Hi Windeaux, I apologize for taking so long to reply to your questions. We had a three and a half hour, unexpected power outage in the neighborhood yesterday which fouled up the ever-wonderful Time-Warner service until about an hour ago. I went out and bought a new modem and fixed it myself. The "caring customer service representative" at Time-Warner stated last night that since I still have TV and telephone, "you are not a priority repair, so it will not be until September 5 that repair can be there." To answer your questions, HMF and its Administrators don't actually have a policy concerning archived collections and gardens. They are primarily concerned with the moderation, development and maintenance of the site, which is actually rather expensive, both in time and money. ALL of the information you find on HMF has mainly been added to the site by volunteers who have selected and added the content. If the information found in the REFERENCES conflict with each other or with patent information, they take the time to point out both that there may be an error in rose literature or even in the patent. The owners are completely open to suggestions as to content, but a number of the archived "collections" are there because I found them interesting; I collected the information and I put them there. (I, too, am a HMF volunteer, but only work on the site when I have time and on projects which interest ME). When I proposed adding archive nursery listings to the Admins, there was a very real concern the archive listings might confuse HMF site users into thinking the lists represented viable, current sources for roses. The roses listed in the archives under the nursery's name still show up on the BUY FROM tab, but on the rose page, they are not listed as commercially available unless another nursery has included the rose in their inventory .... too much programming time was involved in excluding the nursery from the BUY FROM tab. Once we hashed out how to prevent that issue, I was thanked and told to run with it. I am always on the lookout for old catalogs and nursery listings to flush out the history of roses in America. The main concern was not having these archives show up in searches where they may confuse users that the archives represented available business with available stock. There is always the concern about not running up server space (which gets quite expensive), clogging the system and putting unnecessary demands on the programming. All of which gets quite expensive, particularly for a site which has to completely rely upon donations and the incredibly small number of premium members. It amazes me how so many people resent the $2 a month requested support for such a tremendous resource. I guess many believe that anything on line should be completely free because they are unaware of how quickly the costs of server space, programming, moderation and maintenance run up! Many would also be quite surprised if the on line "attacks" from all over the world were publicized. Spammers, thieves and trolls attempt to breach the programmed security very frequently and that takes time and skill to prevent. All of which adds to the already strained resources. I'm amazed how inexpensive HMF has remained when I learned about the skill, resources and cost required just to keep the site open, much less develop and add features and content. btw ... do you support HMF with a premium membership ? Do you have the list of roses Mike Lowe grew in his garden and nursery? If you do, I'll be happy to add an archive documenting his collection, when I have time. I am already working on several projects for the site. If you could/would please send me any such lists as either Word or Excel files, I'll be happy to create and upload them to archive pages. Catalog lists are great, but how much more could be archived from garden lists! A private collection can be many times larger and more interesting than just what was propagated in a given year. I haven't gotten around to adding the information from the Ashdown catalogs yet. It can be QUITE time consuming. I received some major eye-rolling and annoyance over the time it required to study that many ROYAT catalogs and compile the list of over 700 varieties they contained. Compiling and uploading these archives is exactly the same process that is required for a nursery (who already HAS the information, often in forms necessary to upload) to create, update and maintain their nursery listings. It's distressing to me AND the many volunteers who work on HMF how many nurseries can't/won't/aren't able to create and maintain their own nursery inventory lists. There really are many more varieties available than are shown, and from quite a few more sources. I know it requires effort and time, both of which are sorely lacking in many of the nurseries, but someone has to make the time and generate the energy to accomplish it. It behooves the businesses to put the information there and maintain it as it has been proven that an up-to-date inventory on HMF can/does result in increased sales and is very efficient, low cost advertising. We volunteers cannot maintain the nursery listings as much