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Saw those. Thought they were ridiculous.
From what I read, even a jeweler with a loop cannot tell lab grown from natural. They are chemically the same.
Link: Natural vs Lab Grown
Lab-grown diamonds are chemically, physically, and optically identical to natural diamonds. They have the same crystal structure, hardness, and sparkle. The difference is in the origin: one formed over billions of years underground, the other was created in a lab over a few weeks. A certified gemologist would need specialized equipment to tell them apart.
Interesting that a knowledgeable person is unable to distinguish between natural and lab grown.
Weird that we might find natural ones, mined by poorly paid people under dangerous conditions more romantic or something.
I’m an outlier because I find diamond engagement rings embarrassing, like a bride price.
That's a good idea Annie. Maybe when my third/last dog passes away I'll get all their ashes mixed together and make a diamond! That would definitely be a nicer memory than their ashes in their little wooden boxes sitting in the closet.
I wish we were going to have more time to explore the area. I love it. When I was a flight attendant, it was the next place I was going to move…but then I met and married H1. Should have moved to Seattle.
@1929Spanish-GW, omg, I fell down a rabbit hole looking at the Watson Kennedy website! Doubt that I’ll get there this trip but it looks divine!
Update on Harper Wilde. After my order was placed I noticed I qualified for a free pair of underwear. They had sent a notice that my order was ready to ship so I quick sent a note asking for a pair.
I got a sweet note back saying that it is supposed to be included in the regular order which had just shipped BUT … she would make an exception and please choose a pair and she would send them along separately.
Fantastic customer service. Definitely looking forward to my order.
I am glad I have so many clothes from decades past . Quality seems to have suffered of recent . My styles come and go I just hope they don’t go before I do . 😳🙏. c trailrunner
I have bought and returned close to a dozen pairs of champagne/light gold shoes to wear to a wedding in October, and nothing worked. Mainly because open toed sandals are a non-starter for me, and everything I bought was either ugly in person, uncomfortable or just plain didn't fit. Finally, "the" shoe arrived today. Fits, comfortable, and goes perfectly with the gown. And on sale, they were only $60! I am waiting for one other candidate to arrive next week, but I think we have a winner.
DLM, AI facial recognition issues was my first thought … most notably, the Angela Lipps and Taki Allen cases.
It’s proving to be a very slippery slope.
A quick search of ‘’Flock cameras misuse“ is quite eye-opening. I don’t think any private companies should be in charge of mass surveillance on citizens. Where’s the oversight? How many cases of abusing this tool are we not hearing about?
Of course I’m all for aids in helping prevent and solve crimes, but again, how do we stop the misuse of it?
Eta: I saw these thoughts about Flock cameras (sorry I forgot where I saw it):
”These have been mass adopted by all kinds of entities, including police and sheriff departments, city and county governments, private corporations, and even HOAs and neighborhood associations. The concern is that ALL of these cameras are feeding data back to FLOCK, who sells access to their national database to any government agency (and probably a number of private ones). This database is searchable by a number of metrics, including license plates, names, vehicle make/model/color, and who knows what other parameters.”
I found it -
lucille my conjecture is about more than ex post fact issues. Imagine a time when someone entering a mosque is considered suspicious - that's not a stretch given recent history. Or how about someone who regularly shops at the local mercado - we've seen that in action as recently as now. Since SC interpretation and permission for profiling has been construed to be "common sense" and now allows law enforcement to use language, place of employment, ethnicity and other 'cues' as appropriate for suspicion to detain individuals, prior definitions fall by the wayside. We're learning a lot about the fragility of norms. We do not need to be complicit in further weakening them.
There have been several local/regional incidents of law enforcement using Flock cameras to stalk ex partners or their ex partner's new partners.
Ring cameras, so what? Do you think the police will actually investigate? Good luck with that. I can be out with certain people and their phone is constantly going off there is someone at the door. So annoying when you are trying to have dinner, etc.
Privacy is totally gone. We are all on camera everywhere we go.
