My bf had two heater malfunctions : the first left his dinner plate-size discus frozen solid in the winter. The second cooked his most favorite catfish collection. He was most upset about his 8 year old feather fin catfish. Several months later I got him $100 worth of African cichlids as a surprise..not the best idea since his tank wasn't ready for them and they all died :( When I was young I had a plecostomus that started to creep me out the bigger it got. It had a crooked face, bulging/bug eyes, and would chase you as you walked by the tank. Worse: It started to jump out of the water and bark!!! I was ready to give it away, then one morning, although we have a hood, my brother found it dried up on the living room floor, several feet away from the tank. He decided to flush it down the toilet, which resulted in us having to call the plumbers. My kids crashed my tank of platies that were gifted to me. The gal had them for 13 years (highly inbred but she loved them, so I loved them). I saved about 7 out of 40+. The kids had accidentally dropped a stuffed animal in there when the lid was partially opened, I think whatever beans/beads were in the stuffed animal leached harmful chemicals into the tank because they died so quickly. Lastly, I had an upside down catfish that I really loved, he was shy at first but became so fun to watch. One day he disappeared without a trace. No body, no bones, nothing. I looked under decor, sifted through gravel, and gave up not knowing what had happened. Six months later, I decide to take out my under-gravel filter, and something sharp poked me. There he was!!! Alive and swimming. I'm not sure how he got down there, and I don't use the undergravel filters anymore :)

I just remember someone looking for these books. between my mil and I we have hundreds of golden books and lots of extrs. maybe I will start a post for what people are looking for, mailing a book wouldnt cost much and with times the way they are, we can all be cheered up. Stacie

Thank you. I have not seen any pussywillows for years, people don't seem to grow them any more. They are reputed to be a nuisance and hard to get rid of. So long as you don't plant them close to your foundation or water or sewer line, I don't know what the problem is. Kids when I was young used to bring them to school to the teacher every spring. They were enchanting, but I never thought to try to grow any. I got mine from arborday.org, one of the few things in that order that is making it. They say on their info that it gets as much as 25' tall with a spread of 25'. I hope it doesn't get that large, but I also hope it grows right.

Joe, thanks for the comments, I'll check my saturation, in camera setting, notice that I am having to desaturate the red channel in post processing. Now I would like to learn what is blowing the reds on the right and blues on the left, it shows up in a lot of histograms, even though a lot of photos don't have red or blue in them, all pictures are a mixture of red, blue, and green I think. I'll have to work with that, you can fix it in PS with channels, but I don't know how to do that very well and want to get it right out of the camera if I can. It could be a quirk of my camera or the lens I use the most. Valerie, I'll start a new thread with two baby pics. gmom74, thank you so much. She's been a wonderful granddaughter; I practically raised her. She always minded, was and is such a good girl, never sneaked around, always called, etc. She went through a phase, but still always checked in. My own three were such a handful, the girls were terrors when they got to be teenagers and I had a lot of trouble with them, my son was a little better, but when he hit 19, some serious problems came along. I'd better not say too much more because this is not the place for it. It is just a very difficult time now, without photography and my gardening as an escape, I don't know what I would do, am on meds and they only half work. Valerie, thanks about my "stories". I always kind of like to know a little of the story behind photos, context, etc. I'll post a couple baby pics on a new thread for you. I shouldn't string so many pics in one because if you want to chat later, they take too long to reload.