Marcia, thank you so much for the warm welcome! And I'm certain I'll be contributing to posts here and there. You mentioned in another post about the tufted titmice... they are absolutely my favorite bird! So sociable and seemingly fearless of humans! Lately, there's been one that keeps landing on my head! Almost every afternoon for the last 3 weeks! I wear my hair short, blonde and spiked, and I keep wondering if it's checking it out as a nest, but titmice are cavity nesters, so maybe it just wants my hair for the nest? Or maybe it's just immensely curious. At any rate, sometimes it will stay on my head for 5 minutes, walking all around and even climbing down and nibbling on my ear. Of course, I feel highly honored! I always pay close attention to your posts because you and I are in the same zone. After too many years away from gardening, I recently got reinspired and am absolutely thrilled with all the online assistance via forums like this. I look forward to continuing the learning experience and the fun shared on this forum! Thanks again, Marcia!

I've been with the same company since 1989, and so we are very familiar with each other by now, but it was not like that in the beginning. When I first met my boss, I felt an instant rapport with her and felt like we were meant to be together. When I looked at her furniture, I thought to myself, "These are the exact same proportions I would use," and so I knew from the beginning that we had a compatible design style/sense. It took her a little longer than it did me to realize this, but once she did, she trusted me with all new designs. Kevin has some good friends at work, and a couple of the them live not too far from us. One has offered to help cook and help with grocery shopping, if necessary, but I think I am recovered enough by now to handle shopping. I just cannot get anything heavy yet, but that will come in due time. As for the garden, I will hire help probably in October. It would nice to have him sooner, but he is my friend in Sacramento, and I have to work with his schedule. I don't trust the local landscapers here. I could possibly find a good landscape architect here, but that would be expensive and more than we need right now, although I'll keep it in mind for the future. It depends on what we end up doing in Palm Springs. I think Kevin will be much happier when we can buy a second home in the Palm Springs area. We'll probably end up in Cathedral City (Palm Springs adjacent but not walking distance), and hopefully Cathedral Gulch. This won't start happening until next year, but it's something to look forward do that I think might help Kevin feel better. What is odd is that so many people ask us if we are twins, but I am 15 years (+3 weeks) older, and I think this must be very insulting to Kevin. First people ask us if we are brothers. Then they ask if we are twins. Then they ask which one is older, which is the worst question of all. I've afraid that Kevin is going to appear even older after this ordeal, but if he can have a week-end house in PS, then I think he won't mind so much. I don't know yet how I will look after my full recovery, but I am keeping plastic surgery as an option. I've had hospital technicians tell me that if you live in Los Angeles, then it is almost mandatory. When I had a bike accident that cut my forehead, they would not release me from St. Johns until I interviewed with a plastic surgeon. Back then (around 1996) I did not care about having a small scar or two on my forehead, and now it's barely visible anyway. If anything, what I can see of it makes me look more rugged, I think. I wear bike helmets now. Sorry for rambling - I'm having trouble sleeping some nights, and after just having seen Kevin, I am feeling even more anxious. I think I will be able to help him with most of what he needs, but he is very private and introverted and often likes to be by himself. I hope he will spend his alone time in the back yard instead of his bedroom, but for now, I know it is painful for him to sit in a chair, and I expect that to last for a while. I could see the evidence of the surgery that had been done, having to remove part (or all) of his sphincter, which I mentioned before but had not seen evidence of before. He's going to be on disability for about three months, I think, but since he has been paying disability insurance for many years, he will get paid pretty much his normal salary - from the insurance. However, they deduct Californian disability payments, as California is fairly generous with these payments, and so Kevin will have to apply for those as well - since the payments will be deducted whether he receives them or not. He cannot file for California disability until he gets out of the hospital, but I think he knows how to do this.

It's only been 2 weeks, and I'm having a hard time. I feel like a knife has been stuck in me and ripped me to shreds. The smallest thing can set me on a crying binge. LOL, I don't care for Stevie Wonder, except for 1 song........Blowing in the Wind, a duet. It's amazing. A couple of days after Tom "left", I heard that song on the radio, which is hardly ever on the radio. I knew it was a sign from hubby. I bawled for ages. Here's my sweetie. He was cremated wearing his Ride for Dad long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans as he wanted. He said "that way it will be easy for us to find each other when we meet again."

I feel for you so much! I bet you know all I'm about to say, but I'll say it so you can see it. If you're doing an elimination diet, you're much better off doing it right the first time. That is, truly eliminate with no cheats all the suspect foods. It's a dead bore, crazy making and screws up your normal life, but if you felt fine it wouldn't be an issue. You CAN do this. Maybe you need to have a tapering down time. Of course don't go radical until you hear what the doctor has to say. Just remember, the doctors hear so many "I can'ts" that they may give in when they really want to shout at you that you need to do this to feel better. The trick is, cut out everything potentially bad. Give your body time to heal on the highly restrictive diet, however unfun and uncomfortable that may be. For other things, it can be as short as 6 weeks, but your doctor should have a number in mind. Then, once you're pretty well as healed from the "bad" foods as you're going to get, add in one eliminated food and see if it's okay. Then set it aside, wait awhile and try the next, repeating until all have had their chances. Then add back two at a time to see if they pair up to be "bad". It's a total bore, but it works. If you're not going to do the whole thing, there's little point in doing part. I had a friend who did that, and she was perpetually deprived because she wasn't really eliminating the baddies from her diet, just giving it a lot of lip service and a half-hearted wave. In your case, before clearing more out of the kitchen, I'd look for a few things that you can for sure have and see what you can make out of them to replace the eggs that you eat when you can't think of what else. Make sure there's some nutrition similarity, and that what you invent tastes good. Then start tapering off actual eggs. Without soy and nuts, I don't know how you're going to find a good dairy substitute. Avocadoes might be a good sub for cream cheese on toast, and might be satisfying, but they're not cheese. Pâté , maybe?