Yes I can understand as it takes a good deal of work/time to sell and ship. Thankfully mine all takes place in my driveway. It’s very enjoyable actually as I get to meet and chat with other gardeners. Such nice people!
Last year I sold a majority of hostas and Coral bells. I had one guy who wanted every single one of my coral bells! Told him sorry but I’d like to keep some lol geez. This year so far its been lots of tall Phlox and Allium, plus garden decor and stands.
Still have lots for sale and I’m hoping since it’s finally cooling down some it will bring in more….
I have to start with bacon, egg and cheese on a roll because I’m from Long Island and that’s what we do. Properly, the roll is a hard roll which I would describe as a Kaiser roll with a more crisp crust.
I love French eggs, though I’m not sure if I do them right. Scrambled, butter, constant stirring so creamy, finished with a dollop of creme fraich?
Egg nog!
Poached. Once I finally figured out to make them, I love them. I typically serve one atop my bastardized version of goetta. Or on avocado toast.
But this thread has me seeing egg salad in my near future. Light mayo, dijon, capers, blsck pepper. That’s good enough for me!
Although we buy only local free range eggs, I'm not a big fan. I like poached or freshly scrambled on toast but rarely have the latter because of the amount of butter required. I would never choose the vile rubbery muck that's been sitting under lights in a hotel buffet. I really don't enjoy omelettes and can only eat a few mouthfuls before the richness starts to make me feel ill. And I hate the sulphurous taste of hard boiled eggs. I've been served egg salad in Germany but never in the UK. That said, due to trying not to eat meat Monday to Friday, we do have a frittata, tortilla or a fried egg on roast vegetables once in a while. I do sometimes make an egg sandwich for when I'm out walking. Mashed softish hard boiled egg, spring onion and as little mayo is possible.
Having said all that, I did enjoy this breakfast last week despite not usually even being able to think of eggs before lunch time.
This frittata wasn't too bad.
Goose egg and roast veg. I much prefer them to hens' eggs but they're seasonal.
Eton mess. But I don't really think of meringue as eggs.
I get you, murraysmom. I think we all have these fetishes. I love practical shoes. Shoes that last for years, and are comfortable.
My husband has a thing for maps. His desk is full of roadmaps. He’s never thrown one away. He’ll buy a map whenever he can.
roxsolid, I think I would like your husband very much. I vaguely remember saying as much about him before. I, too, like maps and even though it is nice to have Siri get me from Point A to Point B, I like to see the big picture as well.
bbstx, but if you had the money for that quality of clothing, you also had the money for a maid to help you get dressed.
No, not normal. Make a list of her medications and look up side effects online and talk to a pharmacist. All drugs have side effects and some combine with others in a negative way. I would want a different doctor.
If she does want to plant natives (yay), we have a Digital Atlas of Virginia Flora which can be used to see which plants are native in which counties. Couldn't find the same for Maryland, but the link is a very good resource, I think. It doesn't seem to identify specific counties, but it does break down by region. I clicked on all three regions, so lots of pics, but your daughter would probably want to narrow it to her region. I like the photos.
UMD native plants database with photos
They call it the Native Plant Finder. :-)
ETA: I typed in the zip code of friends in Bethesda and it gave me the Piedmont eco-region for example.
Create a focal point with decor and natural elements. Here are my ideas I prompted to AI so adjust as needed
Gee I live in a fairly rural suburb - old farms, protected open space, patches of woods - and I have lots of wildlife, including deer. There's a deer path straight through my yard. I hardly ever see any deer damage to my natives. The sassafras is never touched, I have oak saplings, maple saplings, and lots of other small trees that I'm constantly removing from garden areas (they may not all be natives but I think there are cottonwood and juniper trees in there). The virginia creeper is never touched, nor the poison ivy, and I don't know if they are native or not, but lol the weeds are NEVER touched. Seems the only thing deer and other critters go for is my planted garden plants - hostas, daylilies, phlox etc. Maybe there are enough "cultivated yards" so that the deer have developed a fussier palate!
