You absolutely need the rubber bands or SOMETHING to secure the graft, and even then all it takes it one misplaced elbow to destroy 6 months of nursing your little graft and break your heart. Nooooooo! Myself, I use the stretchy plastic green garden tape to both label my grafts and tie them to the rootstock tree and secure them until the wood has grown together. Carla in Sac

I just wanted to chime in here with best wishes, and glads to see you here - and to tell you that my aunt has been taking the chemo treatments for non-Hodgkins lymphoma for several years... she's coping just fine, enjoying her life of retirement near her children. She will be 90 next year. Not sure I'm spelled it correctly, or that its the precise disgnosis you got, but do want to assure you that modern medicine can accomplish wonders these days.

I think it is possible the SD does indeed keep caught in the middle of Mom and SM. I also don't think she 'lied' or told a half truth. At the time the discussion first took place, SD had not yet made plans for the summer break with Mom...after reading some of your previous threads, I can't help but notice there has been long standing feud over exact days/visits. The SD was wrong in that she committed and did not follow through on what she agreed to. The mother is wrong for pressuring her daughter to take 'a summer job committment' seriously and making a big ta-do over a day or day (something that this mother though has been known to repeatedly do). And you are wrong with withholding your relationship with the SD in a temper tossing hurt feeling mode. The girl really is stuck between the two 'moms'. One screaming 'be an adult' one minute while treating her as the 'child' the next. The other one still playing the same old games of rearranging schedules no matter who it affects in an all out path of having her daughter 'at home' as many days as possible (while still treating daughter as a yung child/early teen). In an attempt to keep somewhat harmony between the SD's 'moms' daughter ends up being indecisive, nonresponsibile and still kept very much the child while being told to act the adult. If I were the girl, I'd be tempted to remain where I attend school. Maybe visit for a a short spell with each side and work my summer at a job that would enable me to have something more than 'babysitting' for references. Because you are disappointed and your feelings are hurt you intend to punish the SD. You'll just after 15 yrs of being mommy #2 you'll just suddenly begin being 'her fathers wife'. And you'll label a 'test' to see if the relationship can withstand the 'test'. The first time SD expresed her newly found 'adult views' aka opinions (example, daughter's eating habits) you took a personal offense to it and again you're feelings are hurt and deny the SD who you say you want to start acting/thinking like an adult for her effort in doing so. The SD can't win here. Send LS to the daycare as now planned. Quite frankly you can read all the books you please on 'disengaging' and 'teaching assertiveness', but but until you start practicing actually raising the SD with the open mind that she is becoming an adult (even when her new found adult views annoy you), and continue to treat her as the child (both 'moms') it's just setting up more hurt feelings and keeping the girl a girl stuck in the middle. She's young, socializing with a whole new group of people, seeing different lifestyles and discovering who she is and what she believes. My niece as decided her new found 'thing' in life is to be a veggie,...she'd have a stroke to think you're LS eats skittles and poisons her body blah blah blah. LOL. Once 'kids' start expanding their social network, experiencing new groups and ideas, well they can be quite crazy in their new 'worldly views'. My 2 cents. Good luck to you. Sd has reached the age between childhood and adulthood and she's likely to say many more things that appear to be 'anti-you' (or mom or dad or the neighbor) while she opens those wings and begins to shape her own ideas.

I'm grateful for the variety of ideas and opinions that people come up with here on the KT. Plus their general concern for one another. Sometimes when we hear the bases upon which an idea that we somewhat disagree with is based, we find that we have more in common than we thought in the beginning. It's easy to ask for, or promote, or pray for such a thing as, "Peace", for example. But "Peace" doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't appear like a peach in midair. Peaches require a tree with roots, a trunk, branches and leaves in order to happen. If we don't have a root of justice, available to all, plus a trunk and branches of a yearning and search for understanding and the leaves of compassion ... ... we can cry, shout, pray or yearn for the peach of "Peace" all we like ... ... but we ain't a gonna get it! Good wishes as you do all of the necessary things through these closing days of the year. And, if Christmas is important to you, may you have a truly wonderful, happy and meaningful time, this year. ole joyful