Yes please. So tired of how fragile. My chem glass is awesome, but I can't exactly make a casserole in my Erlenmeyer flask! 😂

Sneezy, I called our master gardener at the county office, and he said to take a quart of water, add 3tbs of dish soap, and few drops of neem oil or cedar oil, tea tree will also work just not as well as neem. Mix, put in a spray bottle, and treat plants regularly until the darn evil bastard buggers are gone.

Sis quasi has them in her part of France. Basically all the none invasive, needle only tests can be done at the pharmacy and results sent to the doc, and then anything more than that, her doc has scheduled at the clinic all on the same day. It isn't a spa, and no overnight check in required, but all of her healthcare providers are within a 10 minute drive, some are walking distance, and her optometrist and dentist are next door to each other, and if she plans six months out, they will call each other and coordinate it so she can walk down and get both done on the same day. Since it is a universal healthcare system, providers calling each other coordinating tests and appointments is pretty normal in her area. I don't know if all areas of France have enough providers and specialists to do that. However, since they don't have the whole billing nonsense and pre-authorization crap, and in network/out network b.s., I think in general far fewer days and time off is required to get tests and evaluations done. Due to an old injury, my sister has deep tissue massage included in her healthcare, and it is done by an orthopedic doctor who also gives physical therapy so that is a one and done stop for her has well. I think that if Cleveland Clinic is in-network for patients, then they can do something similar, however, hotels would definitely be involved.

I hope you move soon. It might slow her down. If at all possible, do not forward mail to your new place. Maybe rent a post office box for a coupe months for forwarding, and try to contact everyone you need to have your new address. Then if she tries to contact you by mail because you have changed your social media accounts or figured out you have new email so sends you a letter, it will get returned once the post office box is let go. Not sure what to do once she figures out your new physical address. I do have to say I am very concerned about monster dad knowing where you live. I would be in favor of having a big golden retriever that you paint striped so it looks like a tiger roaming free in the yard, and security cameras. Maybe a moat and some realistic, plastic alligators, then publish pictures of the house so the two of them don't get any crazy ideas. Hugs

I did this as well, and I spelled my middle name differently than my legal middle to extra throw the whackadoodle relatives off the scent. These people are not mentally ill, but they are absolute drama divas, and fight amongst each other like wild animals kept together in small cages. I just do not want to deal with it. It has worked well. My brother, who lives two blocks away from me, still thinks I do not have Facebook. Dawn, I think you need to document the crazy with printed screen shots and keep a file just in case.

Also, six more green bran seeds sprouted. I now have 14 green bean plants terminated from seeds I planted, and I am feeling rather accomplished. I am considering pruning the tomatoes. There are branches on every plant that are so low, the leaves are just laying on the soil. I know that makes them vulnerable to fungus and insects. But, I have no idea how the plant will react to the trauma. Is pruning okay?

About the snails (since I managed to quote the wrong post, sorry SHP!!!!!) I have no idea if this works, but I saw this on a show called, 'Grow, Cook, Eat" out of Ireland. Fun gardening show! Anyway, they dug down into the soil to bury saucers of beer up to the rim. The slugs snails are supposedly very attracted to the beer and climb right in the saucer, get drunk, and drown. Even if they climb out, apparently the ethanol will still kill them. The elderly man to the east of us who keeps a small container garden says he uses a tuna can of beer in each pot and even if there is a little bit of a lip to climb over, the slugs and snails very willingly make the effort. He believes they smell the yeast and "Like frat boys driving past a bar, can't help themselves". 😂

I think I would be done, if I am being honest. I think she just isn't going to have healthy boundaries. They will end up on facebook. Birth mom will make comments, and seeing the photos may rile up her behavior. The other factor also being she chooses to live with a person who is, as you have described and I don't doubt you, a monster. You aren't obligated to honor requests or give her photos at all. I might consider an annual or bi-annual letter about A, "This year he learned to ride a bike without training wheels", or whatever. Maybe that letter would have a very granny photocopy pic taken at a distance, something making it hard to identify his face. I just think these bios have proven themselves to be such a mess that letting them figure out their lives without preoccupation with A. Give yourself a break on this issue. It had to be stressful to deal with them when they do stupid things like this.

I am straight up going to say this is disgusting, just gross! I don't mind being very very judgy about this.