:)
Dee
Harvest Moon - Neil Young
I want to see you dance again
Aww - my friends played Harvest Moon at their wedding 🙂
This one seems perfect for the eclipse...
Moonshadow/ Cat Stevens
Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot
Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again
It's tragic and I'm very sad for his family and loved ones.
I hadn't paid attention to it, but for a quick check just now to respond to your question.
I think the most important victim of any suicide is the decedent themself. Not others, not family members. And after such an occurance, it's too late to do anything about it.
Might something have been done beforehand? Should there be a higher priority given in our societies to preventing suicides?
People get themselves into jams and problems in their life for which they may see no way out or may have no desire to remedy. Were one of these the reason for his decision?
Is a death by suicide more shocking, or less shocking, than when a person of a similar age dies suddenly of an unpredictable cardiovascular incident or a rapidly developing cancer? For me, they're the same. Regrettable, somewhat shocking, and tragic FOR THEM no matter what the cause, when a person can't live their life to a ripe old age.
". . . plenty of people still refuse to end a single-sentence text with a period." Really? Is that a thing? I can't imagine why.
I guess we all better look out for those dang aggressive periods. If they ‘behave’ that way, imagine what a question mark or exclamation point are like.
" The author seems to enjoy using the em dash. That commonly raises suspicion that it may have been written by AI. "
I was just reading how this has changed - as more people got wise, AI changed to continue to try to avoid detection, I guess, with new updates.
" AI prose is distinguishable by word and punctuation choice as well as sentence and paragraph structure. But its hallmarks are not what you might expect, partly because its writing style has changed with software updates...... The vocabulary that bots overuse has changed: they no longer “delve” and there are not as many “tapestries”. Instead they offer a significant number of polysyllables like “significant”, “increasingly” and “consequences”.....Then look at punctuation. Many believe LLMs stuff their prose with em-dashes, but that is not true after the most recent updates. Today only Claude uses more em-dashes than human writers, with ChatGPT using markedly fewer than any other writer in our study. " https://www.economist.com/culture/2026/07/30/how-to-spot-ai-writing
For what it's worth, I sometimes don't use a period in a single sentence text, but I always use a period in an email (even a single sentence paragraph or email. Sometimes it's because I'm dictating it, sometimes because the period is placed automatically when I double space for the next sentence, and if I don't do that, it doesn't autogenerate a period and I don't bother.
And you can take Oxford comma when you pry it from my cold, stiff, and dead hands.
"You can ask us not to share...by toggling ON..."
" There's this thing called the internet "
If this is directed to me, my respose is:
Yes. So what?
I hope to not have to experience such places but I guess one can never know with certainty in advance. Both of my wife's parents did, as did her grandmother, and it's no surprise that visiting them didn't cause me to have any enthusiasm about finding myself in one some day.
Neither of my parents nor any of my grandparents had mental or physical declines to the point that they needed any level of daily care prior to their final illnesses leading to death. Not from being in denial but maybe out of hope and optimism, I'll take my chances and keep my fingers crossed. I don't plan to make any such arrangements in advance. I won't be surprised either way, though. Anything can happen.
Good luck to all on this front.
rouge, I did a short video of my White Dome too! I just had to show anyone who is interested (which isn't really a lot of people lol - most of them, their eyes just glaze over) but it's so amazing because the longer you stand there, the more pollinators you realize are there. I didn't think we could post videos here but I just looked down the page and see a video attachment button. Maybe I'll dig up my video and post. At least here I can't see anyone's eyes glaze over haha!
Markay I have three white hydrangeas together too, but mine weren't a design choice lol. They were an oh-my-God-I-simply-MUST-get-this-hydrangea-in-the-ground-NOW-because-its-been-in-this-little-pot-for-five-years-and-its-dying-and-where-can-I-plop-it-"for-now"?
You guys are doing a fine job of persuading me to get a Haas Halo.....
