Jan, YEP, that too was the day it snowed in Palmdale. My older son Sean was in Palmdale that day and told me about that. I know some who really GET snow are laughing at me---but to me that IS snow even though it didn't stay. Good for you getting your baking done! I'm in the process of finishing up a whole lotta glass flowers for selling this Saturday and a friends vendor sale. I've come up with a new display and now I have a big truck to put more of them in! :-)I took some photos of the finished ones yesterday and hope to post them soon. I'll be getting work/teacher gifts wrapped and the Christmas letter all printed up today. I still cannot believe it is December. It didn't seem like November was here at all! Just flew by in Mach Speed! Love, Jules

That's what I would've guessed. I've got another video that's uploading now but is going to take a long time. There are two of these wrens that hang out at the edge of my woods and the other one let me get right up and close, tonite. I'll post this video tomorrow if I can get it to load. I have a satellite connection that conks out if I don't sit here and wiggle the mouse to keep the screen up. Try not to laugh at me, I beg! I've gone a lot overboard then I would normally to the point where I laughed at myself a few times. It could take me a few days, so be patient, as it's kind of fun. It's definitely dorky... which is worth all ya all's time. Dax

Oh Dorothy...I can relate to your needing help on taking out your decorations each season. I have mine stored in the attic. Even though I can easily walk into it , I still have to haul it down the stairs and then back up when I have to put it all away. I was just telling DH last night, Do you think we'll be hiring someone to do this job for us one day!! lol...it's not easy. jane

"Blood ties have nothing to do with it." My point exactly (see my previous post "Attachments"). I have two male cousins who divorced their first wives. I love my cousins but also cared deeply for the women to whom they were married. I still consider them family. They are welcome in my home. I visit them when I am back there. My relationship to them, my consideration of them as "family" does not alter the fact that they are no longer "family" to their ex-spouses. My one cousin refused to speak to his mother (my aunt) for an extended period of time because, like Kathline's X-MIL, she refused to renounce his XW. Her attitude was "You divorced her. I didn't." Eventually, my cousin got over himself and reconciled with his mom. In my post on another thread, I wrote that mothers and their children are and always will be family to one another; that fathers and their children will always be family to one another. In writing this, I was simply acknowledging a biological bond; in writing that XWs & XHs are no longer family to each other, I was referring to a "legal" attachment. (For those of you who did not read that earlier thread of mine, I suggested we can become attached/bonded to others on as many as seven different levels: emotional, spiritual, legal, financial, sexual, geographical, and biological/parental. We do not necessarily become attached to others on all 7 dimensions and the intensity of the attachment may be differ, also). I believe it was KKNY who responded to the post with something along the lines of "when ex-spouses share children, there will always be a relationship between them. I agree. And I would hope for the sake of any shared children, the relationship would be cooperative and cordial. It just strikes me as ironic (and somewhat contradictory) that some would deny the validity of the loving attachments that can and do exist between Stepparents and their stepchildren because of the absence of a biological bond but will vehemently insist that the bonds they have to the biological relatives of their former spouses remain valid and deserving of respect and recognition. Because, after all, "blood ties have nothing to do with it." I agree.