Kimberly, Just checking in to see if you had any news. I was happy to see Dave and Trish comment on your thread. I have seen both of them in the other forum and they always seem to have such great advice. yeah for GW community!! I had to tell you that I shed a few tears over your post above, where you mentioned you homeschool, etc. I so understood what you mean when you said sometimes night seems so dark. And bless your heart when you said you thought maybe you weren't the person you had believed yourself to be. We all have those moments in life where we feel that way. It seems you are being tested and tried. I am sorry for the discouraging time you are having. BUT, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. I just believe that somehow, someway, good things will happen for you, a good person. I am keeping you in prayer, and will put you on our prayer requests at church this weekend. Keep looking up. I know your new home is not where you are laying up your treasures. You deserve to have space to raise and school your children. And you need not apologize for the space in the home or the amount of property. God gives good things. If He led you to it, He will lead you thru it. Have faith. Stay strong. Try every avenue. Continue to pray for wisdom as you seek a resolution. Have faith and trust that God will make a way. He still sits on His throne! Hugs to you. We're all rooting for you (and I'm praying for you. Truly I am!!).

I always wondered about Pal's screen name, too. Finally had to look it up when it appeared as the answer in a crossword puzzle. It's a cryptic puzzle (I love wordplay), so here is the clue: "Most ghastly, claiming brats reused parchment" Now, our Pal is certainly neither ghastly nor a brat, so here is how the puzzle works: - A synonym for "most ghastly" might be "palest" - A synonym for "brats" might be "imps" - "claiming" implies taking possession of something, so "palest" takes "imps" into itself, between the l and the e. "pal imps est" - And you end up with a word meaning "reused parchment" Now, WHY our "Palimpsest"? Inquiring minds want to know!

Last while while Kevin and I were visiting our sister in Austin, we ate a couple of meals in her kitchen nook/breakfast area, where she has a table and chairs for six. Our BIL has taken over her dining table with his research papers, and has completely cluttered it up to the point that the dining room is completely useless to anyone except him. He already has an office in her house (He has his own house that he seems never to use any more - it may have been taken over by raccoons) but does not appear to be content with that. She also has a living room plus a den, and the den is connected to the breakfast nook. BIL has decided that her living room is the perfect place to strew his mail; i..e. mail for his relatives who use my sister's address instead of their own so that they can send their children to a different school district. Her living room floor is now covered with mail because BIL puts it there and does not pick it up. His children are her step-children - they do not have children together, but she has adopted them as her own. Anyway, we had no meals at her house, and it would have been nice if we could have had a family reunion in her dining room, but since that was unavailable, one niece decided that she would only see us at a restaurant of her choice, one hour before we were going to leave. Because it rained that day, we had to eat inside at the restaurant, which was so noisy that I could not hear a single word at our table. It was a very disappointing meeting, and I do wish that my sister could arrange to have family reunions at someone's house - I hate going to restaurants for reunions or parties and will not attend another one. My sister offered to make dinner for us one evening and asked us which can we wanted her to open, and so we declined. I was very sad that she was unable to use her dining room, and I only sat at her breakfast table once - to have reheated leftovers from a Cajun restaurant. While I was eating my leftover, BIL came and leered over my shoulder and asked what I was having - I assume because he wanted me to give him some, as he was acting like a puppy. Since I do not feed dogs in the house, I ignored him. I was having leftover stuffed crab and shrimp, and he could have ordered that when he was at the restaurant with us, but instead he and my sister split an order of crawfish etouffee. They only order things that they can split and therefore never have leftovers but like to graze on other people's plates, if there are any around. I do not like this practice - I do not eat off of other people's plates, and I do not want anyone eating off of mine. This was the first time we had been back to Texas in more than four years, and I told my sister that we might go back in 2020 or 2021. If it were more pleasant to have meals with them, I would feel differently about this. We did enjoy time we spent with one nephew and one niece, however.

The lilacs are just starting at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I haven't been to see them, but my husband has. In a few days I will go to see them also. I suppose if I really wanted to see lilacs I would have to arrange a trip to Rochester, NY where they still may have some of the ones that Leonie Bell and Helen Van Pelt Wilson wrote about years ago in their book, The Fragrant Year. I always think of Leonie Bell's drawing of individual lilac blooms: Bell and Wilson recommended various early lilacs for fragrance, among them 'Claude Bernard' (now unobtainable and even then rare), 'Turgot' and 'Charles Nodine'. None of them appear to be in commerce nowadays and were rare even then. They can get quite huge. Of the classic French ones hybridized by Lemoine, they had this to say: And then the species, of which I have the fern-leaved S. laciniata (now sometimes called Syringa proto laciniata [afghanica]), which I bought based on their enticing (somewhat hyperbolic?) description. Mine is not as fragrant as promised, but it is beautiful, small growing, and doesn't get mildew in summer. They describe it as having a sweet fragrance like wisteria or daphne -- whatever. I have moved mine twice because it got too big. I don't know if it will bloom this year. Last year frost got the buds, both of mine and of the specimen at BBG.. This year we shall see. All the words on this page are about laciniata; (S. pubescens was discussed on the previous page). Finally, I have one of an early lilac at BBG from two days ago. Sorry it is kind of blurry, but I'm glad he took it since it shows the manner of growth.