I beg to differ PK. If one didn't have a current/active email address on file with HGTV Garden Web-Kitchen Table...no pre-registration took place. I had tried numerous times over the last few years to update my personal info page and submit a new email address. The old one had been closed/nonfunctional for some time. Despite my attempts...the new information never "took" and I finally gave up in exasperation. As I never volunteered for email comments...and I've never been a 24/7 regular member...I had no reason to worry about the lack of success I'd had. Until...lo and behold...Houzz actually arrived on the screen. I had to actively register with Houzz directly to gain access to all Garden Web sites. For those of you who had viable email addresses on file with Garden Web...pre-registration was, truly, successful. Anne

Thanks Shaddy. I personally use a Rolodex for all the passwords. Spinning wheel, easier to replace a card then scribbling out in a notebook which I have done in the past. I keep my passwords and my husbands on it because he keeps changing them as he forgets the old ones. You know the 'forgot your password?' Worse thing they ever offered. He keeps doing that and doesn't write it down. Like many of us, you think you'll remember. I think what he did when he turned on the Win8 computer was put hotmail address because the computer said he couldn't use it without one. At least that's what he remembers. He states he never put a password for log on. I'm not sure but he has never had a log-on password but the Start-Up screen might have confused him. I can use it but have to log on this hotmail address to get in. I can't find a way to change the log on to my name nor get rid of the hotmail address. I did turn him off as administrator and put myself, but only his log-on appears when you turn the machine on. I'll figure it out eventually when I stop using my XP machine. I just don't have the energy for this anymore. Its so tiring and time consuming to hunt around for answers or where Microsoft decided to move everything and change the names. I thought the easiest thing would be to wipe it all out by reinstalling Windows until I realized it never came with disks. How dumb! Anyway, us older folks keep plugging away best we can. I don't feel like spending the money on a tech, at this point. You and Emma are doing better than me. I haven't even gotten to Win 10 yet! Got to get past Win 8 first. Good luck to all, Jane

The plug of the cord goes into a wall plug in the dining room, family room, bedroom a, then b, etc. upstairs, with notations of the plug on the west wall of bedroom a, adding on the south end of that wall if there is more than one outlet on that wall. etc. If things are plugged in, if there are two plugs at that location leave the device plugged in if you so choose, as it'll just stop when the power gets cut off but if there's only one plug at that location, you'll have to pull the plug of the device, whether dishwasher, freezer, floor lamp, tv or whatever, so you can plug the cord in. The light at the other end of the cord is within sight of the main box with all of the switches, so you can turn them (not yet labelled ones) off one by one till one turns the light off. One more switch to label. But don't write too large, for often one switch serves several plugs/lights. Where there are devices not plugged in, e.g. ceiling lights, pumps, furnaces, etc., the cord, no matter how long, can't help - sorry, you'll have to count on a friend with a loud voice to help (or do the walking yourself). Over 40 years ago when a major ice storm caused a widespread power outage for several days and I hauled a borrowed generator to that area to help save food in freezers, many wanted me to hook up the furnace as well but most have an unbreakable line from the service box and I was afraid to even attempt it, for fear, should the master switch get turned on, we might feed power out into the local line that the repair people believed to be dead. I think that it would be well to have a furnace connected by a plugged connection, maybe one with push and twist capability, to help in such a circumstance. When the hired man left Dad's large farm in World War II to go into the army, Dad and this preteen/teen son and a couple of younger sons had a lot more work than they'd planned on for several years. Dad used to say that if you can let your brain help your hands and feet get the job done properly and more easily, more work gets done in that precious time, it makes you feel good and often is a bit more fun. Hope you're having a happy spring, folks. Signed up tonight for my first jab in about ten days. ole joyfuelled

I liked Christmas as a child, but once I became an adult, it was more stressful than anything else, and my mother took it too seriously. She felt compelled to have everyone together for Christmas, and this became more difficult when the family got larger and had other places to go. I left home at 18, and so after that, I returned as a guest. I have no holiday traditions of my own, although I used to celebrate the summer solstice when I lived in Venice, as that was a good time to have a party there. When I did visit my parents for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving, I would do much of the cooking, partly because my mother did not like to do it and partly because I was better at it, and my nieces especially appreciated it. I found exchanging gifts to be more stressful than enjoyable, and so I did not like that as an adult. We sometimes played board games, and I did enjoy that. As a child, we alternated having Christmas at my parents' house and at my maternal grandparents' house. My mother was an only child, and so her parents were always with us at holidays. My father had two older brothers and an older sister, and we never celebrated any holidays with them. His sister had moved to New Mexico, and we almost never saw her at all. His two brothers had married two sisters, and so they were very close to each other but not to us. Since their children were double first cousins, they were much like one family (and closer to each other in ages). My father's family was not big on Christmas, partly because his sister had converted to Jehovah's Witness (because of her husband), and she had converted my grandmother. I believe that JWs do not celebrate Christmas, as I remember, but my grandmother was not the typical JW. In fact, being inventive (with a couple of patents under her belt), she had created her own version of the religion, probably from her imagination, which was far from conventional. No one knew where she got her ideas, but she did enjoy going out and witnessing. However, when the other JWs found out what she was telling others, they tried to get her to stop witnessing, but to no avail. I was told not to listen to my grandmother because she was "off her rocker," but I found her stories entertaining and imaginative. My grandmother owned the waterworks in town because my grandfather (who died before I was born) and his father had dug a bunch of artesian wells, and so the people in town pretty much had to put up with her, even though they thought she was a bit crazy. She never forced people to pay their water bills, and so my father had to do that for her. She thought water should be free. Anyway, my father's side of the family did not celebrate Christmas in a conventional way.