Thank you kimmsr! I've only seen the two. First one I killed, and 2nd one I left on the tansy. I'm going to hunt him today and start keeping a can of soapy water out there for such things. I also read you should put the dead bodies in the garden, as this warns the other guys. Hopefully I won't get invaded, and as slow as they are, I can hand pick them. I did it to myself. For the last three years I've been saying "Every time I did new sod, I find all these grubs...can't believe I've never actually seen a Japanese beetle." I should have been knocking on wood.

Maybe he remembers being a 17 year old boy and dating and what went on and the sneaking bothers him. It would bother me also..I think your daughter and her boyfriend need to re earn his trust to fix his insecurities, even if it is more difficult than it should be. And it appears she IS trying to...but she also commited a fairly large trust issue so correcting it will take time. A lesson learned for her for sure. He on the other hand could also be face to face with the reality now of her age...and how quickly she will mature now. Once they date, the years go by quickly, and a daddy (especially step dad) can quickly take a back seat in her life from being the ONLY male in her life, to one who now has little control and notice in her life. Maybe that also bothers him, maybe he is pouting. I agree with others, since this is so out of character of him, he might also know, or suspect more than he is sharing...the worse thing tho that can happen is the two of you become divided in this....bad for both your daughter, both of your realtionships with her, and your marriage too. Over riding each others authority is not good, even in step relationship. I personally think it teaches children subtly to play parents against each other. And on another aspect, there is much guilt with it from both parents and child. And it is really tuff on a marriage. I know you want to believe she learned a lesson, and maybe she has, but what is wrong with a boy who went along with this too...that is what could be concerning the rancher....his "ethics and morals" are obviously not squared up with good values not matter how nice he seems up front. And ont the other hand, kids are still kids, and think like kids too...but that does not mean we should just accept that thought process either. Don't always take her word now where she is and what she is doing, randomly check on her, so she knows a repeat act might be busted. Maybe that would comfort rancher. He cant choose her dates for her tho. And if he is too anti boy against this boy, she will just sneak more and more...which is what caused her to sneak to begin with..instead put checks and balances in place..and dont be afraid to check on her often, no matter how much she gets annoyed. She commited the error of judgment and it should cost her a bit so she does not repeat the error. Feel no guilt over it. Good luck..raising teens is never fun is it. And step families make it ten times worse. I come from such a family myself. Good luck my heart goes out to you.

Thanks everyone, I was starting to think I was just here by myself, lol. This is getting addictive...I am trying to figure out why I have been hauling around that bookcase since college days. It's outta here.. Last week the "church lady" came by with a horse trailer and took the armoire and two French chairs, window treatments, all that fireplace equipment, some Christmas ornaments and myriad of other stuff. She was so excited she and her husband carried that heavy armoire down the steps by themselves. I have never seen a tiny woman carry that big of an object!! It was superhuman strength I guess when you want something that bad it pumps you up!! So I open the armoire and there is even stuff in there! OMG, I have always prided myself on being the anti-clutterer. It was some sort of denial. No wonder! It is all behind closed doors. So anyway, she took all of that stuff too and the fake ivy!!! There were pillows, yet even more Italian linens and some tassels from who knows what. They would have taken more stuff but it started pouring down rain. I told her about the drop leaf table in the basement that needs fixing and she said her husband could fix it and the two matching chairs. In the meantime I finished the kitchen cabinets and got rid of about 20 lids to tupperware/grocery store storage containers that have no bottoms probably my dogs chewed them up. Of course I almost got away with getting rid of more lids but my husband was there getting them back out of the garbage saying he might need those for something. I even cleaned out the "junk drawer" that everyone has, that scary kitchen drawer full of old curtain hardware, errant screws and picture hanging apparatus from days gone by. Even telephone hook up stuff that probably doesn't exit anymore to some fossilized princess phone. There was another cabinet with these special diet mixing devices that whir up fabulous healthy drinks that you never end up making and has been in the cabs since the '90's. Gone! Remember the lady with the horse trailer is the chef from church so she brought me dinner for that night. Some wonderful herb pork chops with these twice baked potato things that were heavenly, guess I better give away those tiny clothes because this isn't helping that cause and not to mention another whole batch of her special jalapeno pimento cheese. Nirvana!! I could get used to this. This might be moving along faster but I have to sneak and give some of this stuff away or my Archie Bunker husband is standing there saying you're giving that away? That's worth something and having a running repertoire going on the whole time with hands on hips watching things go by: YOU'RE GONNA NEED THAT@#$%!! He doesn't look like Archie more like Gerald McRaney but his personality is eerily similar these days. What's up with that? Do all men turn into Archie Bunker after about 25 years of marriage? FYI: I don't look a thing like Edith, not that there's anything wrong with it. Anyway, I have to schedule these sneak horse trailer hauling soirees when he's out of town. My neighbors are getting nervous seeing all of this Sanford and Son going on over here and think we might be moving, the height of all insults moving from the neighborhood. But I assured them I was just doing spring cleaning so all is well on "Wisteria Lane" for another week.

JJ, when you put the photos into a different format and when you singled out the photos, they came into focus for others. That is one of the values that you get from both culling out the insignificant ones and organizing the reamaining ones. The importance or the significance of what is left comes into much sharper focus. I am in the middle of culling and organizing our photos and I it has become evident to me that much value and appreciation is stuck in oblivion when the photos are a mess in boxes. They must be curated and organized to tell the story. If not, they are like a bowl of alphabet soup with letters that don't spell anything. I had started a post about organizing photos, if you are interested. One example is that we had a box of photos that FIL had brought home from WWII. They had been languishing in a box that was casually shoved into a drawer and mostly forgotten about. I took them and put then into a small book and placed the book on the dining table. Hubs picks it up and finds himself absolutely drawn into them as if he is seeing them for the first time. That is not the case, He knew about them. He had just forgotten about them because they have been hidden in a drawer in a box for so long. After composing them in a book and noting the inscriptions that FIL wrote on the back, they have become a personal story of a young man who turned 19 years old and arrived for D Day one day later. He was but a boy when he went to be a part of a tank crew in Europe. This is his story and now it has been revealed for us to share. I think that it is priceless and to think that it lingered untold for so long. He told us his story and we just relegated it to a hidden box. I find that to be rather sad in retrospect. In organizing our photos, I have gained and experienced some revelations and realizations of who and where we have come from and who lurks in the heritage of my grand children. Life's moments and lives that have gone have come forward and I am truly enjoying the journey. It is important to cull out the debris so that you can see the value of what you have. I have yet to discard the rejects. They will get one more pass through before they go out. In my estimation, I have rejected somewhere around one third of what was being kept.maybe a bit more than that. Now, the remaining ones are being divided into two collections, one for each of our grown children. I plan to keep none for us. I want to hand them down to my kids in a format that they can be seen in. I don't want to pass down a mess of stuff that has no voice. After the photos are taken care of, I plan to include some genealogy documents in the pages. It seems a perfect compliment to the photos and will explain some of them. I have also made sure that the kids have all the information that they need after I am gone and not have to go searching for bank accounts, revolving charges on credit cards or any of the stuff that they are going to need to know. I even have a document of all my passwords for any forum or bank account, etc.