Vera, keep us up to date on that puny little MG vine. Maybe it's a mutant. My Sunrise Serenade completely covered the vine pole, and then some; it cascaded down in every direction after it reached the top. It was truly exciting to see and enjoy. The seeds I sent you were from those flowers. I wish I had not deleted all of the pictures I took of it, but I consolidated my files when I did a back-up floppy to install on the new computer. Last year, I grew some Heavenly Blue and some Star of Yelta, and this year I had a couple of volunteers from those plants, so I'm letting them grow up the vine pole. I won't know what I have growing until the blossoms start. Mary

Hi Ilene, I'm kind of amazed y'all didn't have a frost because it looked pretty cold up there on the weather map. The green tomatoes I left on the vines are just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there. I don't think they are going to change colors and ripen until the sun shines. Supposedly we will have sunshine here on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I'll believe it when I actually see it since that also was our forecast last weekend and we had no sunshine and lots of cold instead. I think in the last two weeks, we've had a couple of times where the sun came out for 3 or 4 minutes, and last Thursday we had a hour or so of sun early in the day. It got our hopes up for a sunny day, but then that tiny bit of sun vanished. I saw an article on the website of either the Fort Worth or Dallas newspaper that said as of yesterday they were on their 11th straight day of clouds/no sunlight, so even that far south they are having about the same weather as most of us. The good news is that most of Texas has had a lot of rain and their drought conditions are receding. When the new Drought Monitor map is released tomorrow, we'll see a lot of changes.....I know that, not because I'm psychic, but because I have already looked at their KBDI map this week on another website and it shows great changes. Don't those Crocs have holes in them? I can't wear anything like that, including any sandals or open-toed or open-heeled shoes, that let the scorpions or fire ants have access to my skin or they'll take advantage of it. I learned that the hard way and have tried pretty hard not to slip up......if there is one fire ant in the yard and I go outside the house in sandals (I do wear them indoors), that one fire ant will find me the instance I step off the porch and onto the ground. We do have fire ant mounds popping up in a few places, and I still have some organic fire ant killer, so if we get a couple of dry days, I'll treat those mounds. Our puddles even have puddles, Ilene. The dog yard is a muddy mess but we've spread a couple of bales of straw there and that is helping. I think we need to get a couple more bales of straw and put out even more. When I walk in the garden, it squishes. I suspect this long, cloudy spell is a taste of the kind of fall/winter weather we're going to have this year. Usually October is one of my favorite months with its bright blue, clear, sunny skies and moderate temperatures. This year is a whole different story though. Dawn

Well, don't stop painting to chat with me!! ha I wouldn't want to stand in the way of your creativity. :) I have been painting some more shelves, a toilet paper holder,and a bench, but those were just black and white so nothing to show. I got some futon pieces painted into pumpkins and put them outside to clear coat, forgot about them and it rained on them some. They have some spots where the clear coat turned white so have to try to fix those. I've been working on this dairy sign for my kitchen. Bought it for $8 at the TS and it was a horrid green color and looked like it had been left out in the cow field for a year it was that dirty. ha Trying to clean it up and paint it to match my kitchen. It's fairly big so taking a little time. And I hope to get started on a Christmas box I'm giving for a gift this year tomorrow. Gingerbread I think. Sal just commented on my witch and I remembered that I wanted to get the Frankie and Scarecrow cut out to go with her, but I don't think I'm gonna have any time this year. DH just cut out some 4x4 pieces for me to make some pumpkins for my front stoop. I've just got to paint those orange and find some sticks and part of my grape vine for the stems. I haven't been here too much lately and I've got a lot going on this week and next. We've got a family picture Sat and I've got to go find DH and me some shirts to match the outfits I've got the kids. DD's b-day sleepover is Fri-Sat so got to go buy a bunch of food for six 13 yr old girls (you know how much these teenagers can eat!!) and get it ready for Friday and decorate for that. We are remodeling our main bathroom so I've got the tile guy coming Monday and he and DH are gonna start tearing that out. The next weekend I have my B & SiL coming to stay for a week and as soon as they leave it will be Halloween so I need to go ahead and get the kids costumes. I just got the house decorated for Halloween tonight. I didn't put out the tiny stuff that I usually do so it didn't take as long. I'm not used to all this mayhem so I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. ha Anyway, that's my life right now. Oh and we've been having a saga with my 2nd graders teacher. He had an accident at school because she wouldn't let him go to the bathroom and then she made him stand in the corner for the rest of the day and didn't let him call home. I want to move him to another class, but DH and the principal are trying to work something out to keep him in there. Urg!! So anyway, I look forward to seeing your fun stuff. I know it will be fun because you always do cute things. I don't blame you for doing the cute stuff for GD. I like the cute stuff myself. ha So you just keep on a painting til you get it all out of your system again for a while. ha It kinda goes in spurts doesn't it?? Thanksgiving and Christmas are sneaking in so you know there will be plenty more painting opportunities there. ;) ~Anj

#20. Ha. When I used to commute home there was a spot in the highway where one lane ended. Some people would fly past all the rest, on the right, and then try to merge. We all banded together to make them wait until some sucker came along and let them merge in.