for caladiums, i use those orange mesh bags that citrus from the grocery store comes in. i put the wood shavings in there, too, and hang them in my utility room from a cabinet doorknob. it is dark in this room and generally cooler than the rest of the house. i suspect it would also work for dahlias to treat them this way. just curious but do you have to bring the dahlia tubers inside where you live? when i lived in northern alabama (similar zone), we had those giant dinner plate dahlias by the back door and never brought them inside.

bigdoglover....here's a link to the company we bought our remote from. Ours is old now and doesn't look like their latest model but at the time DH liked their design the best. I'll assume they've only gotten better. You can only use the remote to operate the lights if the lights came with their own remote to begin with. He replaced the wall plate with one by LUTRON so rather than standing up to slide the light switch off or on we can remain seated and just point the remote at the wall switch and operate it that way. If you know how to replace a light switch you can do this yourself after you buy the Lutron switch at Home (Depot) Expo or any lighting store. The Universal remote "learns" from the other remote by pointing them towards each other. It's all there in the manual, just takes a little time to set up and you will be rewarded with years of convenience. DH had so much fun linking everything in our home theatre up to this remote he even set up one of the buttons to say WIFE. One day he pointed the remote at me while pressing the button over and over, and then said (laughing), why isn't working?! He was hoping it would shut me up like the other components. Sporry buddy but we aren't in Stepford. ;-) Here is a link that might be useful: Universal Remote

kterlep - someone might have intentionally put that newspaper there. Growing up we used to make "time capsules" all over the house - under carpeting and in various nooks and crannies. There is a closet under the staircase, and when I was younger I realized that the back of the closet did not go all the way to the bottom of the stairs... it ended about halfway. I became obsessed with the idea of opening it up, realizing there was a hollow space there, and rather lenient parents allowed me too. (It was closed with boards, not lathe and plaster.) There were some weird old kitchen tools and some religious pamphlets in there. I don't know why they would have been closed up back there and I think they were intentionally put there. We took the tools to use for decoration in the kitchen but left the pamphlets, along with some newer items. I would wonder if someone found the old newspaper while doing work in your house and then decided to close it up under the carpet as a surprise to be discovered in the future.

Try these two links: http://www.ehow.com/how_13081_preserve-newspaper-clippings.html http://ask.yahoo.com/20011008.html I seem to recall being told you could soak the clippings in something to preserve them, but can't recall what--why am I thinking milk? Anyway, good luck. Hope one of the articles helps you.