Update on the note. I took it back to the teacher. I told her I knew who the girl was and knew the mom would really want to know this. Teacher said she would. But the teacher also said that this note really disturbed her and the only reason she told me about it was because she is a parent, otherwise she would have thrown it away. I told her that regardless of being a parent, anything that shows a child is in danger should be addressed. This was not just a kiss, this was more than playing doctor and hopefully the girl's parents can now stop an unwanted pregnancy from happening before it is too late. I think my thoughts came across as some crazed parent trying to hold back and control too much a child who needs to be able to grow. I did not intend to come across that way at all. Our dd is a very strong child. She has asked for our trust and some independence. Basically she has been given too much freedom and is not handling it as she had hoped she could. Pretty common for her age. The schools have also told us to sit back and let our kids try to learn to be responsible without our involvement. In doing so we have set back and watched our child plumet gradewise. At our conference the teachers all thought her grades were not all that bad. DH was appauled. A straight A student all of the sudden getting As on tests but totally failing all other assignments, not turning in a 160pt project, is not what we would consider "not that bad". She basically slipped by and now as parents we are stepping in to say enough is enough and want to help her get back on track. We are going to help her with whatever she needs to get back the grades she takes such pride in getting. Same with the social stuff. She has tried to handle it on her own. She needs guidance without being told what to do, advice so she can see her situation for what it is and make better choices. She has to learn that when she breaks the rules there are consequences and as parents we have to enforce them without being cruel. We are seeing a patern of rudeness, lying, stealing etc that is really out of her character and she knows it. She just does not know how to manage it. She is going to her 9th year in fastpitch softball with us telling her that we don't care how well she does, she is there to exercise and have fun and be with her friends- none of which go to her school. Twice a week she teaches a craft at her old daycare to the toddlers. They get so excited to see her and she really does have fun. The teacher has realized that she is not capable of picking the project and setting it up herself so the staff will assist her. But primarily my dd teaches it. I fixed my sewing machine and since I might gain weight with chemo, she and I decided to make sundresses together. We may invite a friend or two over also. She was very excited. My sis sews- degree in home ec- and I took dd over this weekend and dd was excited to see all the patterns and stuff. DH also is so starving to spend time with her. She is so outgoing and he wants her to kayak with her. She and I talked about her developing a greater bond with him and she knows it would be good for her. Basically I have a wonderful daughter who is growing up way faster than she can handle and she needs our help in doing so. The discussion about my making my boyfriend wait to earn a kiss actually came up because she asked me about kissing a boy and such. I openly talk to her and she does tell me more than some kids tell. I am so fortunate we can talk like that. As for smothering her and the camera stuff. We live in a spot that gives our front door acess to everyone walking by. This is a huge temptation even to kids that she does not know. Everyone knows where she lives. We have actually been telling her guy friends that they need to be honest and if they want to stop by they need to wait until we are home, same with the phone. Several have taken us up on this and dh and I greet them and let them know that respecting our home shows they are respecting our dd. The good ones get it, the bad ones just don't care. With my being home possibly through Oct/Nov we have the chance to help her get her schoolwork, social issues and such all in order. She is learning balance and it is not easy but she is learning. Again, hope I did not come across as too freaky.

I like Joe and applaud his creativity. However he does have a, shall we say, few marks on his record that are questionable to many too. I won't go into it but people can do some research and decide if they want to worship him or hate him. I choose to respect the good things he's done but not go overboard in unwarranted praise. He's definitely a "different person" both is good ways and in bad but all in all, he's done a lot of good there. That said, there's a lot of things people don't understand. Again, there's a big difference between jail and prison. People need to educate themselves on the differences before making a lot of the comments out of misinformation. Joe is successful mostly because he's in Maricopa Co, AZ. I seriously doubt he'd be successful in Wisconsin, New York or Washington, DC. I liked the way of the tent cities but they wouldn't work in St. Louis. Joe's point on them is, you're in the middle of the desert - you want to run? RUN! How far do you think you'll get? You think you could leave them essentially unguarded in the suburbs of Lincoln, NE? Now the "chain gangs". There's a lot of misconception on that too. Joe affectionately calls them "chain gangs" but don't kid yourself that it's the 1950s gangs where they're building private projects for the warden, being beaten with whips and pipes and the like. They're simply in CHAINS, (hence the term chain gangs!) out cleaning graffiti, picking up garbage in the ditches and the like. What's wrong with that? If they weren't secured people would scream that their children, pets and wine coolers wouldn't be safe. Also, for good or bad and I'm not entering or encouraging the debate, but Arizona has laws conducive to this type of system. Other states DO require a full library, weights, TV with full cable lineup and the like so they can't take it away. Plus often people only look at the cost savings of the green balogna, and overlook the millions spent defending the lawsuits against Joe and the system which they feel they want to spend but many if not most other places won't spend that money. So when you look at the big picture, I truly doubt Joe could be successful outside of Arizona or at lest in more moderate climates of varying types. I always question people when they throw out "they're HUMAN BEINGS!". Yes. So am I and so are you. What's your point? They DESERVE full cable because they're humans? I don't have cable. When will you give me my cable, additional education, steak & lobster meals, etc? The idea of punishing is to deprive certain things as an incentive to not do that again. But in today's world it's felt that when little Jimmy steals a candy bar, he should be rewarded with more candy since he probably was deprived at home. I also don't understand the chant of "humiliation". People who do that simply don't know what humiliation is. By definition, I cannot "humiliate" you. Only you can feel humiliated. I can only assume that those people feel tha prisoners shouldn't feel shame, remorse or anything for the crimes they committed. And for anyone who thinks a beat cop makes big bucks, ROFL. Why don't you go become a cop then? All this notwithstanding, there are some bad cops. And they should be prosecuted and jailed/imprisoned too in my opinion. But it's certainly irrational to condemn a whole system because one person was mistreated one time. That's not even worth commenting on further. As I said though, the system could certainly use a good healthy infusion of creativity to cut costs and increase effectiveness.

