Because we've both worked weird shift jobs where we might not see each other properly for days, we're used to not living in each other's pockets. I think that's been a strength for our marriage to not be dependent on one another but to complement each other. It's worked for 30 years now :-) I too think this was meant to be. The electronic age has helped immensely. We teleconferenced our loan application with a bank officer on the other side of the country, got our finanicals emailed to us by our accountant in the city, which we emailed on to the bank, had copies of the offer and acceptance emailed by the real estate agent which we've also forwarded to the bank, paid the deposit by electronic transfer and organised the inspections (building and termite) by email and paid by electronic transfer. All in a few days. If we'd been using snail mail it would have taken a couple of weeks. I'm hoping to organise a family painting party to give the place a quick coat of something neutral and maybe recarpet before DH moves it, it will be much easier when it's empty. We had a family painting party for DH's brother when he built his home. DH wants to do some of his own cooking but I will set him up with a few defrost and heat meals for nights when he can't be bothered. The area he is moving into is one of the gourmet suburbs of Perth and he's about 500 metres away in either direction from two well known cafe and specialty gourmet shop strips. I'm planning to cook a few meals for two each week and send DH off with half- otherwise I'll be tempted to just have cheese and crackers in front of the TV or PC :-)

Those who live to a ripe old age will find certain tasks or habits of life can't be continued. They reach an age where they can no longer drive, or live alone, or go shopping, or live in a rural setting or whatever. In much the same way, many elderly reach an age when their diminished thinking abilities make looking after their own financial affairs not possible. We have such an oldster in our family. She's mentally fine in most respects and lives comfortably on her own but can get flummoxed by new situations. Management of her financial means has been taken away from her and other than a small bank account for cash expenditures, all other money matters of her existence are handled by her kids (who themselves are approaching senior citizenship). Friends and family need to protect those with some degree of diminished functionality from causing themselves harm. This person I mentioned can be approached by any form of cons and other than the change drawer in her bedroom, there's little damage that can be done. Everyone should be so protected from various crooks who have been around since forever and will always be looking to take advantage of others.

I have donotcall and the phone rings once and then stops. If it rings more than once I look at caller ID and if I don't recognize the number or name, it goes to voice mail. We were expecting a call from Apple almost two years ago and coincidentally got one of these scammers. Thankfully nothing happened but not because my husband was smart. As he talked with this guy with an accent and started doing stuff on the computer I googled the number. Guess what?.. Nigeria. I've only gotten one call since then and I let him have it.

Amy, Tim and I were joking that the single red branch might be turning red because it is dying. I don't think we're right about that, but I have pondered why only one branch has leaves that have changed color. I do see quite a bit of red poison ivy in the trees along fence lines when I walk the dogs. I don't care if it is poison ivy (not our property, not our problem), I love seeing the red foliage. Seriously, though, on trees whose leaves turn red, those trees need the specific combination of cool nights and bright sunny days to make red leaves, and some years we don't get that combination so we don't get much red foliage. When one branch or one part of a tree turns red and the rest doesn't, scientists believe that the part turning red first just happens to have the perfect microclimate. I am not sure I buy that explanation. Why one limb on a tree that's 30' or 40' tall? Why not 2 or 3 limbs or 6 or 10? (sigh) Mother Nature has many mysteries we really do not understand. Today we went to the CostCo in Southlake, TX, because I wanted to go to Central Market just up the road a bit after that. I'd forgotten how gorgeous that specific CostCo's landscaping is. You can tell their landscape architect must have specified trees that have good autumn color because most of the trees planted in the parking lot medians have great autumn color already---mostly Chinese pistache is what is red there right now, but also some sort of cypress trees, sweetgum and maybe some Shumard red oaks (that aren't red yet) along the perimeter. I was looking at the pistache trees today and loving their foliage and red berries. Why haven't I planted Chinese pistache here? I'm going to plant 2 or 3 next spring. Amy, I still have a lot of Red Creoles that haven't sprouted yet. Also, Copra, Highlander and Red River. Those are the Dixondale varieties that store the longest for me. That's how I get in trouble, by the way, with planting too many---picking all those long keeping varieties means I have a lot to plant in order to have a lot to store---and then we have more than we can eat fresh even after I've made tons of salsa and chopped/frozen tons more. I need to have more discipline and pick just one long keeping type each year instead of several. I think Nelson is getting scarce because a lot of places sold out of it in 2017. I think Jung still had it the last time I was looking at seeds on their webpage. Who knows if the sellers that sold out in 2017 will have it again for 2018. It could be that there was a crop failure at the seed production level since many of the USA retailers all buy their seed through the same big wholesalers, who in turn buy their seed from overseas producers. Nancy, George (MacMex) lives near Tahlequah and he posted a photo on his FB page of a cabbage covered in frost (cabbage is fine) this morning and said the low there was 25 degrees, so he must have gotten some of your cold if your garden escaped relatively undamaged. Maybe the cold didn't make it quite to your place last night. We're supposed to be about 5 degrees warmer tonight that we were last night. We'll see. Rebecca, My garden is toast. It is okay, but I will miss the Lima beans our big lush plants would have been producing for about another month. I thought about covering them up, but the trellis is 6' tall and about 25' long and I didn't want to wrestle with getting row cover over that trellis and weighed down along the egdes in yesterday's wind. I hope giving your back some extra rest today is helping it, and the fact that OSU won couldn't hurt any. We had the game on the radio while we were out running errands and doing grocery shopping. You're like me. No matter how many seeds and containers you have, you always need more. It is a peculiar affliction we gardeners have, of always "needing" more. lol. I'll tell you what makes me feel old---my nephew has a 14 year old stepdaughter!!!! Yikes. I am not sure how that happened. I believe her mom was very young when she had her, but still......it seems like the nieces and nephews themselves were graduating from high school just a few years ago (been more than a decade though, even for the youngest one) and now one of them has a stepdaughter in high school this year. That sort of freaks me out. However, the rest of my nieces and nephews' kids range from newborn to about 10 years old, so they're all ages. Still, I do feel old age creeping up on me. Jacob, That pepper plant really is a champ, or is in a perfect microclimate. I miss the green already. Everything here has gone the color of wheat except for the tree foliage. I cannot believe the difference in how everything looks now compared to just a few days ago. Rebecca, There you go, you enabler you! Go, girl, go! If you and I are going to have far too many seeds (and you know that we do, and probably Amy too), then everyone else needs to have far too many seeds as well. Perversely, not that my garden is frozen, I want to plant something. I probably won't though. Maybe I'll sow some lettuce seeds indoors. It was nice today to walk wherever I wanted and to not have to watch out for snakes beneath my feet. If we have any days that go back up into the 70s/80s, I will have to watch. They don't necessarily go down for the count after the first freeze, and will continue to be out now and then either hunting for food or capturing heat by lying on concrete until we get good and cold and stay there. I'm watching TCU play Iowa State right now, and TCU has not had the lead yet in this game. I'm wondering if ISU is going to pull off another upset and beat the #4 team in the country. It could happen. I hope it doesn't. Dawn