How do I make a picture that is already on my computer small enough to use as my "avitar" on the site??

PM vickieschessies, she can walk you though it

You can download this free program off of the net. Irfanview Google it. once downloade, on the pull down menu (upper left) click the resize and you can resize a photo. Resizing basically shrinks the photo.

Remember, most photos look good big - but look lousy once real small, so sometines you need to use photo shop or similar program to "crop" the photo so you get rid of unneeded blank/clutter space. To give you an idea, my avatar is severely cropped so basically only his head is visible--what you see now is only about 20% of the area of the original photo, this way you can see him better in a small photo.

Thanks for the tip Alan. It probably beats the resizing that I've been using.