Yesterday morning I turned my compost pile and planted some perennials, lilies, and other bulbs. Not sure how many I planted yesterday but in the last week I've planted 22 plants and 75 bulbs. I've also moved some perennials. Still have a few bulbs and 2 big flats of annuals left to put in as well as some seeds to throw around. It started raining so that was enough excuse to stop for the day. I try to limit my time in the garden to 3 hours or less. I used to be out there all day but not doing that anymore. I find gardening is easier since I lost weight. I lost 50 pounds over 4 years and now can't even *lift* 50 pounds but packed it around on my body for years. I also take vitamins and eat very carefully as plan to live for a very long time and much prefer health to disease. Since I really dislike “formal exercising” I garden as one of my main ways to keep active and reasonably fit. So far it's working altho on days when I overdo and all my muscles are screaming at me I think I might be satisfied with a half dozen pots on my deck! I'd have to find something else to do then, probably take my dog for long walks, find an exercise program I like, or volunteer more. What I've learned thru experience is that as I age I cannot work for the long hours I used to, at least not without hurting a lot. I used to garden morning and evening as well as working long hours at my job, tending house, and kids. Now 2-3 hours at a time each day is enough. I also hire help when necessary for the heavy work. Occasionally I even hire someone to vacuum my house! Lazy old me! LOL

Hi Petunia- I saw your posts where you said something like you are afraid you will never meet anyone. I would bet money with you that I am just as much of a home body as you, if not more. *wink* You will meet someone. When you are ready and when you are not looking or expecting it. Sweeby- I disagree with mentioning kids or marriage on the second date. I agree with you on what you are saying but for some reason it FREAKS guys out. Not only does it freak them out but it is in many magazines and articles about dating not to mention it that soon. Again, I agree it shouldnt be that big of a deal. I have to agree with the person who said the ex is not perfect since she wants kids. I also think he is not perfect because he is not treating you the way you should be treated -as the women in the relationship. Its bad parenting by the parent (not the kid) He allows this kind of stuff to go on. I dont care if he feels guilty or not. You are the adult and the women in the relationship. She is the child. I would not allow myself to be treated in any way other than that. When I am not they are placed on the curb. Yes, it stinks and yes it hurts. Once my head and heart are clear and I am on the outside looking in I clearly see things without my heart involved and I realize that I made the best decision. As far as meeting people on the internet. I have met guys on the net and out. It made no difference where I met them, what they did for a living, or where they lived they were who they were and it wouldnt have mattered where I met them. The same people you would meet out and about are the same people that are on the internet. I personally would use a match maker service that you had to pay for. That would weed out some of the people you wouldnt want anyway. Good Luck Keep us updated. Its a New Year and you are going to meet someone special if you let yourself! *wink*

Update: Monogram oven left Wednesday. (No pizza night this week!) But...DECISION MADE. I called in the payment today and DH is planning to pick it up this afternoon. I'm embarrassed to say that this whole thing had me suffering great anxiety to the point of feeling sick. People have cancer, seriously ill children, and other major life and death worries, and I was thrown about choosing an oven. Dumb. But, I didn't want to spend the ridiculous amount of money...as is anything over $1000 for an oven, if you ask me. The prices out there just aren't reasonable, but they're what we have to deal with. ANYway, I couldn't feel confident about the suitability and reliability of any oven but the Wolf for us. It made sense in so many ways, and after some angst of his own and listening to the results of my research, since DH agreed, that's what we're getting. I have set up a budget to help us handle the cost, and I hope it's realistic and will work. Time will tell. I've felt so much responsibility in making this decision and REALLY don't want to be disappointed or regret the expense. I hope I love it! Additionally, I hope I purchased from the right store. I had 2 reasonable choices with different pluses. It shouldn't be so hard to choose an oven and be assured it will arrive working and stay working. The gentleman who picked up my oven and gave me the refund check thought I was VERY lucky to have had GE agree to a refund. He said none of the manufacturers ever want to do that. They just want to keep trying to fix the original unit. He says he's installed new units that don't work, and he's always somewhat shocked and disappointed when he calls to get authorization to remove the defective appliance and trade it for another that works, but is told to leave it there and they'll send a tech to fix it. He said 'people spend all this money and if it doesn't work they're stuck with it anyway...And it's all up to the manufacturer whether they can ever get a replacement unit or a refund, and usually they don't want to do that.' Not great for consumers.

