I thought Charlize Theron looked stunning in every way. You have to have a perfect face to pull off that haircut. Youth helps too. Jennifer Lawrence and her dress were gorgeous, but I thought it looked too much like a wedding gown. Possibly the Best. Wedding. Gown. Ever. :-) I wrote the following while going through the slideshow I linked above. Favorites: Amanda SeyfriedâÂÂs pale grey lace dress, Alexander McQueen Jennifer AnistonâÂÂs red Sandra BullockâÂÂs black lace Helen HuntâÂÂs royal blue Octavia SpencerâÂÂs blush chiffon Jamie FoxxâÂÂs beautiful daughterâÂÂs marine blue Jennifer HudsonâÂÂs blue Robin Robertsâ blue velvet Little Quvenzhane Wallisâ blue Not so thrilled: Anne Hathaway - maybe in a different color? Naomi Watts - looked too much like Star Trek Halle Berry - I rarely like Versace Jennifer Garner - I love her, and liked her dress, until she turned around. Renee Zellweger in Caroline Herrera as usual. I often like CH, but this was so molded! Amy Adams - I'm a fan, but thought she looked like a pale grey Big Bird. Kate CapshawâÂÂs dress seemed too young for her. Melissa McCarthy - that dress didn't do a thing for her. Helena Bonham Carter Sally Field. WhatâÂÂs with that train?? Quentin TarantinoâÂÂs date, Lianne Spiderbaby. I liked her dress about as much as I liked her name. Mark RuffaloâÂÂs wife's dress was odd. I like him, though! Not crazy about Jane FondaâÂÂs bright yellow and pointy shoulder pads. Versace again. Gloria ReubenâÂÂs blue - not my thing at all.

hMikka - sounds like you are doing a great job - a metal file wont give you the same FEEL as a Dremel which vibrates alot. It is important you always end on a positive note. Reward your dog for being curious about the tool when it is off. ALSO the more you just touch your dogs paws with and without the tool the better. Dogs front paws to them are like our privates are to us. No dog likes to have its paws (front especially) and from the minute you get a new pup the more you are hands on the better, front paws, sticking your finger down in their ears - not far, lifting their lips, lifting their tails (I scratch my dog around his "pants" making certain I get to touch the area close to his anal area - when he was younger I had to manually release his anal glands, and had to get quite personal. Because I had a more hands on protocol, my dog did not care one iota. As far as tying up your hair. It almost got me!!! I grow my hair out every year to donate to LOCKS OF LOVE and last summer I got the Dremel out and went to make certain it was on and working properly before introducing my dog to it (we have been doing this 12 years now and I still make certain his stress level stays low) and the darn thing tried to grab my hair!! But it gets so long that the window grabs it, the seatbealt retractor grabs it, it tries to grab my food....I get so sick of it being pulled and grabbed at that I am happy to have it chopped off. Good luck with your pup, and remember touch touch touch touch touch, communicate, praise and treat and go slow....