I was recently diagnosed with EDS. I am 57 but have had similar issues as your GD since a severe bout of mono at age 32. My health has been a rollercoaster since then. (I am currently facing double hip replacements but have not committed to this yet.) It is my belief the viral/bacterial illness can trigger auto-immune illnesses and these are unchartered territory or at least terribly difficult to adequately diagnose. Most treatments focus on symptom abatement; not cures. You need to do your own research on Lyme and the suppression of adequate Lyme treatment. My son was hospitalized for over a week, several months after a supposed mono illness when he was 18. He kept having recurring fevers, illness, similar to your GD; they thought he had lymphoma. Finally did biopsy surgery. He had a team of infectious disease specialists, was in strict isolation, underwent a million tests also and everything was inconclusive. He lost about a year dealing with his illness. He is now 28 and has recurrent gastrointestinal issues and is about 50 # underweight. Cannot gain; dr's think he's fine. He also has the EDS characteristics but no diagnosis. Doesn't like doctors now. I have always had the hypermobility issues as did my mother and siblings although they had no EDS diagnosis. I do not know about any connections between EDS and issues with these mystery illnesses, however I suspect any viral/bacterial illness that affects joint inflammation will be exacerbated by EDS as it is a connective tissue problem. I have read studies where the use of antibiotics actually helps with the vascular type of EDS in mice. Antibiotics are also used successfully in some patients with MS. It is above my pay-grade to make the connections between a genetic syndrome and these mystery illnesses let alone why they are helped by antibiotics. My suspicions lead me to think Lyme may be a big factor for your GD. She may have EDS; probably in fact...doesn't mean she does not have Lyme also, or one of the other many rheumatic, auto-immune illnesses. Could be the perfect storm of several issues. Check out www.roadback.org It will at least help you think past the limitations of what her dr's may be able to tell you. God bless you for looking into this for her and I hope she feels better soon.

Well those new plants from the Boncel leaf look like regular cylindrica pups, no stocky shaped leaves.. This tells me that Boncel could be nothing more than a chemically treated offset from birth and will grow out of the short, stocky habit over time and go back to it's natural shape. It would be interesting to hear from anyone that has an old, large Boncel as to what leaves look like after years of growth. My experience seeing pictures of begonias grown under lights is that colors are changed and much intensified vs the same species grown in strong natural sunlight. That might explain Stush's red colors in leaves of Coppertone, altho what I'm calling pink you might describe as red. I think the greens may have had a reddish tone, so this might be what you noticed. Regarding your low humidity in the tent, how big is it? I initially thought you have a small enclosure with a few plants in it, now I'm thinking you can walk into it. The desert type sans like your pinguicula and the one similar to Samurai or possibly sp. Lavranos 23251 won't appreciate higher humidity, but trifasciata types and parva might. If you haven't already, setting bowls or saucers of water among the plants should raise humidity levels. Dear Norma or whoever wrote about a 3 foot terminal spine may have meant 3 inches, which would still be a formidable spear. Chahinian says that leaves only grow to a foot long in maturity, and interestingly also says that the leaves go from sticking out in all directions in youth to being arranged in single file at maturity. For those technical folks, this is called a distichous form of growth. What are the 'other plants' in the tent that are doing so well? I don't get why the cilantro isn't growing like a weed in those conditions. Good old Houzz, I found that you can close the big spaces between paragraphs to a more reasonable space by submitting, clicking on Edit at the bottom, and clicking Submit again.