ideefixe, who's to say that jjkadaba69 would KEEP the out-of-focus snaps? Maybe she'd toss those as she goes. But she'd rather simply stick the prints she already has into an album. I certainly hope you didn't spend time SCANNING any of those out-of-focus snaps--that would be a big waste of time. I know people often suggest scanning your pictures, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Talk about chore clutter! Another thing to put on your to-do-list, and another system to organize. Plus, the whole POINT of pictures is to LOOK at them. I have yet to see anyone live in a world in which digital pictures get looked at after they're taken. The very format makes it difficult. If course, if your pictures are already digital, then you'll want to store them digitally, and figure out how to look at them (I love the idea of those electronic frames that display digital pictures). Of course, I'm still film-only, and MY pictures don't get looked at after they're taken either. That would be the point of getting albums and slipping the pictures in there--it would be easiER to look at them. And the fastest way to get pictures that are ALREADY printed to be easily view-able is to simply stick them in an album, right as they are. Without the intermediate step of scanning them. The process of moving the photos from one format to another seems like a major waste of time. jjkadaba69, maybe you should price out 3-ring binders, and plastic page protectors. The other option is to buy as many as you can find from a place like Target or Kmart all at once time, so they'll match. Start saving up the ear-marked money first, and then pick a time to go spend $100 or more on matching albums. You can also pick a basic color (maybe medium blue w/ yellow), and then buy ones that coordinate whenever & wherever you can find them. Also, it's only the SPINE that will be seen when they're on the shelf, so you can simply pick a basic design & size, and then not worry about color so much, and so you can buy them in stages.

If you received albums for a wedding gift and want to use them, just buy non-magnetic pages at Wal-Mart...you needn't do anything special to pics removed from a magnetic album...

Do you think foul play occurred in the death of Addie? I didn't read your link, so maybe there's more info there. I will have to drive by that house. I'm going down to Madison this week, so it's not that far. DH has a relative, second or third cousin or something like that, who is president of Wells Fargo bank. He lives in a mega-mansion in San Francisco and is apparently a really nice guy. DH's Aunt and Uncle went out there and stayed with him. Small world.

To answer the question - it never even dawned on me to think about what arsenic did to teeth, but that dream was SO startling and I'm not 100% sure it was a "dream" - per se. I was in that almost-but-not-quite asleep place when I was startled by Addie rushing up to me and as she got VERY close, she bared her teeth and she said - urgently - LOOK AT MY TEETH and I did and that was the end of the dream. However, it sure woke me up! I do feel strongly connected to Addie and I am not sure I can even articulate why. For decades, I've carried ONE old photo around with me from house to house (and marriage to marriage...) and it's the picture of Anna Hoyt Whitmore - Addie's older sister. One day I walked downstairs and into my dining room (where this picture hangs) and I feel like I heard someone say, "You're on the right track. Don't give up. Keep going forward with this." I really do feel almost a calling to see where this leads. If I had the money, I'd have her exhumed, but it's not just the cost of exhumation, but also the legal fees. An exhumation would have to be court ordered at this point, and that's where the serious dough will come in. Down deep in my bones, I know that Addie will rest in peace when the truth is revealed. And that furniture of my father's - oh boy - that's another story but now we're learning that there's a better than 50% chance it came from Enoch's HOUSE!!!! Can you believe it? We always heard from Father that it was an exhibition piece and I wasn't even sure what that meant. We also knew it was made in the mid-1890s. We also knew that it came into my Father's life when he was 13 or 14 (about 1933 or 1934). Two weeks ago, I was talking with the owner of The Fargo Mansion (B&B) and he said that Enoch Fargo would tell anyone who'd listen that all his furnishings were "exhibition pieces" from the 1893 World's Fair (in Chicago). That perked up my ears. And then the B&B owner said, "In the 1930s, Mattie Hoyt Fargo (Wife #3) decided to sell the house (Enoch died in 1921) and she invited the Hoyt family into the house to take whatever they wanted out of the house. We understand that Mattie's sister and cousins pretty well cleaned the place out." Well, my father's grandmother was Anna Hoyt (cousin of Mattie Hoyt) and that was like the missing puzzle piece! So now I *suspect* that my father's furniture might have come from the Fargo mansion. Rose