as we would like to do on HMF simply because there are too many listing nurseries, and too many other projects being worked on. HMF needs to have the nurseries participate in maintaining their inventories, both due to the time involved as well as to insure their accuracy. Some users want to help by posting this or that rose is available at a particular nursery, and that is appreciated, but it doesn't help. There is one European nursery who still doesn't maintain their list. From the many "available from" posts to the Q&A, in just a few seasons, this nursery's availability list exceeded 900 varieties! No one removed what WASN'T available, new ones just kept being added from the helpful "available from" posts. You can't maintain the accuracy of a database that way! Lyn G., RoseBlush1 on GW, has spent time fixing problems in content like no one would believe! It's taken her several years of evenings to correct misinformation and mis entries, adding references, not to mention her efforts to keep up with new introductions and registrations. Those are things we all expect to be accurate and simply to be there, but if it had been accomplished by a "paid employee", the cost of the site would be prohibitive. I will be happy to look in to whether the information remains on the server about the Ashdown and Lowe collections as well as Cliff's from Euro Desert. I agree with you the information is invaluable, particularly when attempting to determine whether a variety was ever commercially available here. That can make a tremendous difference when trying to identify a found rose. Archiving Paul's encyclopedia of roses on HMF, I believe, would require some pretty heavy programming incorporate into HMF. That is not only time consuming, but potentially quite expensive. If it was simple and cheap, it would already be archived and accessible elsewhere. Someone has to pay for keeping it available and useable. Based upon how difficult it has been to get people to support HMF, I can imagine what it would probably be like to get support for his encyclopedia. If you know of someone with the disposable resources and who would be willing to support such a project, please get them with HMF to see if it may be something possible to accomplish. Also, the current volunteers all have their own long "to-do" lists, so if you can also find someone who understands the working of a complex database to do the work, that would make it more feasible. HMF is open to anything which may make the site more valuable and useful as a resource. There is a tremendous level of pride for the site, but it genuinely boils down to costs. Someone has to pay for the costs required to accomplish and maintain the requested additions. If they can be accommodated within the current budget and it can be shown to be a beneficial change, the people at HMF are completely agreeable to accommodating the improvements. I'm not aware of any suggestions which have been refused out right. I do know of many which have been put on the "to do" lists and will very likely appear once there are sufficient resources available to put them in place. I'm extremely pleased the only "agenda" I have found is to make the site as complete, useful, accurate and interesting a resource as can be created while keeping it as efficient and cost effective as it must remain. I, for one, am proud that I have had the opportunity to view HMF as it has evolved from its early days to what we see today and have loved participating as a volunteer on the site. I honestly believe that the part I have played over the years has enriched my own rose life and I can now interact with rose lovers from around the world. Kim

"I'm interested that you don't like Jack & Jill bathrooms - why? I guess lots of people don't, because one rarely sees them. Though when I think of a Jack & Jill bathroom, I think of one that has really 3 compartments - 2 outer rooms each with toilet and sink, and a shared inner room with tub/shower. It makes sense to me, because I can share a tub or shower but want my own space for the stuff I store in the bathroom (separate from my husband, we drive each other crazy with this), and because I want 2 toilets. However, at least one would have to be accessible from a hall, not just from the bedroom." This is exact set-up we have in our current home, but as the only bathroom(s) in the house. The only addition is that the W/D are also in the center room with the tub, and each "half bath" also contains a linen closet. On the plans, it's called a "compartment bath", so maybe that's as a distinction from the traditional "jack and jill" that is a single bath open to two rooms. Ours is an MCM home, and the two doors into the compartment bath are from two short halls that each serve two bedrooms. It works just as you think it would. The only downside functionally is that there are a LOT of doors in a small area. It's an ideal set-up for just the two of us. But it will give us fits when it comes time for resale. A traditional buyer won't get it. Heck, they probably won't get the MCM house, either. So we'll be looking for just the right buyer (as were the POs when they sold the house to us).