It we had no real considerations other than "want", probably Vermont or Cape Cod, both are very appealing to us. But, we really do love Michigan, and will be maintaining a place north of here because the Alabama house is just too hot for late spring and all of summer, early autumn. Six months one place, six months the other will be a good compromise because most of the places we like in Vermont are too expensive and Cape Cod not even an option.

This. We have huge restrictions here, and part and parcel of that is our rural area does not want to encourage AiBnB Vrbo, and a lot of tiny houses, secondary small homes, and fully finished apartments over garages or conversion of barns end up being vacation rentals because everyone who builds them seems to want to do vacation rent in order to make up for the cost of remodel/construction. So a living space over a garage had to be a bonus room to the main home which means no bathroom, no kitchen in it just lounging or bedroom space. Cabins are okay, but they again, can't have indoor plumbing to make them liveable. Portapotty or composting toilet and solar shower would be okay since these types of amenities are not the things the vacation crowd are paying for. If they wanted rustic, they would get a cabin at the state park.

I wish. My tomatoes and peppers are thinking bad things today. It is only 65F. Thankfully the broccoli, cucumbers, carrots, and peas do not seem to mind. When I get back to it, I have outfits to make for T, and then matching little cardigans of retro rockets quilt material to make along with corduroy leggings foe their autumn pictures. But they are super easy, so I don't have to start them until August or early September. I also have one thing so want to do soon. I bought a huge quilt panel with a block for all 63 National Parks. I want to cut the blocks apart and frame the block for each of the NPs Mark and I have visited together. I will put the rest away for the future since we have a lot more traveling to do in our future.

I haven't had anything to post realy between pulling off a wedding in one week, beginning my work mentoring a university rocket team (we have to have some summer zoom meetings in order for them to hit the ground running in the fall semester), my own Mach 1 rocket team, and the garden, I have not done much of anything except decorate the table for our anniversary dinner. I would love to get back to sewing. However, it is sailing and kayaking season, so I suspect that outdoor activities are going to take my attention for the foreseeable future.

Awesome sauce!

I was faced with a tough choice early on. Marry my best friend, and potentially have that impact my performance career, especially if motherhood was involved, or pursue my career, end our relationship, and keep going with my original dream. So I know what would have happened if I had not married Mark and had the kids. He wanted children, that was very important to him - a deal breaker - and I knew what it meant to have children prior to having a very well established music career, and even then, for many women, domestic life still ends up trashing their employment opportunities as professional instrumentalists no matter how well their careers are going. But, I couldn't let go and break it off. We eventually had four children, and I settled for teaching and regional performing instead of what I had trained for and hoped to do. If you have ever read or watched "Mozart in the Jungle" then you can imagine. That would have been my life, and if the performance career never materialized beyond cobbling together meager income and subsisting with roommates in some flea bag apartment in NYC, I would have eventually, like Haley, given it up and exchanged that dream for some peace, contentment, and reliability. So I have the weird knowledge of the distinct probability of how plan A could have worked out vs. plan B which is the route I chose. 35 years later sometimes I have some twinges, some longing for that career. However, I can't imagine a life without Mark and the kids, and my new direction in career, Aerospace and STEM education is keeping me busy and fulfilled. I have a university rocket team I am mentoring this coming academic year and am very excited about that.

Oh, the Toledo glass museum is really nice.

Belle Isle! It is a state park now, and just gorgeous. We like the Toledo Zoo better than Detroit. Detroit had more animals, but the exhibits and habitats at Toledo are, in my opinion, much nicer, and the zoo is more compact. The Detroit Institute of Art is cheap admission, worth every penny. You might be able to score tickets to Meadowbrook at Oakland University for a D.S.O. concert in the park. The cost isn't bad for sifting on the hill on the grass. Blanket or lawn chairs, your choice. They are evening concerts so the sun isn't strong, and usually the temperature is pretty nice.

Sunday/Today I made a yummy spinach and red pepper gruyere quiche for brunch since we slept in. We had specialty java, mocha, with chocolate Barton bourbon cream. Then for the rest of the day we ate on leftovers from last night's supper and the quiche. It has been very relaxing. Mashed potatoes, green beans, steak bites, and some salad.

