I only use Mail Merge every three months, and I have to read the instructions every time. Here are the ones I use. 1. Open Microsoft Word 97. Note: Microsoft Word 2000 and 2002 (XP) both have the "Mail Merge Wizard" menu item, but it is set up a bit differently than in 97. See the next set of steps (Word 2002) below for the XP directions. 2. Go to Toolsail Merge 3. Click the "Create" button. 4. Click "Mailing Labels" 5. Click "Active Window" 6. Click the "Get Data" button. 7. Click Open Data Source. 8. Next to "Files of Type" at the bottom, click the drop-down arrow and change the file type to "MS Excel Worksheets". 9. Locate the address table or spreadsheet that you already created (see picture above for an example). 10. After you locate it on your computer, double-click your Excel file. 11. "Entire Spreadsheet" will be highlighted. Click OK. 12. Click the "Set Up Main Document" button. 13. Choose the product number of the address labels you will be printing to. This can be easily found on front of the box your labels came in (example: 8160  Address labels). Then, click OK. 14. Insert the sheets of address labels from your box. Insert them into the printer face down and with the top of the sheets facing toward the inside of the printer. 15. Click the "Insert Merge Field" button. Repeat for each new line. At any time if you want to Edit the addresses, click the Edit button. 16. Hit the space bar to put spaces between 1st name and last name, city, state and zip code. Press the Enter key on your keyboard to begin a new line (example: Press the Enter key to start a new line for Address and another new line for City). 17. Important: If you followed the pictured example at the top of this page (the recommended column headings of First Name, Last Name, Address, City, State, Zip), when you click the "Insert Merge Field" button, the correct heading should already be listed. Simply click the correct heading and it will be automatically inserted into the label. 18. Click OK. 19. Click "Merge". 20. Click "Merge" again. *Highlight all labels and click the Center button to center the labels. 21. Go to Fileà Print to print the labels. Word 2002 (XP) Mail Merge Wizard Directions 1. In Microsoft Word 2002 (XP version), once you've created an Excel table or spreadsheet, go into Word and choose Toolsà Letters & Mailingsà Mail Merge Wizard. *Make sure that "Show Mail Merge Toolbar" is also checked. 2. The Task Pane at the right side of the screen comes up. Where it says "Select Document type" choose Labels. At the bottom, click the right arrow ("Next: Starting document"). Click on the blue "Label Options" link. Pick the correct style or number for your lables (example: 5160-Address). Then, click OK. 3. At the bottom, choose "Next: Select recipients." Then, click Browse, and locate the Excel table that you want to pull names & addresses from. For "Files of type," scroll down & choose Excel files (if your database was created in Excel) and find the correct document on your computer & click Open (or just double-click the file name). The Mail Merge Recipients list pops up. You can check or uncheck the names that you want to include in your Labels. Then, click OK. 4. Click Next: Arrange your labels. Go up to your Mail Merge Toolbar and click on the "Insert Merge Fields" button. (See toolbar in picture below) 5. The "Insert Merge Field" box pops up. Make sure there is a dot next to "Database Fields." Then, double-click on each database field you want to include in your labels (example: Last Name, First Name, City, State, Zip). If you double-click, there is no need to click the "Insert" button. When all the needed fields have been inserted, click the "Close" button. 6. Simply click your mouse cursor in between the double-arrow brackets and press the space bar to create spaces between the name, address, city, state, Zip code, etc (see picture below). Once you get the first label set up the way you want, click the "Update All Labels" button (see picture above). Then, click "Next: Preview your labels." 7. To view your merged data and see what will appear on your mailing labels, go up to your Mail Merge toolbar again and click the "View Merged Data button". ItÂs the button that says > (see picture below) 8. Click Next: Complete the merge. You should see the merged data. If you lose the actual names and only see something like in the picture above, go back and click the > "View Merged Data" button again. It will bring up the names in your mailing labels again. 9. To Print all of your labels, on Step 6 of 6 in the Mail Merge Wizard, you should see a blue text link to the right under Merge that says "Print." (see picture below). Click "Print." The "Merge to Printer" box pops up. Simply choose which option youÂd like, such as "Print records: All, current record, or from a particular record to a particular record. 10. Last, a great tip when using Word 2002's Mail Merge is to activate the Mail Merge Toolbar. To do this, right-click on your main toolbar at the top and select "Mail Merge." This toolbar allows you to bring up each of the Mail Merge features with a single-click button. After you save a particular Mail Merge document in Word, the next time you open it, you no longer need to use the Wizard. In fact, you can close the Task Pane at any time by clicking its X in the top right corner. Just use the Mail Merge Toolbar from then on.