Dad smoked a pipe, and cigars occasionally: one of my memories is of the cigar smoke in the car when we'd be going to town on a rainy day. During World War II, his friend in a watch repair shop in the city would comment that he wasn't smoking his cigar, Dad said he couldn't get tobacco, so the guy would get him some cigars or tobacco occasionally. Dad said cigarettes were "two puffs and a spit" ... and wouldn't let the hired men smoke in the barn. He used quite a lot of chewing tobacco, later snuff, as he never smoked when working on the farm. Mom was out of my life from when I was just under six, taken to mental hospital when youngest brother was about 6 mos. old, but I think she didn't smoke. I used to give Dad the devil for his smoking. He had breathing problems, visited the prairies for a bout 6 weeks one fall, leaving the farm for me to look after care at age 15, along with my two younger brothers. He was partly visiting relatives and friends and he worked for a couple of weeks in harvest. After he came home to the London area that fall, in the following spring, sold his cattle and other animals, plus most of his farming equipment and rented the farm out, planning to move out west to farm. I worked for the renter, my brothers and grandma, who'd come to live with us after Grandpa died, and who never smoked, but I think Grandpa may have, were farmed out to church friends. Dad had some things to do in the prairies through that summer, and came back to spend the winter in Ontario prior to moving out there, the following spring, when he'd arranged to sharecrop a farm. My Grandpa had helped that man and his brother, neighbours living within 5 miles of where I do now, get an education, almost 40 years before, and who had gone out there about 1910 and returned for a visit in 1924, telling of the great opportunities out there ... but Dad and Mom were engaged, married in 1925, and she had a brother out there who was trying to farm where it was too dry, so she wanted no part of going out there. Some friends and I picked up ciggie butts along the roadside, bought some rolling papers and tried smoking. I began buying some in packs, later. When I wrote to Dad, this new adventure was part of the news imparted. In his reply, he said, "Well! well!! well!!! (1) So the young man who's been giving the old man the devil for all of these years is doing fine, is he?" 1. There was one underline under the first "we'', two under the second, and three under the third! That was all that I ever heard from Dad about the smoking. So ... I think that it had something to do with declaring my independence, of choosing to live my life as I chose, and being out from under Dad's thumb, though it was not a demanding thumb. I was age 10 when World War II started and soon the farmhands went off to war, so what Dad and this 10-year-old (and growing) and a couple of younger brothers got done - got done, for the next five years ... and the rest didn't, so I'd learned about hard work from an early age, and responsibility when Dad had left operating the farm in my tender care for the six weeks in the previous fall. After about six months, including some time after Dad's return from the west, but with no input from him ... I decided that I didn't like the taste ... and having been trained to be frugal, the cost ... ... so I quit. Never took it up after. My ex- smoked, though that would have been a "No! no" when we were missionaries in Korea (4 years, for her) so she didn't smoke then, but began again following our return to Canada. I think that she continued through her later years, but she'd been employed as second to head, later head, of food service in a substantial hospital, so I'm almost certain that she couldn't smoke on the job. Will have to ask son about that. Ironically, she, who'd fed millions ... died of colon cancer, 12 years ago this month. At age 66, and when the young ones said that, in the ordinary course of things, she'd have retired the year before, I added, "and have been sick through most of that year". She'd taken early retirement, so had 10 years or so to enjoy her retirement. We never know at least a major portion of what tomorrow may bring. Son smokes - I'm fairly sure that daughter, who's spent most of the last 20 years in Phoenix, doesn't. Hard to believe that they're both over 50. Hope you're enjoying your (probably smoke-free) day. ole joyful