:)
Dee
You guys are doing a fine job of persuading me to get a Haas Halo....
I beg to differ.
If we really did enable you, by now you would be showing us a picture of your newly acquired HH. If you dont want to disappoint us...get CRACKIN'!
after a rain?? i remember rocky & bullwinkle thumping the ground with poles to push worms along like a cattle drive.
rouge, you're killing me! Once again, a (pick one) gast station/fast-food joint/ pharmacy that has a nicer garden than I do! Haha!
:)
Dee
This is why I think it’s almost criminal to waste food. These workers are living hard lives doing backbreaking hard labor. The very least we can all do is make a personal effort to ensure their hard work isn’t a wasted effort.
Hard and dirty work will always be hard and dirty. I'm more than willing to pay more for food if the extra money will in part flow through to them to provide much improved pay and benefits.
I also wish we'd stop harrassing these nice people. Very few are criminals, very few are gang members, and certainly none of the ones seen working hard throughhout our communities are other than respectful and law abiding people filling essential jobs and trying to support themselves and their families . We need them to be here.
If a new "bracero program" as in years past would help, then why hasn't one been put into place?
As a teacher, I had the same experiences as Cyn427 . Appreciative parents, and interested, good students. Many did not speak much English.
Well really we have kind of a trilevel system where people at the very bottom of income pyramid, have a bit more access to some care, either Medicaid or other types of things that exist, that aren't accessible to poor people who make "too much". The teaching program I work in provides free care, but the patient has to be able to spend long appointment hours, multiple visits. (In this program we have had patient have to drop out when they get a new job, not because they can afford care, but they can no longer meet the appointment times.) In the program I see patients in, they are covered under federal and state grants, and much of the federal has been cut or the income guidelines have been raised. The patients who have been bumped out because of income are still low income. But they make "too much" to have access to care, not that they can afford it anywhere else.
The other thing that happens is that even with an insurance plan that is employer provided, what usually happens is that the working class employees have the cheapest plan with the highest deductible which they never hit. So they are paying for insurance that they don't really get to take advantage of with routine care because they have a $5000 deductible. But at the upper end of the spectrum, the top tier employees may have fully paid 0 deductible insurance as part of their package and have no out of pocket for routine care and no premium to pay.
I had one of the wealthier patients in the office say "If health insurance made sense, I would have a $50,000 deductible because that's how much I would feel comfortable having to pay out of pocket if necessary, before it really had much effect on me, and the person who cleans this office would have the low deductible insurance because they need it. Because it's likely that I would use a few thousand of that a year, just like the people at the bottom do, who never hit their deductible. The difference is, it wouldn't wipe me out to have to pay for something expensive, if I had to, on occasion.
The quality has to be high though. I've also seen unlacquered brass in wet areas turn almost black.
Here's the result of a search on porting phone numbers. All the carriers do it because they are required to by law.
" Under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules in the United States, all standard mobile phone carriers are required by law to allow you to port your active phone number to a new carrier or to a new account, provided you remain in the same geographic area. Your old carrier cannot refuse the transfer even if you have an unpaid balance. "
Umpteen years ago, I ported a landline number to a VOIP internet based new provider, Ooma. It was a trivial matter and was done free (an inducement for new customers).
There are some small Thuja shrubs like Hetz Midget or Fire Chief that are about 3'-4' in height. Also, Thuja occidentalis 'Little Giant' is 3'-4' . I am thinking of adding one or more of these to my front yard which is now lawn-free and planted with native perennials. I am hoping and figure they probably respond fine to pruning if they get more than the heights indicated by the nurseries. I like Thujas and have three full-size ones.
I'd look to broadleaved evergreens (BLE's) before conifers. Your selection will be larger, depending on cultivar, they will remain much smaller and pretty much all will take any pruning - should it be required - far better than 99% of conifers would.
Some to consider are boxwood, Japanese holly, euonymus, kalmia, rhododendrons and azaleas.