Cool, Worth. I like to make peace between our native Lepidoptera and gardeners. I asked a while back if planting cilantro really did work. I think if it does, it will be the best way to build that bridge between us and insects. if hornworms only stayed on their side of the fence, no one would ever have incentive to kill them. they are large, high-profil insects which have big appetites. If you think a hornworm is voracious, try feeding out some Cecropia or Polyphemus cats! Sheesh! Cecropias get nearly 5" and a Poly is only 4' at the longest, but thicker and heavier than a tobacco worm. Well, Carolyn posted how cilantro does not always work. Maybe even mere coincidence. I have NO cilantro and still NO hornworms at all! Last year, I regularly combed my neighbor's tomato plants and found only 6 or 7 larvae--all of which were parasitized by the dreaded tachinid fly. This fly [an introduced species, has not only taken a huge toll on sphingids, but has been responsible for the extinction of a few saturniids and is still taking a huge toll on existing species! My neighbor told me just 30 years ago, hornworms were everywhere. I can believe it. Nature is out of whack and the virtual local extinction of the beautiful Io moth only proves it! I used to find Io's like you find hornworms--30 some years ago. I always reared Io's every summer. Now, I haven't even seen a wild Io in 15 years! Yes, hornworms are quite pretty. Not as ornate as our sat cats, but remarkably designed and strategically camouflaged. Green, the color of most plants, caterpillars and even some birds--is also my favorite color. Another hornworm and non-pest, is the ash sphinx, also found in Austin, and the ofen colorful white-lined sphinx. Unfortunately, disease, not insects, has destroyed much of my crop and if I don't get hornworms soon, I'm just going to abort about half of my plants!

Your current salary in an unrelated field should have no bearing on what you would charge, IMO. The only relevance it has is in helping you decide whether quitting your day job for the project manager job makes sense for you financially. IOW, you can decide that switching careers will work for you only if you can make X% of your current salary. There are websites such as salary.com that show pay ranges for construction project management, which you can then adjust for you own levels of education and experience, the requirements of the new job, and the fact that you'll be paid as a consultant and not an employee. Also, if you know others in the real estate rehab business, you might be able to get info from them. If you think about it, it's not that different from evaluating bids and estimates from subcontractors. You want to get a feel for the local going rate for that type of work. It sounds very exciting - I hope it works out well for you!

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder" Not only is this true with kids, but when a parent is totally gone, the child can also fantasize about how wonderful the absent parent is. They can create the perfect parent in their mind if they want. I was 22 when I got together with my BF that had three kids. They were 1, 4 & 6. Their mom was on drugs and left and never came to see them but maybe once a year. I spent my 20's raising his kids without benefit of marriage and when it didn't work out, I was 29 and he wouldn't even let me talk to his kids anymore (unless I would come back to him). I had no legal rights. In a way, I spent my youthful years taking care of his kids while he worked on his career. (he went from a street deputy to detective Sergeant while I was with him, because my being there allowed him to work any shift and not worry about his kids) A house was purchased (in his name only) but I paid on it and helped with improvements but ended up walking away with nothing. (I sometimes think I was lucky to leave with my sanity intact) I get the impression that you think that you and he will have a wonderful little family, especially if the boy is calling you mom. I didn't think of that before gigglemonster said it, but if he is, I can certainly understand why BM would be jumping on you. I'm not saying she's right to, but I could understand that here's her little boy calling you mom and you are trying to make the family she was supposed to have with this 'prize' of a guy and not only that, but he's thinking the kid might forget about her. I'd be fighting mad too. My guess is that the mom is also fairly young, early 20's??? There's a lot of emotions and immaturity too that could be contributing to all the conflict. and I guarantee that she'd tell her little boy to stop calling you mom if he is. He is too young to understand why it's upsetting to anyone, he'd call you both mom if he loves you both... they don't know the difference or think about how the 'real' mom will feel. They are so innocent but that's being ruined by immature people that put him in the middle of all this conflict. I'm really sad for the little boy in this.

As of about 9 AM I am unemployed. It didn't go any way that I had imagined it would so even after all these hours I am still feeling awful. To make a long story short, she begged, pleaded and cried for me not to do that to her, for us to put everything behind us and how bad she needed me. It became so uncomfortable that I told her she was making it hard for me to finish out the day. Eventually her voice began to rise a little so I decided it was time to leave. By the time I was walking out the door she was very angry. Although at that point she didn't say a word, her fingers were banging the register buttons while she was ringing out a customer. Yes, I am relieved to not be going back but I do feel badly for the desperation she was displaying. Call me a softy, but it tugged at my heartstrings. Just wish she had shown how desperate she was to keep me from day one. Thanks to everyone.