I'll get those pics posted! The advice I got today was not to hurry to prune off any freeze damage until we're sure the risk of freeze is over. We haven't had any freeze in so many years, it's hard to remember what to do! Although the days are in the 70's, it is so dry that the nights are around 40 and could dip down further. Lots of fire risk right now, and no rain, oddly. So much looks bad (I've got to replace those impatiens and oxalis!), especially now that we're pruning the roses. Only the camellias are bursting with blooms. So pictures of the garden will demonstrate that all is not glitter in tinseltown!! Did you know there's a rose group called the Tinseltown Rose Society? Anyway, yes, the kids keep me busy. And Kitty. And our turtle Lili (or Timmy, if it turns out to be a male) and our fish (especially mine, Howard). I also made the mistake of missing a meeting at my son's school, and next thing you know, I'm chairperson of the hospitality committee, running around to Costco to get munchies and flowers for community events, open house, etc. How did this happen? IT'S A NIGHTMARE!!!! (just kidding!) I'm never missing a meeting again. Oh, and there was the "Macbeth" performance. I made several costumes, including my son's (he played Macbeth) and had fun creating props (like a torch made out of PVC pipe with a PVC cup on the end, a little flashlight thing placed in the cup, surrounded by tin foil and yellow and red cellophane (for flames). We covered the entire thing with dark brown duct tape (did you know they make that?) and it looked great! We donated everything to the school for future productions. Next play: Greater Tuna. Don't ask. I still haven't put my sewing machine away. Probably because no one knew I had one and everyone was completely amazed at how well I faked being a seamstress. I loved all the adulation! Max's friends thought I was so cool, they want me to make them costumes for the next anime convention they're going to this weekend. Forget it! I'm a lawyer!!!

Lisa, Well, I have tried the light on, the light off, etc. and the only difference I see is if the light is on and the sun porch door is open, bugs are attracted to the light and the bat is attracted to the bugs. I wouldn't even care about the bat if it wasn't for the fact that they carry rabies. You know, it would be just my luck to have the bat become rabid and the cats find the bat, etc. The cats have had rabies shots but who wants to deal with a potentially rabid bat? We've had bats flying around our property in the evenings ever since we moved here and I love having them since they eat tons of insects, but this is the first time I know of that one has tried to take up residence in our house. We have every kind of fly outside that you can imagine, so I guess soldier flies wouldn't gross me out, though their larvae would. When Chris was younger and in school and they had to do an insect collection for Biology, he and a bunch of his friends could get all the insects they needed by visiting my garden and our back porch, which was just a screened-in porch back then. I remember they'd catch a bunch of stuff and put the insects in ziplock bags (one bug per bag) and put them in the freezer to kill them. We also occasionally caught and "saved" bugs for the children of Tim's coworkers who lived in beautiful, "tidy" city neighborhoods where everyone sprayed for bugs and kids had a hard time finding enough insects to do their insect collection. The kids were amazed at how many different kinds of flies they caught. Sometimes they'd call me and say "hey, this is a rare and endangered species of fly....am I going to be in trouble for having it in my collection?" I was shocked that any fly species was rare or endangered since we have about a billion of them per acre here. Okay, that's an exaggeration....maybe a million per acre. I always told them to ask their teacher and, as far as I know, none of them got in trouble since you cannot possibly know before you catch a fly that it is going to be one considered rare or endangered. Their favorite ones were the gigantic horse flies that are larger than the big black-and-yellow bumblebees. During the years all those insect collecting kids were working on insect collections, I almost hated to open my freezer door because inevitably there were zip-lock bags of frozen insects in there. I remember thinking "If we die suddenly and someone has to clean out that freezer, they sure will wonder about the bags of insects, won't they?" Moni, Hope the bike ride was fun and welcome home! Sheila, I agree that if 18 year-olds think you are strange, there you are just perfectly normal. For me, the fun thing is that by the time they are 22 or 24 or 26 years old, they finally realize that you were a cool and wonderful person all along and they cannot even remember why they thought you were strange! It is funny how we old fogies became cool and appreciated more and more as our son and his friends got older. I had to laugh this summer. Our son always has appreciated having a garden for fresh produce and enjoys most of the stuff I can, though I cannot get him to appreciate home-canned catsup. He is a professional firefighter and he works 24-hour shifts, so they cook a lot of their meals at the fire station, and he sometimes takes in home-grown produce or home-canned food to go with their meals. Still, I've always thought that he sort of thought his gardening- and canning-obsessed mother was a relic from the dark ages. So, anyhow, this summer he mentioned that some of his friends have taken up gardening and canning and were having a ball, and had given him some of their home-canned food to take to work. Suddenly, I was even more "cool" and in-sync with his adult friends than ever before. I just grinned. It is fun when you get to make the transition from weird to cool. lol Dawn

Good questions -- In a nutshell, now that he has 'won' primary custody (and be assured, 'winning' is exactly how he sees it) the pressure tactics have pretty much stopped. He just loves being able to tell people that his son chose to live with him. Before that, he went almost as far as your SC's BioMom to distort things, discredit my DH, buy DS's love. He really treated it like a 'most popular parent' contest and would gloat whenever he thought he had won a point. I never responded to the gloating, and asked repeatedly to just let DS love ALL of us and not to worry about how much he loved who, but it never worked. You wouldn't believe it if you had heard him brag how much DS loved his stepmother -- especially the "He said he likes her better than he likes you!" part. Just incredible. I just responded that I was glad DS loved her, because that would be best for them both. One of the areas where he did the most damage was to DS's relationship with my DH. While he did his best to discredit me, I was pretty honest with DS from early on that "Daddy is still sad and angry that we couldn't live together, so he sometimes says things he doesn't really mean." When it escalated, and as DS got older, I changed it to "Sometimes your Dad says things out of anger that aren't quite true. Do you really think that was true?" Or "Your Dad sees things his way -- I see them differently. You'll need to decide for yourself what to believe." When it was things about visitation, I'd tell him "Your Dad and I sat down together and decided what we thought was best, and this is what we decided on." Repeated over and over. When it meant he couldn't go to the circus, I'd say "I wonder why your Dad didn't get tickets for a time you could go?" And when DS has a pre-made excuse, I'd say "Then I wonder why your Dad wouldn't agree to trade that night for another night?" I guess my DS was starting to catch on pretty well by age 12 or so also. He certainly gets it now -- Even though I don't have much respect for Ex, I still won't allow myself to be much of an audience for DS's gripes. I did tell him once that I would always want him back here with us, but that it was his decision - I wouldn't pressure him, and he would have to be able to tell his father that it was his choice. Sadly, I don't think that'll ever happen because Ex has raised bull-headed intimidation to an art form.

Stac I can not tell you how much this post means to me.It makes chill bumps go down my legs and arms as I read this.YOu have ever ever right to brag on Tanner.Keep bragging on him.If I was there I hug him if he let me and brag too just let him know Ms Judy is proud of him too.Let me asure you he will go FAR in life.I am so glad you posted this.This has started my day out good by reading great posts as this and its early here around 5 am,not sure but couldn't sleep and got up to read here and am glad I did.Please keep me inform how he is doing.