Morning.. Joke for the day (ps my mother sent me this) ROSES & HANGING BASKETS A teenage granddaughter comes downstairs for her date with this see-through blouse on and no bra. Her grandmother just pitched a fit, telling her not to dare go out like that! The teenager tells her 'Loosen up Grams. These are modern times. You gotta let your rose buds show!' and out she goes. The next day the teenager comes down stairs, and the grandmother is sitting there with no top on. The teenager wants to die. She explains to her grandmother that she has friends coming over and that it is just not appropriate.... The grandmother says, 'Loosen up, Sweetie. If you can show off your rose buds, then I can display my hanging baskets. Happy Gardening.

This sounds fun & thought provoking! A is for age: 47 B is for beer of choice: something dark - I usually order Sam Adams when out. C is for career you want: I want to become a labor mediator eventually D is for your dog's name? Molly Elizabeth E is for essential item you use everyday: dental floss/toothbrush/contact lens cleaner F is for favorite TV SHOW: Boston Legal G is for favorite game: Mah Jong H is for Home town: Batavia I is for instruments you play: I have fun trying to play the harmonica J is for favorite juice: grapefruit or cranberry K is for whose butt you'd like to kick: DH's ex L is for last place you ate out: A diner somewhere near Binghamton NY in November M is for married: Yes, 10 years in July N is for your full name: Karen O is for overnight hospital stays: 19 & 25 years ago for my childrens' birth P is for people you were with today: Deb & Anita Q is for quote: It's all BS R is for Biggest Regret: staying with my ex for so long; I can't say I regret marrying him because he is my DDs dad. S is for status: employed FT, PT student, wife, mother, homemaker T is for time you woke up today: 6:00 AM U is for underwear you have on now: none V is for vegetable you love: all, except eggplant W is for worst habit: interrupting people X is for x-rays you've had: none Y is for yummy food you ate today: DH's homemade pizza Z is for zodiac sign: Libra

When my Mother passed away and I inherited boxes of old photos, clippings, announcements photo albums of many sizes etc. etc. etc.....I spent most of one year re-organizing and putting stuff in albums of uniform size and archival quality....the timing was right for it to happen. Even postcards were put their own (plastic pocketed) album. I organized by year, cropped and pretty much made 'collage' pages....many photo's telling a 'story in photos' with few captions on only a few pages. I typed into a computer program all of the details I could gather about ancestors from obits etc.and sealed those clippings into album pages as well. It DID take a year, and my large dining room table was like an ocean as I got it cleaned up from one year/era before the next came rushing in. I still have one photo box with 'worthwhile' but unidentified photo's and duplicates, if any family members ever want to check them out; and one box of negatives identified mostly as they were saved by the photographer. Meanwhile, the very large 12x12 albums ARE looked at frequently and different 'times/people' are found easily. A couple of summers ago, youngest grandaughter made the observation that there were no photos of her in the albums (age 13), so this winter I did spend some time bringing the "Family Albums" more up to date. Digital is fine, but we do miss gathering around he 'albums' checking out the parents etc. and it is a still to be done chore to get some digitals printed. We are about to visit 38 year old grandson who has just had his first baby, and meet his new wife and 2 children. I will be taking ONE album.... the time period when he lived with us during his baby/toddler years. I expect it will be fun to show him off to his new family.... and then the rest of US when they come here to visit. I also made seperate albums for each of my 3 children... taking many photos 40 miles into town to scan. Today I have my own scanner and printer, so that should make putting albums together really easy. Still a work in progress, as each of the families continue to grow.

No, flatbed scanners can't be counted on to accommodate negatives. You need to find one that has settings and physical properties that will allow negative scanning. Scanning negatives requires backlighting. I was recently on the phone with a Canon techie, and he mentioned that my scanner was so great because it takes negatives of different sizes, and it was the only one Canon made that would do that. Unfortunately, it's not being manufactured now. I took a look on Amazon and found this one, which will scan slides, negatives and medium-format panoramic film up to 6 x 22 cm. I usually have the negative holder on my scanner set to an opening of 2x3". If I want to scan a 2x2" negative, I just set it in the opening, leaving blank space around it. The preview will come up as a black rectangle, but if I draw a crop box inside the rectangle, my image will show up. I can then adjust the crop to include what I want before I click Scan. Perhaps the DPReview people can recommend other scanners. I'm also wondering if you could use a light box to "scan" the negatives with your camera. Scanning is basically the same as taking a picture. I've handled some slides this way. Because these slides were damaged (mounted under glass and now stuck to the glass--and even worse in some cases), and because I'm not using a tripod, the results aren't wonderful. But I think I could do a lot better if I put some thought into this and started out with better slides.