, it wasn't, it was a rental because the mom and this lady was having death threats which they took seriously and she was only there with her other children for 3 days and they are back home now. The picture of this spacious living room that was shown in some magazine was a friend's house who let her have the pictures taken there. The house that her parents own and she lives in with the kids are only two bedrooms and its wall to wall cribs. Also they talked to the dad and he told Dr. Phil that he and her parents went to the doctor to tell him not to do it and he said he wouldn't but he sure did as 8 babies later, here they are. According to another doctor, Dr. Phil had on the show said that this doctor had two law suits against him, one was dropped. And Dr. Phil asked this doctor that does plastic surgery could he tell by looking at the pictures of this mom if she had it done and he said yes her nose, possibly chin, lips. Another one of the doctors said that when you are pregnant and have eclampsy,etc. that your body swells up so alot of the before picture could be the reason that the face shifted and looks different. He said yes, that is true but he looked at a picture of her high school picture and said she did have touches done. Dr. Phil said if she did have those done what would be the cost of them? $20,000.00. That means the money to used for her babies she has been using for her own good. Yes, I feel that those babies need protecting plus her other children and that someone else has to be in control of the money to only be used for their needs, not the mom's. She gets nothing and that is the way it should be. They also said that there will be tons of watching those babies and kids to make sure they are well looked after and not abused. Dr. Phil said the mom's church is rallying together people to help them out when the babies come home. Can you imagine two bedroom house and its already wall to wall cribs, where is it all going? More cribs, bottles, formula, diapers, all the things needed to care for babies. This lady said that they can get her help to rent a house,etc. as its cheaper for them to have her keep the kids then put them into foster homes. I hope they are there all the time watching this mom that she is caring for those babies. The big question was, was she caring for the kids she already has herself?

Yeah, that's why it's so weird: it looks like something cut or dragged across it, and I think that's basically impossible. I brush against the plant when I open or close the window shade, but I just brush the edges of the leaves - the parts of the petioles that have damage on them are positioned AWAY from where my body ever is, and I'm not wearing anything that could cut the plant like that anyway. The leaves aren't showing damage from being touched. The hoya vine nearby may have come into contact with it, but could it cut into it like that? Seems unlikely but I really have no idea. I'm going to be watching the new leaf really closely when it starts growing up in a big way and the petiole is developing. I think gloriosum is a sprawler, not a climber; that's what I remember reading about it anyway. The potting mix it's in is kind of awful - doesn't drain fast, I didn't get around to repotting it this summer - so it stays damp for at least 2-3 weeks.