Honalee - l'm looking forward to seeing your 'forest'. I've thought about making those tomato cage trees for years but so far haven't as I always use the ones I find at yard sales to prop up perennials. Thanks for the smartjane link which I've bookmarked and will look at later. I'm not sure what normal is but it sounds a bit boring so let's avoid it! LOL I actually love winter - the snow is beautiful and there's a respite from gardening. Occasionally I make "a snow angel!" I love decorating inside my house even more than I like decorating my garden and from March to September my house gets little decorating attention. In fact this year I had spring decor on my mantle until fall! The last few months I've been more serious about editing my house so have given away lots of decor accessories and things I no longer need or want. I have 45 years of accumulated "stuff" so there is lots to go thru and many decisions to make. It's an ongoing project but hope to finish by spring. With Christmas coming I've been shopping for gifts and need to wrap and send them, cleaning my house more thoroughly, and will be doing Christmas decorating starting today. It's taken me the last few days to pack away all the fall decor. Other than that I occasionally volunteer, read, 'play' online, talk on the phone and email, occasionally lunch with friends, attend a few social functions, only watch TV a little as there is not much that interests me on the hundred+ channels I get, and shovel snow and haul wood. I've been shoveling the few inches of snow we've gotten onto my perennials which takes more effort but I want them to survive the colder temps to come as I didn't winterize anything this fall. I heat my house mostly with a wood stove so that takes a bit of work. I do have a good and seldom used gas furnace but prefer wood heat. Oh, of course I cook and make almost all meals from scratch which takes time. Occasionally I do crafts, knit, and crochet altho haven't done much recently - have one knitting project on the go and hope to get it finished soon as it's boring me and I want to start something more interesting. I have 4 indoor pets who require care and attention which takes a bit of time. After Christmas things will slow down and I'll spend time planning, and re-planning, my garden. Plan will then go in the trash and the garden will continue to evolve as usual! LOL It's a lot of fun to plan tho and occasionally I discover something I want to implement. There are a few new craft projects I want to start but won't until the new year. I occasionally travel and have a short trip coming up soon so have to prepare for that. I always make to-do lists which helps me finish projects as I love crossing things off the lists! I love days like today when there's nothing scheduled and I can do only what I want. I will start Christmas decorating but will do it at my own pace so I enjoy it. Plan to finish by the weekend. I think most gardeners are probably creative people who do other creative things when they are not gardening.

How shocking and tragic to lose your dear father so suddenly. It seems so wrong. I know how hard it is just to type the title of your posting. Both my parents have been gone for several years now, but I think of them often--my mother mostly almost every day. You'll always miss your dad, but the pain and confusion you are experiencing now will lessen gradually. It's good to have family members to support each other. Heartfelt condolences. I'm so sorry for your loss. Susan

I remember you moving those babies. And you are so right about having too many hosta. Like potato chips, never too many! Hosta are notoriously reticent to stick their little heads up. Just when you give up, walk away. Pretend you don't care. Don't look. Just sigh loudly. When they think you're not paying attention, and it's too late in the spring, they'll pop out. Same as crape myrtles here. I've learned that just when I'm ready to hack one down, it'll put out leaves. Then, the ones I did hack down stick something up out of the ground. (Usually a crape myrtle middle finger.) Luckily, CMs bloom on new wood, whereas lilacs on old wood. That's something I had to learn about blooming trees and shrubs!

I heard that too Robo and I'm not saying that he didn't need the pain killers (even thought there are so many who are abusers and really don't). The problem is they only work for so long which is where I believe the risk escalates because then they have to either increase the dosage or try a different medication entirely and the options for opiates are limited. After increasing the dosage to the max allowable, patients start to mix what they take with other drugs, up the dosages to dangerous levels or both. The way these drugs are controlled now, the laws make it very difficult for a new prescription to be filled until a day or two prior to the old one expiring without the help of a doctor so some see more than one doctor. If the new doctor doesn't do a MAP report to see their prescription history, they have no way of knowing what the other's been prescribing. It's a mess so it's easy to predict that at some point the FDA will once again tighten the laws, but at whose expense? I'm just in files all day long at a variety of clinics and am completely astonished at what I'm seeing.