I am a just turned 45-year old medically disabled guy working on my second marriage to a wonderful lady named Joyce. I started seriously growing roses 5 years ago. Obviously I am totally addicted as much as I can possibly be to my roses. Due to my health conditions, my 200+ roses is plenty and offer me lots of very good therapy without drudgery and keeps me more beneficially active than I would be without them. When I have bad days or stretches of them I don't usually absolutely have to get out in the garden. Whatever needs doing can usually be held off for a couple of days or so if necessary. I hate daytime TV and prefer raising roses any day of the week. More than the # of roses I currently have would make it seem a chore rather than an enjoyable pastime which it currently is. If there is alot of heavy or strenuous activity needed my two sons or wife are always there to lend a helping hand, usually hauling around heavy bags or digging lots of new bareroot holes at planting time. I really appreciate them alot. I think my roses have been a good tool to encourage good conversation and communication between all members of my extended family. Last month I cut and supplied an entire weeks worth of roses to beautify my nieces wedding. Most were in vases around the various tables at the post-wedding reception and some actually were put on the wedding cake itself. My niece and sister-in-law were very plaeased and thankful for them and I loved supplying them. Little things like this can really strengthen an extended family core and build healthy and closer relationships. One last mention is the new on-line friends you make doing this "rose thing". Not to mention the number of people that have just pulled up to the house asking to look at the roses close up. I always try to oblige and have had some really good conversations and made new friends in the process. How cool is that???? Try it, you'll like it!!! John

Ultimately this is to me the new "motherhood" where children are cosseted and protected ("I can't hang a picture on the wall next to the crib because it might fall on the baby" or buy ahouse with a swmming pool cause the child might drown) in ways that are beyond bordering on the absurd. We had a friend who married one of the most fun, charismatic and bright women I have ever met. Then she had a child. She brought the child to our adult only party and was so absorbed in this kid that her entire personality had been erased. It was the most tragic thing for her husband who eventually left her. I am not fond of today's toddlers because they are raised with no manners. You might say that toddlers are too young to have manners, but my children did not bang on furniture, stick their hands into food, or run wild through the rooms. We did not know to childproof and our kids knew to stay out of certain places. We didn't play with them 12 hours a day and they were left to their own devices while chores, personal time and other things were done. That resulted in children who were curious, had an imagination, weren't glued to the TV and knew how to play. And be by themselves and enjoy it. How novel! And the same with my friend's children. This is new phenomenon. We won't invite people with kids any more. The kids are little monsters and I don't need that disruption in my life.

luvmytbear, are you reading the posts people are putting up here for you? If I understand correctly, the Disney World trip was already planned before you decided on a Barbados wedding. Even if it wasn't, it is harder than you think to reschedule, especially for a large group, and more important, I think mammavan makes an excellent point about the perspective of the others. Read it carefully and try to see their point of view. Look how many posters made the observation that (without special circumstances) a destination wedding says "we value a fancy setting more than we value your presence." You can have a destination wedding. For that matter, you can refuse to send thank you notes. You can cut your sister out of your wedding party. You can put "cash please" on the invitations. You can invite the cousin you like but not his brother. You can have a reception with music that everyone but you and your pals hates. You can do whatever you want! It's Your Special Day!!!!! But you can't insist that everyone feel the way you want them to feel about it. Your new family feels excluded -- well, they are. Trying to explain to them that they should prefer to spend their money and vacation time on YOUR idea of a vacation, not theirs, is not going to work. As Talley Sue wisely points out, your family probably feels pretty much the same way about this plan; they are just being better sports and more polite about it. Consider that their disappointment means that it is important to THEM to share your wedding with you -- I doubt you would want them to feel relieved, not disappointed, that they can't come. Your original question was: "Is it wrong to just go with our plans? Or should we try to do something local so that his family won't alienate him? I feel so torn!" Well, although it would solve some problems to have the wedding locally and save Barbados for the honeymoon, it definitely isn't "wrong" to go ahead with your Barbados plans. What would be wrong would be to refuse to accept that some people will feel hurt, to insist that they see it your way, to dismiss their plans for a family Disney World trip, and to blame THEM for making YOU feel guilty. If you feel guilty, maybe it's because you really aren't as comfortable with your choice as you wish you were. I'm sorry this sounds so harsh. Having a destination wedding is not a crime. It's disappointing, but not unforgivable! Your future relationship is what's important, not the wedding. You won't ruin it by going to Barbados, but you might by trying to tell everyone else that their feelings are unimportant and that they are cheap and hypocritical. Just do it and let them get over it. Oh -- and if anyone in the famiy someday has a destination wedding, I don't care if it's on MARS -- GO! :-)

Undertones are tricky and the lighter, more reflective the color the trickier undertones become. What is "No undertone" in one home on one surface may be pink or green or blue in another. We have multiple things at play. The color itself has certain physical properties. Luminance, Chroma and Hue. The surface it is painted on may be smooth or rough and that will change how the light reflects off the surface. The paint has different gloss levels which changes how much light is reflected off the paint. Then you add in the quality and color of the light that is either coming through the windows or produced by artificial lighting in your home. The last part of the equation is the colors that surround the color you are looking at. Our brains receive about 11 million bits of information per second, but we only process about 50 bits of information per second. Our brain groups data so that it is easier to ingest. (Cool fact - when we hear a sentence our brain fires electromagnetic energy from different areas for nouns vs adjectives vs verbs etc. Even if you don't know the parts of speech your brain organizes types of words in different spaces.) When we see white we automatically compare it to every other color in the space and the brain decides how to process the information as a whole, not each individual color. We can make some assumptions based on comparison of whites to pure neutral white and say this will most likely have a blue undertone because it is bluer or grayer than pure neutral white, but if you place the white next to a brilliant pastel blue it may look more green or more purple than the blue. We also associate gray with blue. Remember how we see less color when we are depressed? What do we say? "I feel blue today". We're not seeing more blue, we are seeing more gray, but our brain groups gray and blue together. The best way I have found to test if my colors will work together or fight with each other is to look at the combinations outside around 2:00 in the afternoon on a sunny day. If they look good together they will still look good together when the color/quality of the light changes. They may not look the same, but the colors will all be impacted the same way by the light and will still work or not work together. Natural daylight reveals subtle color differences that you may miss with artificial or filtered light.