Many old gravestones are fragile and certain "cleaning" actions can damage them, particularily if the stone is limestone. If you try to scrape off lichen, some of the stone may come off too. As rule of thumb, avoid any action that removes any part of the stone, and that inculdes flakes and grains of the stone. Some genealogists now say it is damaging to do a 'rubbings' on old stones and are recommending against it. Many stones are very difficult to get the nomenclature to show in a photo. If you have to absolutely do something to get an image, then apply something that is harmless to the stone. You can whiten lettering by applying a soluble "white wash" to the lettering. Make a chalk paint. grind/crush white chalk and mix in water. Adjust the amount of water to your desired thickness. Use a small brush, maybe one about the size of a brush found in automoticv touch-up paint. Be careful not to dribble on the stone. Paint only the carved/etched lettering. The whitening will make the lettering "pop" in photos. Another method is use dry chalk powder. A small duster is used to blow the dust gently across the face of the stone. The object is to get some of the dust to collect in the lettering groves. Obviously, this won't work on a windy day. Again, the powder should be something that will rinse away in the next rain. Be gentle is the watch word. I recommend whitening for only the most difficult cases. Do try different angles and look for lighting that glances across the stone rather than head-on. You can help by using photographer's parasols and reflectors. For example, you can cast a shade over the stone and then use a reflector to throw light across the stone from the side. An inexpensive, reflector can be made by covering a big piece of cardboard with aluminum foil. Do watch for your own shadow. Your shadow can ruin appearances, although sometimes you may be able to include in an interesting way. For small stones on very bright days, I have used my shadow to cover the stone and control its lighting provided that my shadow will cover the entire stone. Most of the time, I try to keep my shadow out of the shot. Watch the exposure - its difficult when there is a wide ranged of brightness to dark. For example, you may be shooting a side of the stone that is opposite of the sunny side. If your camera's lightmeter is averaging the entire scene, the very bright background will cause the lens to close down resutling in a nicely exposed grassy turf beyound the stone, but the dark side of the stone will be under exposed and almost useless. For this situation, choose a metering mode that reads a small center section. Hopefully, there will be a frame displayed in the viewfinder/monitor showing you the dominant part being metered. Keep this zone on the stone. This will produce a fair exposure of the dark side of the stone and the brighter parts of the picture will have a 'burned' out look. Digital cameras: If you have not run a "white balance" in awhile, it is recommended you do this on site just before you begin your photo session. See your camera instructions. One caution: If there is bright blue sky illuminating the target (card), it can shift the white balance because the light contains a strong blue component. You may have better results if the card is held vertical or placed in the shade of a tree. Experiment before you make the trip. Try different conditions for white balance and make test shots of, say a color wheel. Some if not most digital cameras do an automatic white balance when the mode wheel is in the "auto" position, and ignores the setting you may have generated. Move the mode wheel to "M" where user's settings are used. Again, consult your camera manual to find what the camera does in various mode settings. For my particular camera, I use the "M" and "auto" selection most of the time. I do urge you to experiment and make a series of test shots before you go. Get a feel of the results for different settings. That's the nice thing about digital cameras, the images are very cheap. You can afford many test shots since these can be erased and the memory chip reused. About your camera batteries: When the first digital cameras hit the market, it was found that some of these would soon drain the cells, Rechargeable NiMH cells were touted as the answer where the cell voltage was 1.2 - 1.25 Volts. And then it was found these, too, had a problem. Those had a high leakage rate loosing as much as 10% of charge per month and some 10% per week. New camera models were developed using LIthium Ion batteries. These were superior, but have greater voltage per cell and can't be used as a direct replacement for the older NiMH cells. Today, cameras with Lithium-Ion cells are popular, but there are still a lot of cameras in use that use NIMH rechargeables. If you have one of those, I recommend a so called hybrid cell available from Batteries Plus. These are more expensive, but hold their charge much better than the plain NiMH cells.

Funny you should ask. :-) Jodi had said they were expected to last 5 to 7 days, I think, and the package says Wear beyond 7 days is not recommended. Sure enough, on the fifth day one of the nails popped off. The timing was bad, so I glued it back on. No problem. On the seventh day, yesterday, I decided to take them off and replace them. I soaked my fingers in regular (acetone) nail polish remover. I admit I was impatient to get the job done, but judging by how those nails clung to me, I think they would have lasted six months. LOL When they finally came off, some glue remained on my own nails. I can't say my nails were damaged--at least not after one wearing. I wasn't sure how to handle the leftover glue, so I attempted to file it off. I suspect I wasn't all that successful, because when I applied the new nails one of them came off immediately. I glued it back on and went to a party as planned. I'm happy to report there were no nail incidents! But this morning another one came off. I think it's pretty clear that I didn't provide a good enough surface for the glue to adhere to. Or something. But this time when I put the nail back on I ended up with glue covering one of my fingertips. I get the feeling I could go out and commit a crime now, and they'd never catch me by my fingerprints. :-) Go for it, Mona!