maybe its larkspur?

Chris, when I started reading your post for a second there I thought it was mine.....lol! ! I too started when I got a job at a nursery and collected what few hostas we sold. Yes, about 8 varieties, but it was closer to 25 yrs ago. I didn't go on to start my own plant business, however, I retired after 16 years and went into the bead business, taking a hiatus from plants, even though I still bought some hostas and other plants on a casual basis. I didn't get into really collecting hostas until about 2003, when I got married to my former boss and best friend, the garden center owner, who had by that time sold the business and went to work in the garden center of a local big box store. And I was retired by then, also. When he sold his house and we moved his small hosta collection to my garden, we started making more beds and developing the rest of our wooded acre, collecting more and more hostas along the way, dividing the ones we had already. We are still at it, ripping out that godawful Japanese honeysuckle and replacing it with hostas! As I am an artist, a garden is just another medium to explore, and I haven't finished with it, yet. I have to create, and I have to have my hands in the soil. I've actually been a gardener since about age 3, following my dad's heels when he worked our farm when I was growing up. There were always huge vegetable gardens and flowers. Two new big beds last year and one smaller one this year have been added, and I still get that little tingle when I see an awesome new hosta, so I guess the honeymoon continues! In spite of the deer, and the voles, and the groundhogs, drought, cutworms, pillbugs and the heat, I'm still making wish lists, checking every garden center, planting seeds, yanking out more honeysuckle, looking at online catalogs and reading every post on here. Hope springs eternal, I KNOW next year is gonna be wonderful! Sandy

Well one post states daughter at 17 and the next post at 18, but guess it really does not matter, I'll assume you know how old your teen is. So if DH has agreed that the teasing is offensive and to knock it off, that part is finished. Your MIL has given an 'out' for the Indiana trip, so that part is also non-issue now. Maybe you and DH can drive up for a weekend at some later point when time and expense allows. So you're down to the phone calls to the SGKs that DH thinks you should partake in? Do the same that you did with the teasing and trip...sit down with DH and talk to him. If he can understand your hurt feeling over his teasing he should be able to grasp how you are feeling right now towards the kids that started the mess. Let him talk to the kids all he pleases, but right now you have no desire, have fresh 'wounds' and need a bit of time to rethink your relationship with the kids. Forget the IPod, make it your personal feelings and hurt over the strain/stress the false rumors not only put you under but also your marriage (via DH's possible beliefs of the rumors false or not). Simply 'you're sorry but right now you just need a bit of space from the kids, you've been hurt and your trust and respect in them has been misplaced'. As Ima stated above --"As for the phone calls, it is unreasonable for anyone to expect anyone else to talk to someone. If you WANT to talk, you'll call them. That is YOUR relationship with them & it can only be defined by you and them. He has HIS relationship with them & if he chooses to call them, that's his choice. But, clearly that is a marital/husband problem that you might need to discuss."-- Talk it out. DH does not have to agree with your decision to talk or not, but he needs to know how you are feeling about being forced/requested to talk and he needs to respect your feelings. How would he feel if your children pulled this on him? The SGD damanged her own relationship with you, it's between you and the child when and how you repair it. Maybe it will begin when the SGD personally phones you and sincerly apologizes for her actions towards you and the property of others. Don't hold your breath on that one though.

Your rv area is 20' wide. Wonderful, but could you make it 2 or 3 feet narrower? Then, you could give that 2 or 3 feet to your living room/kitchen area. We just enlarged it from 18' to 20' upon the advice of folks at an RV forum who have built RV garages. One reason we did too is because one wall will have cabinets, workbench, and tools. That's 3'. The RV, with slide extended is 10.5'. Room to walk around the RV, and pull tools around to work on it inside the garage is another 6-7'. That's almost 21'. I would add some windows on the side of the rv space, even if high, awning types that could be cracked open for ventilation and light, if needed. That's an idea we haven't considered. We need to see if we would be able to get to them to open and shut the windows and the rolling shades we would have to put on them. Your guest bedroom - Think about placing the bed on the front wall, instead of the bathroom wall. Now, you can put a door to the bathroom, into that bedroom and you don't need the 1/2 bath, in the house, if you don't want one. The bedroom chair can still go in the corner, where you currently picture the bed, I think. I'm not sure I follow you. 3 doors into that 1/2 bath? We do need the half bath. We only need one shower, but we definitely need two toilets. Where you currently have the 1/2 bath, maybe that could be a closet, for whatever is in those 2 small closets in the hallways to the bedrooms? OR, you could enlarge your master closet into that area. ...If you remove the small closets, you might be able to widen your master closet. The other two small closets are for the water heater and HVAC. Since you are gone in the RV, most a good part of the year, do you need a hallway for the master bedroom? If you don't need a separated master bedroom, and you can get rid of those small closets, you can mov eh stairs back further, toward the master closet. That gains you at least 3 feet of space in your great room. I hadn't considered that. I don't have a problem not having a hallway to the master. But I don't see where I could put the door from the living room. What if you re-configure the entire bedroom side. Since you don't have guests, often and you were considering a jack and jill/shared bathroom. Why not just have one nice bathroom, between the 2 bedrooms that has it's entrance in the hallway? I definitely want a half bath on either side of the shower room. Personally, we don't like the idea of having to go through the bathroom to get to our master closet. If someone is using the bathroom, the other one, is not able to get into the closet. So, at the least, I would consider re-doing your existing bathroom, so that you have a more spacious vanity. As it looks now, you are wasting an entire foot of space in the bathroom, that could be used in the living room. I don't like rooms that have a door on every wall, especially bedrooms. I'd rather have my clothes in a convenient location when I get out of the shower instead of having to walk through the bedroom to the closet. Are you saying the half bath off the master is too wide? I would not make your porches any smaller. As it is, a 6' porch, sort of makes you sit like ducks in a row, if you have guests and it's harder to talk. Someone has to lean out to look at the person down the row of chairs. As a matter of fact, why not use ALL the space for your living room/kitchen and add shed roofed porches, to any width you like? Surely, they could do that. If we have people over, we will be in the car garage used as screened breezeway. We can set up tables, chairs, and cookout in there without flies and mosquitoes. We seldom sit outside now because it's not very pleasant. Thanks for looking this over. You've given me a lot to think about.