You know what, yes, DH and I are much better off financially than BM. But, that is because I work my butt off to make sure that I am making enough money to cover everything. I make significantly more money than DH does and if he were by himself he would never be able to afford the things we are able to together. I will not apologize for working hard and making sacrifices to better myself. I will not apologize because I am able to afford to buy oldest son an Ipod for his birthday and BM is not. She is the only one making the choice to stay at her waitressing job. She is the only one choosing to work only three days a week barely working more than five hours each shift. Dh and I both work 40 hours a week and most times more and yet still manage to make time to work around the kids schedule and get everything done. I am the person who has decided that I want more success in my career and is going back to school. BM said she was going back to school but then never showed to her classes and failed her classes. Dh and I both are on the run from far before sunrise to far after sunset ... so no I will not apologize or feel guilty that I have a nice home or that I just went shopping to get some new work clothes... and it bugs me to no end to hear not only the people on this forum (certain people) throwing that in the air all of the time... but BM as well. I don't really care if she is broke or can't afford to do what she wants and I dont really care if her BF totalled her car and she can't afford another one so she has to drive her moms... that is not my problem ... We make sure the kids are taken care of and that is the end of our responsibilities. I will not feel guilty for making something out of my life and I will not feel guilty for encouraging DH to do the same. Before I came along he was so low on himself and his own abilities he never even thought to work in a managerial role in his profession... now, that is something he is actively working towards. Oh, and BTW just an example of the full effort or care BM puts in... the other night oldest son got in trouble at school.. school called dad ... in other words son in BIG trouble... well, BM picked kids up from school that day (DH had called bm to let her know what happened) oldest son lied to BM denying what happened ..(he had no idea BM and DH had talked) needless to say oldest in even more trouble... But at the crux of the problem is that this has been happening more and more with oldest. So, I decided to say something to both BM and DH ... I told them look the only reason why oldest thinks he can get away with lieing to the two of you and about the two of you is because you cant seem to have a conversation longer than 5 minutes without arguing... DH said I agree ... he hears everything that we are doing and saying and its not good for him... BM said and I qoute "well, he has been hearing that for years." As if that means things should continue exactly the way they are without care for how it affects your children ... great just one more example of why you are super mom ... not so much. I did say that that doesnt mean that it should continue and we all need to have better communication with each other or things will get out of control very quickly... ofcourse, it fell on deaf ears.

Pesky, I have been reading along and thinking about you and am truly sorry you have come to this place in your life. I have been blessed with good health for most of my life, with a few surgeries and recoveries that set me back but no long-term pain like you have had to endure. I'm so sorry you have had to deal with this. I know from just getting older I have to take better care of me and do more stretches. Some of them I can actually do at my desk. When I injured an ankle once, a doctor told me to try to trace the alphabet with my foot in mid-air several times a day if possible. It really helped because the muscles and ligaments were stretched in almost every possible direction. Maybe you can try this in small stages at your desk. If you can't get on the floor, there are some things you can do from a chair, just lifting your legs. The yoga in a chair someone suggested is a great idea, as was the elastic bands, and if you can do some things standing, even lifting some 1-lb weights, and bending and stretching at the waist would be good for circulation. My DH was also having some joint problems, and he cut out all artificial sweeteners and cured/processed meats. He now uses Stevia or agave to sweeten his coffee and most of his joint pain disappeared. I'd suggest your food plan change first of all, and that would include any diet sodas and other products containing aspartame. Any other further reduction in sugar, as many have suggested, would help. I know you already know this, but you need lean protein for energy, especially if your job is often physically demanding. So just a vegan diet may not be what you need right now. Salads are great, but you can add a little chicken, beef or fish to it for variety. I even buy a whole roasted chicken and freeze some of it for later. Easy leftover meals with a little rice or salad. Keep your favorite fruits close. Anything filling is best for a snack or to keep you from grabbing something you know you shouldn't eat. Even a spoon of peanut butter on a piece of apple is better than a handful of chips. There are even frozen fruit popsicles that are pretty good desserts. Portion control and healthy eating for energy are what you need to get control of your weight. Sneak in a small square of dark chocolate or whatever gives you a smile once a week! It will make you feel better. And yes, try to find that place for aquatic workouts that can help you work around your schedule. Maybe you can work something out with your employer to come in later a couple of times a week so you could do it early in the mornings? I do hope you can get the help you need in this regard. I think any exercise is a 'mental break' any of us need from the daily stress of life away from home or office. Let us hear from you again. This is such a supportive group.