Kathleen, my parents will be buried together. Literally. I have had Mom's ashes (beautiful marble urn) here with us the last 10 yrs. She hated being alone and I couldn't stand the idea of her in a cemetery that way. So the plan was to to bury her whenever Dad passed and they could be together. He wanted to be cremated too, and the mortuary have put his ashes in with hers for us! The headstone will have the engraving of "Together Forever" on it. When I let her urn go to the mortuary a few weeks ago, I kind of felt like I was losing her again. And of course I also had emotional thoughts of letting Dad go. Tho I knew it was best to have this funeral. But I discovered something wonderful, for me, when making the arrangements with mortuary...they had these very TINY keepsake urns! Just 3" high, in different finishes. They put a small bit of both my parents ashes in a copper one (Mom loved and collected some copper pieces long ago). So I do have both my parents with me here at home, in a way. And when I am buried, their little urn will be with mine. Hope this isn't too morbid sounding for some of you. But here's a photo of the 3" urn. I have it on one of a trio of shadow boxes in Dad's room, some more of my Cherubs are on the other boxes. hugs, Karen

If that is the worst of it, count yourself very lucky ;) Our whole crew took off during Xmas break when we had messed up heat (only half the house) and the functioning toilet in the heated part broke, so we had to trek through construction to an unheated bathroom (in a NY winter). All the while there were 8 leaks in our new roof..... Of course, we had no kitchen and all 4 of us were huddled in one bedroom and 2 rooms that were half filled with boxes....

Sort of along those lines...for YEARS, I collected then threw self set hips from the fifteen-hundred-plus roses of all types in the Newhall garden on the facing HOA hillside which they over irrigated nightly. A friend and I used to laugh ourselves silly, thinking of some "rustler" who, some day, might find some of the resulting seedlings and just KNOW they were something rare, exotic and "lost". There were vermin of ALL types in that canyon. I'm sure there must be some seedlings which resulted from those literally thousands of hips we used to fling over on that hill! They had dozens of Banksiaes planted as hillside cover, along with Russian Olive and, later, many five gallon Fortuniana which were simply planted and allowed to grow as they wished. I thought about visiting my sister and wandering out where the garden used to be just to see what might have come up, but never did. Now it's several hours away, I doubt I will.

ravencajun: Your experience reminded me of a story. I hope that you get a smile or two from it. THE BAPTIST CHURCH DINNER! A group of friends from the Cottonwood Baptist Church wanted to get together on a regular basis, socialize, and play games. The lady of the house was to prepare the meal. When it came time for Al and Janet to be the hosts, Janet wanted to outdo all the others. She decided to have mushroom-smothered steak. But mushrooms are expensive. She then told her husband, “No mushrooms. They are too high.” He said, “Why don’t you go down in the pasture and pick some of those mushrooms? There are plenty in the creek bed.” She said, “No, some wild mushrooms are poison.” He said, “Well, I see varmints eating them and they’re OK.” So, Janet decided to give it a try. She picked a bunch, washed, sliced, and diced them for her smothered steak. Then she went out on the back porch and gave Ol’ Spot (the yard dog) a double handful. Ol’ Spot ate every bite. All morning long, Janet watched Ol’ Spot and the wild mushrooms didn’t seem to affect him, so she decided to use them. The meal was a great success, and Janet even hired a helper lady from town to help her serve. After everyone had finished, they relaxed, socialized, and played ‘42’ and dominoes. About then, the helper lady came in and whispered in Janet’s ear. She said, “Mrs. Williams, Ol’ Spot is dead.” Janet went into hysterics. After she finally calmed down, she called the doctor and told him what had happened. The doctor said, “That’s bad, but I think we can take care of it. I will call for an ambulance and I will be there as quickly as possible. We’ll give everyone enemas and we will pump out everyone’s stomach. Everything will be fine. Just keep them calm.” Soon they could hear the siren as the ambulance was coming down the road. The EMT’s and the doctor had their suitcases, syringes, and a stomach pump. One by one, they took each person into the bathroom, gave them an enema, and pumped out their stomach. After the last one was finished, the doctor came out and said, “I think everything will be fine now,” and he left. They were all looking pretty weak sitting around the living room and about this time the helper lady came in and whispered to Janet, “You know, that fellow that run over Ol’ Spot never even stopped.”