u/Stressed_Mode

I had 9 desert roses of different varieties in pots on my front porch for the last 2 years.

They have all bloomed except 2 of the very smallest ones which have only one tiny stem and one sprout of green leaves so I think they are just not mature enough yet.

I saw one lost its green leaves, checked to see how firm the caudex was and it was soft, I pulled it up and the caudex was completely hollow, just a shell.

Now none of them are flowering, and all but the biggest ones seem to be less turgid than they should be.

I lowered the soil level so the caudex top is exposed to try and keep them from rotting. The soil is extremely well draining.

We live in the tropics it is routinely over a hundred degrees with a hv index of 14 for the better part of the day. I moved them all to a shadier area but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Everything was fine until the spring of this year. I changed nothing but they all (except one) started going down hill, and even that one won’t produce flowers.

I am 42 F (39 at first reduction, 40 at second) 5’8” 155 lb muscular build w/some fat too, emgality for migraines, Triptan as rescue med for breakthrough migraines. I can’t see the thing asking for info, so I hope I got it all. Two pregnancies which both enlarged my breasts, they did not get smaller after four years (two years for each child) of breastfeeding.

Hope that’s relevant back history.

My breasts have been ENORMOUS since about age 15 when I weighed 110 lbs at 5’8”. They got bigger with pregnancy, and bigger with breastfeeding. I got pregnant around 130 lbs and gained about 35 pounds. Lost it within a couple months of delivery, breastfeeding just seemed to suck all the fat off my body. I was a very muscular 145 going into second pregnancy, gained about 30 lbs, lost it all again in the same time frame.

My boobs grew to LITERALLY the size of my head. My bras had to be fitted for cup size and then the band was tailored smaller by my MIL because no bras fit.

Had a biopsy and asked about reduction. Surgeon said yeah, insurance will definitely cover it. I told him I wanted a small B, he didn’t surgery left me with a double d. A year went by and I asked for a second reduction. Again aiming for a small b, now I have a d cup. Surgeon said because of the large nature of my breasts he just couldn’t remove that much tissue, he may have cited a blood supply issue, to the nipple, but even after the second surgery, why couldn’t they get it smaller. I was adamant that I wanted really small breasts, and after the second surgery he said that just didn’t work “topographically.”

Was he just making the decision that I wouldn’t have liked the look that small, trying to save me from myself. Or is there a valid reason that after two reductions I still have a D cup?

He removed almost 800 grams from each breast the first time and around 200-250 the second time.

If I have a third, wtf do I need to say to get actually small b cup breasts. I play violin and am extremely athletic and they are just in the way.

I mean, surgeons perform mastectomies, so they CAN remove up to ALL of the tissue.

Please help me understand.

My daughter is going into 8th grade. She is using my old student violin. It’s probably comparable to about a $1200 instrument. And she hasn’t out grown the instrument yet (skill wise.) She often uses every bow in the house as a way to get rid of nerves before an audition/chair test/performance. She found no difference between my bow and hers.

Now that she’s playing pieces with more complicated bowing, like Martelé and light spiccato, she wants my bow.

I’d buy her one like mine from the same maker but I recently bought a setup for my other kid from that maker and the quality seems to have tanked in the past decade and a half. Maybe I just got unlucky with the recent purchase.

So, here’s the question, should I go spend $300 dollars on a better bow (she can also use it through the years) or should we wait until we buy her a better instrument and buy a new bow that plays well with that new instrument?

I’ve always bought new bows based on how they felt/sounded w/a particular instrument, never on their own.

ETA: a couple things. We live in a cultural desert. I could travel to the nearest big city, which is in Mexico, but I don’t know what the custom is on borrowing bows to try, or I could buy online, which I also don’t know if we’re able to trial bows before purchase via shipping.

$300 is not a set amount, just a rough guess based on how much decent bows were when I was her age. My mistake, they are clearly much more now, feel kind of silly. I don’t mind spending whatever the right now costs, $1000 or $1500 if it’s really worth it and going to give her lots of time to grow into it.

Forgot to add: I also have a Pfretzschner bow that needs a rehair. It has a lot of sentimental value to me. So I don’t really want her taking that to middle school with how clumsy a lot of the other students are. No offense meant, they’re just kids. My daughter is very particular and takes amazing care of her instrument to the point she has a decoy rosin in case anyone asks to borrow hers. This is also the reason she hasn’t started taking my instrument to school.

Thanks for any and all advice.