Found another ball on the way home. I ducked into a ts I don't often make it to and they had one! I was a good girl too. I grabbed the bowling ball and perused the beautiful but too pricey glassware and left. Gotta get home to feed the little people. Kids expect regular meals. So just need one more ball... Jane I'll post pics as soon as it's complete. Don't give up on me a move a tad bit slower than you do. You were a speed demon on that wonderful castle.

pelican: That looks very much like the common garden spider I saw out on the blackberries last week. Presuming you don't pester them to the point they feel the need to bite in self defense they are harmless, but great mosquito catchers. Nevertheless, I too have noticed an unusual number of web building spiders this season and am frankly perplexed as to the reason, because until we started catching the northen edges of the recent tropical storms last week, we have suffered a very dry summer and in exchange for corn crops looking dicey, have been virtually mosquito free. Indeed, we have seen far fewer flying insects in general this year, which does not bode well for the reproductive success of birds that rely on soft foods to feed their hatchlings. So what have all those spiders have been living on all summer, let alone give them the energy to reproduce in such profusion?

Ahhh, PM, we all go thru the 'second thoughts' thingy! It is a big, beautiful high chair ...I've seen one like it before & it is bigger than Dollbaby's (which was handmade, I think...got it at an auction yrs ago!) But, the one good thing is just think how much "tray-scapin'" space is there! LOL! Once you can get it out where you would like, you'll have to see if it 'grows on you' more. Looks like Teegan fits perfectly in your Dad's rocker!!! What a heirloom...duct tape & all, I love it! And I bet your Dad is laughin,' too! The knitted sweater jacket looks great (with room to grow as we used to say when we bought kiddie clothes!)...those 'purple-y' items on the TS rack just jumped out at me! It is so funny to be shopping & think of our Forum friends! LOL! I love the Fall/Winter decor you found! That framed pic is so darn cute! And that nutcracker is great w/your Fall counter stuff! But, those 'meeses'...too funny! (maybe they are from Cinderella's Disney carriage) Looks like you're having fun! TFS! Jeanne S. (& I appreciate all you do w/albums & such on this forum!)

You all are very kind as usual..you're not being blunt, and you're being very helpful (and I'm a psycho-more than usual. But it might be my new usual. Things are moving this way) running, I wonder whether it's one of the approaches I love the most..it was developed by Michael White if I'm not mistaken. It does sound like it. There, one does create a story ..and picks certain bricks to build that house so to say, a house of his story..out of thousand brincks that he has, he picks hundreds -and chooses not to pick others, as to confirm his own story. While other bricks continue to be at his disposal..they don't fit. They don't fit whatever he builds, and thus he never uses them. Maybe he doesn't even see them, at times. Sounds familiar? It might be called a narrative approach, I'm not very sure about English terminology. And I'm desperate to continue to write my story. And I want to have some control over it. Who doesn't. It's damn hard to do. Because my control is getting very small precisely when it had a chance to be bigger, and precisely when I sorely need it. It shrinks by the day. It shrinks and it doesn't depend on me that much already, and will depend less and less. So I have a very little time. I'm revisiting my past a lot, that's true, and I'm bargaining about some of "what ifs"-but I probably think too much about future right now because it comes faster than I thought it would. And future -whatever part of the story I have yet to write-it does include the current house. Say I don't want to sell it, or to rent it, or to get rid of it. I want to keep it in the family and all. I do love it. But it shapes to be my "forever" house too fast. Simply speaking-I don't want to die here. And it's very hard becoming a huge burden to your family. I'll be a very big burden. I already am-bui I didn't imagine the degree of how fast it goes downhill, and what will entail. It'll get worse, and it won't be pretty. It will be ugly, and very.. non-elegant. No white camelias.. And I want to die at home. Well preferably to live and die at home, but if living is impossible then to die. And my home is very very far away. And for millions of people that might be a brick that they wouldn't choose. Where they're'd want to die. It's a kind of a luxury too..I'm not even sure that brick is at my disposal)) I realize all that. Yet to me it's fundamental. It's like to write ..well I don't know.."Wuthering Heights" and leave out Heathcliff. My Heatchcliff is not a person, not a passion for something, not a..I don't know. Everybody and their Heathcliff. My Heathcliff is my land. I spent many years trying to write a different story. But that brick Is too heavy to move, I'm not taking it out.. My house of a story might be a pretty place without it. But it would be a lie. And I want authenticity. As with a house.. And to be a burden here...very practically speaking ..lots of money too. Pain to them and torture to me- and tons of money. I need to start leaving-well partially leaving, I'm not going to leave my family and this country once and for all, I'll have to divide my time between here and there, which will be very hard as well-I need to start leaving much faster than I thought. While l I have a capacity to do so at all. While I have my brain still computating things for me, you know? because it's not a given. I thought whatever happens-at least to the very end I have my dignity. I can be of some minor use to my loved ones. One can still think, talk, be a rock in a sense he's there for them.. That's not how things will work in my case, not neccessarily. One needs to be of a sound mind in order to have dignity..to be a rock..to be anything at all. And mind will most likely crumble as everything else does. I'm so so sorry to bring you into my vortex or how it's called. But there are very few people who know these details-and one of them is my husband, and the rest, I pay them money)) I don't want to make others too sad over things they cannot change-so add to it my huge effort to show everybody a different story that you write only for their sake. A story where everything looks better and holds a promise.. It's too many stories to juggle at once..))) And my fingers loose the capacity to hold a pen. I don't mourn my old place. I mourn my old me. After all I'm to separate from her soon. She's a very questionable person of course-but I didn't have anybody else)) I do want to live in the moment (to that end we yesterday went to the party and had fun)) we'd choose it anyway over open house lol, but you probably convinced me not to go at all. Maybe while I was writing here and reading your answers-I lost the incling to go to. Having this thread was enough ) And I do want to accept things .Desperately so. It's just hard because almost every day brings something else I have to adjust to and thus accept. Gardens and orchids do make me happy:) Believe me I'd rather stop writing where I was at orchids' part. Totally my fault to let it slide like that. I'm sorry about all this oversharing..I think it partially falls on you too because is easier to say certain things in English. It being not my native language. It's liberating, to a degree. Not fair to you of course, but you're too good for your own good ..)) I should probably have to just leave it all unanswered. Yet all of you wrote to me and shared with me your thoughts and stories from the bottom of your heart. I'm giving you back something you don't need. But it's also from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.. You are fascinating people, you opened so many new stories to me, and your existence in my life-virtual or not-is also a brick that I'd rather hold on to.