chase: ''tell us what you decided to do and how much she loved it'' I finished laying out the photobook last night. It starts with my favorite picture on the cover. Then there are paired pictures of she and me, placed side-by-side, as if I were looking at her. These sets of paired pictures are arranged chronologically, at several-year intervals. They show how, as I grew older, each time I looked, I saw an ever more beautiful woman beside me. Between those paired pictures are images of her, which represent the major events in our lives - we met, courted, married, had a daughter, traveled around the world, had a son, and raised (are raising) a family. ''Through my eyes'' is the recurring theme in the book. What I saw the first time I looked at her, and each time after that, as we traveled through life together. The the most recent pair of pictures are recent. Then my favorite picture re-appears as the beginning of a section of ''portraits'' , with several blank pages and a vow to never stop photographing her. It works because that image is genuinely a portrait, while the others have more of a ''candids'' character. I had expected that composing the text would be difficult, but after a week contemplating 20 years of images, by late last night the words were already there. I had some great music on last night - ''Loverman'' by Charlie Parker, ''Gravity'' by John Mayer - which helped. The gift of all of your thoughts, and those of my friends on the KF, also helped. So much, and much more than you can imagine. This photobook will probably be one of the best gifts I've ever made. I believe she will like it very much. But if I'm sleeping on the couch in a few weeks from now, I'll certainly let you know that too. I've taken up a lot of your time on a non-cooking topic, but it was for a good reason. As Becker and Fagen sang, ''I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.'' (Steely Dan, Aja, ''Deacon Blues''.)

I am thinking maybe it's a regional thing too. The house is in Virginia Beach where many of the homes like this have put on this type of siding. I got a little nervous though when I read the responses to shorebird's thread because her house is also contemporary and most thought she shouldn't put shakes on it. I'd like to soften the house up a bit if possible. I'll be moving to this house permanently in a year and am trying to think of things I can do to give it a bit more charm. I'm thinking about taking out the hedge and planting Annabelle hydrangeas in its place. It won't look that great during winter but I'm okay with that. I also have a lattice with a climbing rose growing to the right of the garage door and a potted Mandevilla with a lattice placed on the porch to the right of the front door. Maybe I could train the rose to trail over the top of the garage door. I also need to take off the storm door. You can't see it in my pic because it's opened. I'm not sure if I should replace it with a full glass storm door or just take it off and have no storm door. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Hi trailrunner, glad you like my pics. On my computer, I created copies of the images I wanted and then edited them to make them black and white...there is usually an edit function of some sort that may allow you to go sepia tones or b&w. I have a mac and it's an option with iphoto. It may be different on your machine. Once I got the pics the way I wanted them, I put them on a flash drive (or you could burn a cd) and took it to Fed Ex/Kinkos. The guys there are very nice and they helped me use their photo printer machine where I printed out the images in the size I wanted...I printed 8x10 photos, also selecting the option for b&w. They charged me $5 each print. I then went to walmart on line and ordered the 11x14 frames which with mats accommodate 8x10 pictures. The mats with these frames are cool in that they are a single mat, but are cut to look like a double mat. They come 2 to a package, $20 per package or $10 each. So it cost me total $15 each picture. The fun part was DH and I measuring and leveling and marking to get them all to hang straight, as the hooks are not in exactly the same location on each frame. Here is a link that might be useful: walmart frames

It is mind-boggling how many people surf the net for information, truly. And it seems unbelievable to us because we are reading threads with a number of recognizable (to us) names, like Annz and Parma and Flyleft and Moonshadow, Kswl and Amity.......etc. So, in our limited view, there are maybe a few dozen people that click on Favorite Yellows or Should I buy this Karastan Rug? But, for every person that posts, (you KNOW this is true since you do it all the time yourself) there are many, many, many, readers. Think of how many threads you read or links you access or stores you pop into due to a link at Garden Web..........but only read, do not comment. Well, multiply that by at least 100. And if you posted a photo in a thread, then, those 100 people who didn't comment, have all looked at your photo, thus creating a 'hit' on your picture site. I posted a recent shot on the "Does Anyone Want to Do a Photo Thread Again" thread on the Discussions side here. I had just uploaded the photo to a Picturetrail site I use. Today, Picturetrail sent me one of those notification emails to tell me that that photo already had like 300 views. Staggering, huh? I would have told my DD to wait till I could strike a nice modelesque pose had I known that it would end up on a little nonsense thread here. Anyway...........Does that mean everyone wanted to see ME? Well, no. (Tear in my left eye right now---catch in my voice.) It just means that anyone that scrolls down through that thread will see that photo. Thus, the hit. Now, for making your photos private. If you have young children and want them to stay off the Net, then, really, don't put them on the Net. Or make your private family shots private from the beginning. If you are posting photos of your bathroom paint job, or your kitchen cabinets or your new bedroom set, then, you probably want your album public for those pix. Otherwise, who's going to look at them? Your friends aren't caring about your living room redo on the net. They can go over to your house to see. Those photos are for us decorating crazies who need to see what shade of beige really works with maple cabinets, or how to accessorize a table in the living room just right. And while you may feel like you know Red or RenoFan or Organic and be happy to have them come see your new Marmoleum floor, you may feel less happy that 765 Anonymous People from all parts of the Planet also liked your Tyler Taupe bathroom and your new Antique white kitchen cabinets. But if you are careful with your pictures and try not to include anything truly private or potentially embarrassing, it ought not to be a big problem. Red