Why is my menu showing as a block much taller than the menu items? For example - horizontal menu is about 1.5 inches tall but my menu items are only about 1/2 inch tall

Hello Christine,
Please provide a link to your page where we can check this.

I just started the page so its not posted yet - I emailed you a pic

Is your site setup in dreamweaver and do you have a testing server defined?
As i see now on the screenshot you are just opening your html file from a random folder on your hard drive.. this way javascript files cannot be loaded properly.
Please check: www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/first_website_pt1.html