Cripes do I ever hate Yahoo mail. After deleting the spam, the porn, the Nigerian scams, the other nonsense, if I left any of the messages that should have gotten thru I'm always happy. Anyhow, I sent a response to the two who wrote and a better e-mail address. I think some of the e-mails didn't go thru for whatever reason. Do you mind re-sending them? This week is pretty hectic but the weekend or next week would work. The sooner the better if you want blooms this spring. I'm happy to give these away even tho I like them a lot. They're just too big for my space. The only one that actually grew to the size I thought it would was Dixieland Linda but I have so many other pink roses that I'll part with it. I can put James Galway there and it's got almost no thorns, so I'm happier with it. Did some more pruning this weekend. If you take Pleasantrie, which is quite nice, I hope you have a big space.

For clothing we try to put one item away for donations per every new item bought. I usually give my nicer clothes to a divorced gal with kids down the road. She isnâÂÂt exactly poor but there is not much money left for her after bills and kids. SheâÂÂs great because she takes only what is needed and passes the rest on to others in need or makes a donation to her church. The gal usually leaves a note in my mail box stating where the rest went and a thank you. Due to my casual lifestyle my dressy clothes have little wear but do not wear well on my changing figure. I donâÂÂt want to keep them so long as to become outdated and where they are of no use to someone else. My husband donates his clothing to a few different charities or a particular individual. Sometimes we do a drop off at goodwill. A few times I left a big bundle out near the road with a sign that says âÂÂtake meâÂÂ. I do this on a day when there are several Guatemalan lawn maintenance people next door. There are always a few items I have a hard time letting go of though⦠but I must as I am moving. I will never sell clothes in a garage sale again; last time (several years ago) I was ripped off with a do you have a bag trick. I will give but you canâÂÂt take!

Stacie, you posted about the sippy cup episode on the Cooking forum back in November, so your MIL's recent behavior shouldn't come as a shocking new development. It's unfortunate you lost so many precious things, but I'm glad to see you recovered the social security cards. You and your husband know the issue, so you either figure out how to control it, or you adopt preventative measures to live with it. You've gotten a lot of good suggestions here and I hope you find some of them helpful. Either way, the real concern is the safety of your children. I'm glad to see you removed the satellite photo with your exact street address from your website. However your accuweather.com link still shows your town and of course your last name is posted on your website. Along with all those adorable photos of your kids and their names. I know how much fun it can be to have your kids and family photos on a public website, but consider the possibilities, particularily with 3 known sex offenders living in your small town. Even in a population of 473, you just can't be too careful. And if I remember correctly, you recently posted a lengthy post about your brother being an alcoholic and your concerns about your daughter and his possible sexual abuse. I'm very glad to see you are getting locks on your doors to protect your home and children. Please take another look at your website and consider any other personal information that might not be in the best interests of your family to publish on the world wide net. Best of luck to you and here's hoping the mother in law issue will not continue to be problematic once you can lock her out of the house.

Doug - the trends you talk about in terms of decreasing buying power, shrinking middle class, etc are real and truly disconcerting. The slightly paranoid side of me made sure I purchased a home that could, if needed, be a mini homestead (enough space and the right light exposure to grow veggies and raise chickens). It's simplistic, because if the economy really does fall completely apart I can't farm my way to prosperity on a mortgaged piece of land. In my local market inventory is tight for homes at or slightly below the median because the available homes have some perceived flaw (too close to the highway, schoolyard, train tracks, busy road, other houses). Or they need significant work. Homes in good condition and good locations are quickly purchased if the price is fair. People are justifiably SO afraid of a house losing value that they are unwilling to purchase something with a flaw because they fear being unable to sell in the future. It actually makes sense, but it makes it almost impossible to sell property that is flawed - even for fire sale prices. There is excess inventory at the high end, homes in the top quartile are very slow to move and people aren't listing unless they absolutely have to. This is one reason that we decided to remodel earlier this year instead of move (it was a big remodel, moving could have been less if what we wanted was available).. Now, back to this issue of potential buyers being leery of homes with flaws ... I think that is what is holding back the sale of this house. There are probably buyers who look at it and, when they see the HOA issues, think to themselves, "Gee, even if the HOA issues are fixed, how long will this taint the value of the home? How many years until the stigma falls away? What if I had to sell in that time?" Buyers can't commit to this house on a long term basis because everything about this economy feels SO unstable right now. Is there a shortage of rental property (SFH) in your area? Because that was the other thing we looked at when we bought. I would have preferred to rent but we have a dog and SFH rentals are almost impossible to find in our area for under $3k/mo. With taxes and insurance, our 15 yr mortgage is under $2500/mo ... So, worst case we could rent this place if we had to move out and we would likely cover the mortgage with the rent (or come close to it). I wonder if renting is an option for the OP? I know it's an expensive home, but still ... It may be an option, unless the HOA forbids it.