Nope, I just finished reading, and Dawn's Journey Into Garden Addiction is even better than Jay's 708' sunflowers. I have expanded my garden five times THIS YEAR. Seeds and milk jugs are EVERYWHERE. The cabinets in my utility room are about to break from the weight of the stuff I have starting/growing there. I have BAGS of soil and fertilizer hidden all over the garage. I am seriously crying I am laughing so hard. Jo Dawn's Journey Into Garden Addiction: "Now, you stop that right now! What kind of a person are you, teasing us and temping us and making us want to grow more tomatoes and peppers than we should? It starts out so innocently, you know, with just one or two plants and you look disdainfully at out-of-control gardeners up the road who are enlarging their garden for the fifth time in 5 years and you say "I'll never be like that because I can stop anytime I want". You start thinking that you like it and you can handle more. Then, it starts getting out of control. You start sneaking out of bed to look at seed catalogs at night so that no one else will realize you're losing control. You order seeds under an assumed name and have them delivered to the empty mailbox next door, so that no one will realize you're on a seed-buying binge. What once was an innocent little thing becomes an addiction. You start saving and scrounging 5-gallon buckets and larger molasses tubs so you can grow just a few more without plowing up some of your spouse's precious green lawn. You start eyeing the sloping pasture north of the house and saying "Well, at least it would drain well at the top though not so well at the bottom." You start hiding packets of seeds all over the house...just a bit of a secret stash here in this cabinet and over there in that drawer, and in the closet in the spare room. Still, you tell yourself, I can stop this madness whenever I want to. The holidays are coming, and while everyone else has visions of sugarplums and candy canes and Santa, you're dreaming of hoophouses, coldframes, a greenhouse and even Wall 'O Waters so you can start feeding your addiction even earlier in the spring....or, maybe even in the winter. You convert the guest room to a seed-starting room with shelves and a fan and banks of lights. Who needs a guest room anyway? We'll just let the guests stay at the hotel! One day....sob! It comes to an end. Your spouse discovers your pile of seed flats, 2-liter coke bottles, milk jugs and the like that you're saving for seed-starting. He finds the bags of compost and manure and Pro Mix you've stashed behind the garage, the stakes and fence poles that keep piling up beside the driveway....the every-growing pile of tomato cages....big ones for indeterminates and small ones for determinates and peppers. Your family stages an intervention and demands you stop enlarging the garden. They just don't "get" your vision of converting the driveway to long rows of containers with a drip irrigation line connecting them. As you listen to them and nod your head as if in agreement, you're thinking "Who needs a drive way? They can park in the bar ditch and walk." Of course, you can't say that to them now. They want you to cut back, get a grip, slow down. They think you've "lost it". So, to keep peace, you agree. You turn your thoughts to winter time and holidays and shopping and baking and family visits and such. You put on your holiday clothes and smile, but inside....down in your soul....where no one can see, you're still planning the garden of your dreams. It isn't your fault you know. Those darn seed companies just keep sending you seed catalogs and e-mails and web newsletters. You know you shouldn't look at those catalogs and you should just delete the e-mails and webletters, but you can't. You realize you can't control your passion for gardening, and even worse, you realize you don't want to control it! And, thanks to Jay, that garden's getting bigger and bigger every day....at least in your mind and in your plans. Around the new year, when "they" are preoccupied with their college football bowl game/NFL championship game/NFL Super Bowl and such, you'll quietly put on your team sweatshirt and sit on the couch and watch the game....but in your mind, it isn't winter and football that you're thinking about, it is seed-starting and the time is now! Or, at least, it is close. Why, if it is January, surely you've already sent Dixondale your order, and if not now, then when? So, see what you've gone and made me do? Now you're getting to Paula too. Where does it end, Jay, where does it end? Dawn"

I do read everyone's responses before posting my own. How many postings have we seen where in the middle of the responses there is "I didn't have time to read everyone else's answers, but I think the solutions is to [whatever]," when somebody up higher has already suggested that. To me, it's just disrespectful. Think about it this way: We are having conversations here. Now picture yourself out to lunch with a handful of friends, trading opinions. But you are zoning out, thinking about your grocery list, checking out the dessert at the next table. Then you make a contribution to the conversation--the same contribution that one of your friends made 10 minutes earlier. What you've basically done is tell that friend that she wasn't worth your time to listen to, that you really don't value that person. Now I know many of you wouldn't do that in person, yet we do it on these boards, just because it's a "virtual" acquaintance? (I'm sure there've been studies into the things we dare say to online acquaintances but would never, ever say to someone's face.) (And I think everybody is strapped for time, so that's really not an excuse, IMHO.) I think it's slightly different if someone here has posted a question asking if she should rip out her powder room's tile floor (just an example! OP of that, don't get upset!)--then she's really looking to see how the yes/no votes stack up.

It's a great idea to actually plan an event for your daughter that she will enjoy, which involves your family. Inviting people to a party who can't be bothered to RSVP only sends the signal they don't care about her. It's always been my feeling that parties are more fun if you invite people you know and care about. (I can't tell you how many times an evening was ruined by someone who thought it was all about them, instead of the guest of honor.) We don't have parties any more; like you, we go places and create memories that way.

Put down the Kim Edwards book of short stories. They just weren't reading well and when it takes four or more days for me to finish a book, that's a sign of problems for the book (i.e. I don't like it). So now on to "Moral Disorder" by Margaret Atwood which will be a quick read. I am loving it so far. Going to a Witches' Brew tea party this afternoon. I have my hat ready and will be dressed in black. Anyone care to come with me?