I go back and forth on all this - I will be 66 end of the week. I just got through 2 years of intensive careing for my mother who was bedridden and living with us. The gardens got a lick and a promise - hubby did most of the work tho. Mom passed in February so I thought now it is my time to devote 24/7 in the gardens - started out great then we hit this 50+ days of Heat Indexes of 100-110 and no end in sight. I found I really can't take the heat like I use to so the gardens suffer again. I will always have flowers and always have more than I can handle but that being said yes I am going to scale back some - add more shrubs (hydrangeas, viburnums, camellias, ect) and go for lower maintenance. I love starting my annuals from seed and taking note of what is doing good in this oppressive heat - I have some real standouts - blackeyes susans, megellan zinnias, vinca, caladiums and coleus. Fussy plants are getting the heave-ho. This has been a great thread - I had no idea there were so many of us 'seniors'. It was very theraputic reading other gardeners responses because I was thinking I was losing interest because I wanted to scale back and was feeling bad about 'old age' setting in -. I was feeling that life was passing me by. In the last 10 years I retired, moved to a different state, lost a husband of 38 yrs, moved my mother in with me, met and married a wonderful man - now it is time to garden :) thanks for listening ...... Lynne

Ok, so i have been having problems with White Flies in New York state. I used the vinegar solution you guys suggested on both my tomatoes AND my green peppers. It seems to have sort of worked on the tomatoes (although i might have treated them during full sun and thus burned a few leaves, whoops) but i think i killed my green pepper plants (or certainly have scared them horribly). They have brown spots on the leaves now (and one of the flowers is shriveling up)A few of the leaves are drooping (or turned a very pale yellow/brown. I cut a few of the dead leaves off (in hopes of exposing the surviving leaves), but my question is this, did i do a number on my green peppers? Could they still survive (i did put miracle grown on them tonight in hopes of saving their lives) and after all this, will they still be edible? I'd rather not poison the family because i sprayed the planets with a vinager/dish soap solution. Thanks for any help you guys can give me. I'm a new gardener (this is my second summer attempting a garden on my patio in just pots, last year was a disaster but this year was amazing, until the white flies showed up and i got it my head to try and "save" the plants. Irony, how i hate thee *sigh*).

Our latest house wasn't a custom build, it was a builder's spec, but I can empathize with you. I spent about a year and half getting punch list items addressed in our previous home (which was a custom build), and have spent nearly six months trying to get this house completed. We did hold back funds this time, but it hasn't made any difference in the response time or interest in getting problems corrected. A recent plumbing issue entailed having to do research online, calling the manufacturer and obtaining replacement parts, and telephoning/faxing the builder (& later telephoning the plumber) for three months before finally getting the plumber here. That sort of thing has been typical, and it's why, like you, I've ended up taking on some projects myself. If we hadn't been so eager to get out of the hotel (our other house sold a lot faster than expected), we might have had better luck by delaying closing. Dh insists that we wait until after our one-year anniversary here, but once that date arrives I intend to hire a handyman to take care of my growing list of minor repairs. We'll be moving in less than five years, and I am seriously considering buying an existing house that is 1 - 3 yrs. old next time. That should be old enough for its owners to have taken care of all of its punchlist items but new enough to not yet need anything major replaced. BTW, something that has helped a little has been to fax or email photos of the problems, when possible, to the builder. I find they are less likely to discount my complaint if they see what I'm describing. Also, when the current builder has questioned me ("But Joe said he took care of that already!"), I insist that rather than argue with me, he come to see for himself whether or not "Joe" has done the job. He took me up on it the first time (& had to admit that "Joe" lied to him), but ever since he has backed down and promised to call the sub.

Sorry for the late post to this fascinating thread. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I used to work for a mining company that had extensive interests in LA. My first reaction was that there might be informal ways to solve the problem there that are less common in other parts of the country. I know when I was a kid in NYC, informal dealings with government bureaucracy was a business necessity, and I'm sure they still are in certain parts of LA. Xavier, let me add my voice to those who've gone past youth and seen how life changes one. Not changing is very bad, evil actually. The second your child is born you will be a changed human being. Have you ever noticed the subtle difference between adults who've had kids and those who haven't? That change is called love. And if people originally gave you a hard time on this thread, trust me, it was done through love. Construction and real estate are humbling professions. Amazing things can and do go wrong (as an example, the most reliable person I know destroyed a $5,000 toilet last week by dropping it. Things happen.) Professionals are worth what they charge if they do a good job. I'm saving perhaps 200k by being my own gc on my MBR renovation, the same kind of money you're talking about. But I'm under no delusion that it's really saving me money. If I put the same effort in my business, I would probably come out far ahead. It just suits my style to do it this way and allow me to get exactly what I want. No contractor would put up with my style without enormous change order fees. But I still rely on experts for many things, architects, engineers, contractors I know, suppliers, variance lawyers (try getting one in NYC someday). Whoever I work with, it's as a team, in which everyone is entitled to be wrong (and will be) and everyone is free to correct each others mistakes. I'm bothering to write this because I was frankly impressed with the quality of the advice you were given. Good advice like this is both hard to find and quite expensive. People can spend thousands of dollars on professionals and not get such good advice. That advice was offered to you as a gift, out of love. Well, you've been lucky. Once. Congratulations. It's always a lot better to be lucky than smart (and usually easier.) Sometimes it happens. The church I go to made mistake after mistake in trying to find a new worship space and ignored the advice of anyone with experience and intelligence. Through dumb luck they landed on their feet after a series of incredible errors, and I must say my respect for the Holy Spirit has been solidified. But don't count on luck. It turns. The best reason to undertake a project like you are doing is that you learn and change by doing something so difficult and seeing it through to the end. My hope for you has nothing to do with whether you succeed or fail in getting your house built, for I have no idea which outcome is actually better for you. My hope is that as a result of doing something so difficult you change and change your outlook on life and come to realize that "government job" for the rest of your life is not what you were created to do and not what would give you the most satisfying life. All the best, Frank