Marcia, I thought you lived in Thunder Bay... wow I really did drive past your place, mind you that was at least 7 years ago. Wanna know how embarassingly lost I was? I was going to Rushing River - DUH! Missed the turn! Motherduck, that sounds like a great camera. I was hoping to get something in the sorta $300-$400 range. Just to keep up with the Jonses you know... if you've seen some of the horrible fuzzy pics I have posted here...

It's one of the English Ivy cultivars, Hedera helix '24 Karats'. From the collection of Ivy at the Buffalo(NY) Botanical Garden. I grow a number of different one's, but don't have this one presently. Mine are grown in pots, hanging baskets and on toparies. I'm somewhat paranoid about planting Ivy in the garden, since many of the lazy neighbors have allowed it to become a nuisance in their gardens and it climbs trees, where it transforms into an Adult form, flowers and produces berries. Birds then scatter the seed everywhere and it becomes invasive. My property is mostly woodlands and a bird sanctuary, so you can imagine the problem I have with seedlings. not only from Ivy, but all berried plants! Not all are exotics, many are native plants. Here's another view of the same plant. Rb

Sharon, while I haven't been posting directly to your photo tip threads, I've been following them avidly. I so appreciate all the effort you've gone to to explain in such an easy way so many aspects of taking good [better for some of us] pictures. The last week or so I've been very busy organizing and then hosting our family reunion at a local fancy diner and have not had a real chance to digest the latest installments. The macro stuff interests me very much. I've tried to use my macro recently and found when I did the camera refused to take the picture?? Odd. LOL.. I'll figure it out but I suspect I'll have to dig through the manual to see what the problem is. Your post makes me suspect it has something to do with the camera not being able to focus on what I'm trying to do or the distance, or something..heh.. and it won't fire as self preservation. Smiles. I'll figure it out and then be back to digest more of your post. Btw, I got a tripod for my birthday! Yay.. I relative I had staying with me for a while apparently absconded with my last tripod. Grrrr... Needless to say I'm looking forward to using the tripod to work on some of your 'lessons'. Thanks for all your great work on our behalf.

In general, I feel that things should be stored where they are used. If the media are in another room than where they are played/viewed/listened to, there will be the temptation to leave them scattered about, rather then walk back to where they are stored. First, about the VHS tapes--they will degrade over time, or break. If you have anything very important on them, I'd start now to transfer them to a different medium. Second, I'd go through the entire collection and see if I couldn't pare it down by 10%, just so you have less to store. How to store them--ideally, I'd look for one piece of furniture that could hold them all. You should figure out how much shelf/drawer space you need for each type of media. Measure how much space 12 albums take up, and 12 CDs, etc. Then multiply by the number of albums and CDs that you have. That will give you an idea of the amount of shelf space you will need. I'd look for something with adjustable shelves to accommodate the varying sizes. And I'd strongly consider the Billy bookcase from Ikea. You can get extra shelves for them, which means you won't have unused space between the tops of the cases and the shelf above them, but can make use of every inch of space. They have a tower that can hold over 100 CDs. You can get doors for them, to keep the dust off. There are a variety of sizes and widths so that you can customize the storage. But I'd also consider burning all the CDs to your computer, and playing the music through the computer or an iPod or similar device. Then you could box up the CDs and store them in the attic or cellar. Which would help with your desire not to clutter up your living space too much.