What a gorgeous ornament, and an incredible gift. It almost made me cry too! I like that you have it in the doggy den to watch over Marley. It is so special and now you can see it every day and not just at Christmas. Your doggy den turned out really nice. Tho doesn't Toeby consider it a "cat house"? LOL. I am so glad you plan to get Marley a friend, he will really love that. Goldens are such dear, sweet dogs. (my son, Jason, has one that is almost 10 yrs old.) Chelcass, you are so talented as well as a sweet, generous friend. hugs, Karen

Nae, Dozens of posts here deal with Night-Blooming Cereus (NBC), a non-specific name covering a number of different cacti (columnar and epiphytic/vining) genera and species, but fortunately, the care is almost the same. Your epiphytic NBC needs warmth, indirect light (lots) with a little direct light (if you can), a rich soil, and regular watering when dry. For more, just do a search at this forum for 'cereus' - most of the hits you'll get will, I think, deal with NBC, a never-ending saga here at the C&S Forum.

Nancy- Westbourne Dad Kirbys Crosscut Saw was a bonus plant from Mary Jane when I bought some others. I had no idea what it looked like until it bloomed. The jury is still out on that one for me. All I know for sure is that it is very different looking. Can't decide if I like that or not LOL! I LOVE ORANGE VELVET. The color just glows :-) I do have a tendency to love certain colors and this one hits it right on the mark. I do have to move it though because I thought I had put it in a very good spot along in the planterbox in the front yard. But it is shorter than the ones in front. So I have a new spot picked out that is in the front row were nothing can get in it's way. Going to move it after bloom season.

I agree with LindaC. As for lunch either go some place cheap or maybe have her over to your house for lunch if your budget won't allow going out. The idea of lunch with a friend is to get together and chat and spend time together. Whether that's in a restaurant or your house shouldn't matter. I have friends who are on tight budgets, and when they say no going out this month or something like that, we simply make alternate low-cost or no-cost plans. No shame in it, everyone has their own budget and (most)everyone has been on a tight budget so people understand. I have a group of friends who got into the gift-giving mode. Five of us - and we ended up being obligated to recognize each of our birthdays. Well, I didn't want to do it anymore, not so much for the cost (although that did come into play) but because I had to agonize over what to get them every year. So I recently brought it up, could we quit giving each other gifts? We already do a sort of greed game gift exchange in Dec so we decided to let that suffice. I think everyone was relieved. You know, some people just love to give gifts. It's not that I don't like giving so much, it's more that I agonize over what to give and probably don't get it right more often than not. By the same token, I end up with gifts from others which I really don't want or need -- it's not that I'm not grateful, but I can see them in that same situation, wondering what to get me, and ending up with something I'm not that wild about. For me, friendship is way more about spending time together, doing whatever, than it is about exchanging gifts.