Bestyears! Great advice.I'm printing it out. Thank you. She has been here a week and I don't know when we are taking her home. She has gone out to lunch with a GD, to dinner with her other DS. She been visiting with all of her family that is here. She'd stay for weeks. She would not be alone as much here as she is there. She has been annoying me for 28 years and I'm great with her. Having her 'running her own home' instead telling me how useless she feels at mine will remove the annoying stuff. Her tape loop is fine. (I'm used to my Uncle with dementia and worked with Developmentally Disabled adults for 15 years. I gained skills there, trust me. I don't take her personally. Of course it's lots of work but she is financially set. I'll get a housekeeper in once a week. If we need to get away, people (family) are willing to come stay at our house to watch out for her. (Dogs taken care of too.) I've been down this path before and admit we've been in denial regarding her abilities but we can no longer be responsible children and ignore her current situation. She really isn't cooking much anymore. Sandwiches, etc. It isn't hard to run her over a plate of whatever we're having. I told her we still wanted to have sex on the kitchen table so no peeking in our windows. (She loves it when I talk like that to her.) Keep tossing out thoughts. I'm going over them with DH later. I know we are also teaching our children how we want to be treated and what a great family looks like. If I'm going bonkers, I have several phone numbers on my speed dial for instant relief. "Come visit her/get her, etc. STAT." What brilliance lives within this tiny corner of the www. Thank you all.

I started back in 97 when my dd was born- today she turns 9! I did her baby book and it was ok. Then I discovered Creative Memories and all the stuff out there. I redid her pages- thanks to double prints- and it is much nicer. I used to use a 3-ring binder and page protectors from office supply store. I used solid paper as my page. I used some stickers and a little journalling. I have since taken all those pages and put them into CM albums. Now I use the regular white pages and use the colored paper for frames or accent strips. To organize and make things go faster I use an easy method. I have a binder with sleeves in it. When I develop film I separate in dated or event order. Then I divide by what pics would fit on a page. I drop those pics into sleeves. Then I take paper that matches the pics and drop it in the sleeve. I may put some stickers in there too. Then when I go to scrap, I just grab a sleeve and work that page. I have already picked out the stuff for the page, just need to assemble. Unfortunatly, I have a digital camera now. It was so easy to develop film and then sort out the pics. Now I have to download onto a CD, take to a place or use an online service. I have not done this yet, which explains why I have over 600 pics to print, and at least half I need doubles of- one for my dd and one for my ds albums. One nice thing about digital is that I can print only what I need, so I may print all my dd birthday pics for her album, but only print a few for my son to have in his. Hey soggy6- aren't you the one with the pool that had plaster then switched to ptec after a crack or something? Are you going to, or do you know about, the event at Newburg Hall down by Sac State on 4/29? My CM gal and her friends are having an all-day event. After spending last year doing the build, it will be nice to spend a day scrapping. I am taking all our vacation pics- the ones before we had kids- and getting them all into albums. Won't be super fancy like my kids books. The goal is to have them in an album instead of not.

I don't know if we are speaking of the same missions or not but one of the scrapbook catalogs has Mormon type mission pages for your pictures. If this is the type of paper you are looking for let me know and I will search the title of the catalog, I think it is Keeping Memories Alive. Penny

I'm going to my second organized scrapbook get-together at a place that sells supplies this weekend. They charge $10 and supply a table, meal, soft drinks and snacks. You can use their equipment like punches, stamps, etc., but have to use your own paper, scissors, stickers etc. Of course, you are free to wander the store and buy more stuff. A friend and I got together at her house last month. We shared our equipment like cutters, etc, but we each had our own paper and supplies. I'd invite everyone over and have a simple snack like cookies and cake and coffee. Ask your friends to brink snacks to share also. Have everyone bring their equipment and personal supplies that they would need. I wouldn't be worried about being to formal or organized about it. Just have fun.