Brutuses, I'll try to answer this as an interested consumer. I am by no means a scientist, and I can't vouch for the veracity of the tests/reports quoted in the articles I've read and linked to. If you google this, you can find a lot of alarmist type reports, which I tried to sort through and not include here. I am a fan of natural and organic, just because it makes sense. I don't want to unnecessarily alarm anyone with this info, and urge you all to do your own research on this topic. Basically, the chemical that kept stains from adhering which was used in Scotchguard in until several years ago was found to contaminate human blood and wildlife. Over 90% of the population in the late'90's had the chemical in their blood (also used in Teflon, etc). Testing revealed it to be lethal in high doses to animals, however Scotchguard, Teflon, etc used much smaller doses. The new formula does not contain those chemicals, though it has been criticized for not working as well. Furthermore, the company hadn't revealed the test results for the current chemicals, though they will say that these new chemicals do not stay in the body as long as the old ones and that the new chemicals are safe. There is some uproar over why these chemicals do not have to be proven safe before they are used and just who is responsible, if anyone, for monitoring companies like the makers of Scotchguard. The EPA concluded around 2000 (? not sure of date) the chemical was toxic and was linked to birth defects. It is no longer used in Scotchguard. These chemicals are in carpet, clothes, etc and have entered the food chain to the point of being found in baby eagle's blood (who have never left the nest, thereby leading researchers to conclude that the chemical has entered the food chain). They are not sure yet HOW these chemicals enter our bloodstreams (water, air, etc). Given this info, I'm not sure how much impact it has to choose to not use these items in our homes. Clearly, there is so much we do not have control over and therefore can't impact through our choices. But for me, it makes sense to opt out of stain/water/oil repellants whenever possible. links: http://www.enviroblog.org/2007/06/ask_ewg_why_is_there_teflon_in.htm http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2005/02/toxictraces/ http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/02/22_edgerlym_3mscience/ http://www.ewg.org/reports/pfcworld/ http://www.protectingourhealth.org/press/2003/2003-0622-SJMN-scotchgard.htm Here is a link that might be useful: stain/water etc replellants

Ok, I've been thinking about this room all day. LOL I even went through a ton of fabrics to try to find something I could recommend. The problem is, I don't think the tones in the photo of the curtains is coming across very well so it's making it near impossible. If you can take a really good clear crisp photo of the fabric in a flat position (drape it over the chair) that may help. The other thing I really feel the need to throw out there is overall the room is just lacking color and I don't think canning the red is necessarily the answer. I know you said you've grown tired of it, but maybe that's because that's all there is. Why not just keep the red and bring in a 3rd color to the mix. Olive Green, Navy Blue? Rule of thumb is to have your colors in odd numbers so you really need a 3rd color anyway. You don't even necessarily have to reupholster the chair to accomplish this. You could just bring in some color with the use of pillow covers, a new rug and even paint. If the chair print isn't working with the drapes, add some separation by putting a throw in a contrasting color over the back of it. That said, if you still really want to change the fabric on the chair, post up a new photo, there are several of us who just love to shop fabrics, we just need a really good picture to do it with. :c)

Just three years ago, where my house and yard is now was just a field of weeds. On my half acre lot, I've mulched with between 500 and 600 bags of leaves from neighbors, ground up, and applied thickly to growing beds, spread regularly and thinly on the lawn. In some of the areas where I wasn't going to pay much attention to for a few years, I put down a thick layer of newspaper before piling on the leaf mulch. In areas where I am actively gardening, I just pile on the leaves each fall and winter(already started collecting leaves this year). I already have absolutely no weed "problem" in my garden areas. Yes, the mulch keeps down almost all of the weeds. Also, some weeds sprout and come through the mulch. The advantage of the mulch is that the soil underneath never is hard, dry, and impossible to remove weeds from. I walked through my garden often that first year in particular, to remove weeds when small and well BEFORE they can ever go to seed. Anything that can grow from any small piece of the subject weed or that included seeds(along borders, etc., I put in a trash can for removal from my property. More benign things go in the compost pile. But they are very easy to pull from well mulched soil, and there just aren't many of them. The casual way I deal with weeding is an indication that just the organic mulch is all I need. I have seen, heard, and experienced horrible things with landscape fabric, and I won't subject myself to that.