That could be the issue! We have only had 10 days over 75 degrees since they went into the beds May 7th. This coming week will only be 65-72 degrees. I probably can't expect them to look any better. We tend to start getting hot weather by the end of the month so hopefully there will be improvement.

Okay so after getting everyone's hopes up that significant rain was coming, and that thunderstorms and high wind were going to be a thing, the hourly forecast is nothing but cumulative 1/4" ,nothing but drizzle, perfectly still. I swear our local meteorologist have been partying on weed for weeks now, and just playing us! We decided that drizzle and a 1/4" is not enough to hurt those tomatoes since the top inch of soil is bone dry anyway. We also decided that since there is not going to be any high wind, it was better for them to have the uva rays, and the exposure than to be in the dark all day. Everything has been uncovered. And low and behold, those stupid Amish Paste idiots almost ALL have blossoms that weren't there yesterday. I just can't with these plants. I swear they have meetings about me, and what they are doing is plotting against my mental health as retribution for my years as a serial plant killer. Sigh. I think maybe I need to just stop worrying about these mean spirited tomatoes. What was super fun to see was that in the night, 8 green bean plants popped up out of the soil. Also, I have a carrot coming up in the cucumber bed, and a radish near the peppers. The only thing I can think of is that a bird or two carried these seeds and dropped them. I don't know how else they got into a completely different bed. Happily, a whole row of scallions have sprouted. I am feeling optimistic about the garden for the moment. I did pick two blossoms of Henrietta and Herbert. I love their tenacity, but they still are not big enough to support fruit so I am concerned about letting them give me cukes yet. I have however decided that the stubbornly tiny chili pepper plants who produce blossoms every single day instead of growing simply refuse to cooperate. I can deal with Henrietta and Herbert because whenever I pinch blossoms, like good children's they grow and spread a little. The chili peppers are just flipping me proverbial middle finger, and I am done. I am going to end up with such small chili peppers that I will probably need a magnifying glass to harvest them. How I will get the seeds out, I do not know. But, despite my angst, I am finding myself feeling very happy puttering about with my plants, and eternally grateful that they chose to give me a chance instead of committing self harm because of the botanical rumors about me. 😁 We already have expansion plans for fall. Mark has a line on another stack of 24 free pallets, and is going to make two more 3'x13' beds, and a couple 2'x4'. We want to fill them with soil and compost this fall, add some other soil amendments, and cover with tarps to hold the heat in with the hopes the leaf litter and grass clippings compost nicely through the winter. He is also going to add two more green bean beds in the double stacked pallets which should bring my potential number of green bean plants to 80. I am going to grow even more broccoli, and try my hand at Brussels sprouts, plus a lot more celery. We use these four green vegetables A LOT.

What a beautiful color!!!

Gorgeous! Love these flowers!

The adoptive father gives me the total creepster willies. I also think there is some truth to her being older than she was. This isn't that uncommon among children from some of the orphanages. They are underfed, and can be quite small for their age due to malnutrition, and that delays puberty. We know some folks this happened to. They were told their child was 5 by the adoption agency. He was estimated to be 10 by two different pediatricians and dentists, bone x rays and such. He had LOTS of medical issues due to his malnutrition. These folks are good people who have gotten him tons of help. So I don't doubt that she may have been substantially older, not an adult but easily twice her adoptive age, and that can bring a host of issues. But I also think there is something seriously wrong with that dad and mom, and that she very likely was abused by them. I don't see the two possibilities as mutually exclusive. It is a disturbing and confusing tale.

Well, what I have found is that natural personality/behaviors that we allow to persist prior to becoming old, seems to worsen. So the key I think is to be proactive now about being the person we hope to be as elders. We can't stop medical issues that cause brain disease, but we can choose to already be reining in sharp tongues, snarkiness or whatever thinking carefully about our approach to things as we age. My mother in law has always had these tendencies. Always. Now it is just on steroids. She was aware that she was a difficult person to live with even when she was a young woman. She didn't care. My mother was ALWAYS passive aggressive and a martyr. Now she is those two things epically. So I think it begins now. I also think that saving for retirement so there is something for our kids to use to hire help so they are not always on the hook for us to rely on really helps the parent child relationship. We are trying to do that so our kids have far less burden. Our mothers are wearing us out! That doesn't help with dealing with the crankiness of elders.

Sounds lovely.