Mrs. Mary's Legacy: The Front Porch

There's an aspiring young writer in Greene County.   Actually, she's at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, finishing up her second year.  Two years ago she came in (cause that's how youngsters do that are familiar with the way things work around here) and joined me for a glass of sweet tea, handing me her high school senior creative writing paper.  This post is it, unedited, but for the spelling of the dog's name correctly.  I bawled.  Her dad says I've mentored her;  it'd have to be unknowingly.  The gurl has always been near and dear to my heart and I didn't know, until reading her paper that she was of the same mind.  With her permission, I'm proud to introduce the writing talent of Miss Sarah Elizabeth Storment.
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Mrs. Mary says "heyy girl-fren" when I walk into the kitchen. Her back stays towards me, so I know she's making another cake. "Going to the porch?" She's such a bad hinter. "Mmhm," I say, "If you've got some tea." I pretend to sulk, but I love the porch. I lean into John Robert's doorway headed out, but he's in the shop, so I turn the rusty doorknob, kick the door, and trip over a plant on my way out.

Mrs. Mary works for Wade the Florist sometimes, and it's apparent, because hanging ferns clog the porch's fringe. I love them in the summertime - they cool the porch for me. I can smell the road from there: in the summer, the sprinkler brings a smell of heavy heat up from the concrete, and blows it in my face, along with sweet wisteria and stale smoke. I can hear the radio inside the house playing Rod Stewart. I set my tea glass on the painted table and stretch out on the swing.

Some afternoons JRob comes outside with me, and the ice clinks in our glasses and makes me feel at home. Mr. Mike comes out while I'm writing, sometimes. We both like our privacy, so he sits on the steps and grumbles and smokes to himself, and mumbles and smokes. Even Mike makes me feel comfortable because he complacently fills his role of lazy-ass husband. His cigarettes smell good to me.

The porch swing is my seat, but Beaudeux the dog is very ornery, so he loves to crowd me out. He pouts when I push him down, so I dig my bare toes into my curly foot prop, and pinch him when he shoves me. It seems like someone is always on the porch - but that's a good thing. People help hide the house's imperfections. If Andy's there playing his guitar, no one notices the paint flecks on the big windows, or the fading blue floor paint, or the grime on the coffee table.

There is always cake batter, beers, and neighbors; especially when Mrs. Mary comes out with her sunshine smile and long gray hair. She is so like me - or I'm like her: I can't figure out which one. Sometimes I ask "Aren't you baking for a big party?" And she goes inside and plays the piano beautifully, because I'm a bad hinter, too. JRob is working on his monster potato gun, so there are occasional explosions from around the big house, and sometimes he yells "SHIT!" really loud.

I love the porch. Any warmth of friendship that I lack is always regained there, because Mrs. Mary and the citronella candles have enough to spare. If I was a stranger walking by, I'd stop and stare, just because the big old house breathes its warmth onto Mrs. Mary's porch.

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It's front porch weather, y'all grab a neighbor and enjoy!

A Palm Tree for Deep South (or anywhere) Events

Yes.  You, too, can make this palm tree...

Okay.  So.  When I began blogging last year the one thing I said to myself was "Self, you've GOT to post something, one thing, every single week or folks are going to lose interest in your little corner of the world (or mind) like you've lost interest in a handful of others."  Self listened and kept it up for a while but, meh, sometimes life gets in the way of the most noble of intentions.  Not that writing a single post a week is a noble intention, but it was an earnest one.

Mama's recovery from the mini-AVR last month is ongoing;  she's doing well -- well enough to be really gripy about the trip to Hattiesburg twice a week for cardio rehab;

well enough to purchase half of the plants from the "reduced for quick sale" section in the garden center at Lowe's.

I've been preoccupied with spoiling tending to her every need:  cooking, cleaning, laundrying (is that a word?), getting flowerbeds cleaned out, plants potted up, Rooster and Hennies rescued from buffalo gnats, dogs bathed,  car washed, bills paid, etc.    You name it, I've done it for her in the last four months.  I've also kept my own household going, a bit more challenging by the return of Youngest Fellow home for a few weeks.  To say I'm feeling stretched a little thin (don't I wish, I'd love to be thin) is an understatement.

Today, however, I had a little journey into the deep woods of Greene County to the community of Neely to build a centerpiece:  not just any centerpiece, but a palm tree centerpiece.  I carried the camera with me because I thought of y'all.  This is something  readily doable with supplies easily found at WalMart.  That's where mine came from.   It helps to have a florist friend with beyond-fresh jade to use as palm fronds.

The dried ends have been trimmed.

 I have holly leaf ferns growing by the driveway that make a nice long frond as well.  And asparagus fern in a big pot by the back porch steps.

The base of the palm tree is a gallon can that's had several pounds of plaster of paris poured into it.  A half inch dowel rod was wrapped once in plastic wrap and taped and put into the wet plaster.  After the plaster was all set, it took a little doing to twist/wring/manhandle the dowel out of it but the two pieces together became the weighted base of the tree.

When I first made this tree, I thought it was the best idea ever to get the huge blocks of styrofoam and whittle it to size and shape.  Wrong.  Get the sheets of styrofoam, use another gallon can to punch out circles, much like a biscuit cutter only denser/messier/with much static.  Once the big circles are cut, place the plaster of paris weighted can with the dowel rod in place on something low.  You'll take one of the foam circles, place it on top of the dowel rod, and whack it with a hammer or shoe or rolling pin.  Voila!  Punches right through!  Push that disc down and do the rest of them the same way, leaving three or four inches space at the top of the dowel rod.

I've three of the bases and the styrofoam to cover them.  They've been used almost a dozen times and are probably another dozen uses away from remaking the discs.

A florist cage and oasis are the only other pieces necessary to construct one.  I wouldn't attempt making a tree without the cage;  the oasis has to be soaked, and all the greenery going into it will make it shatter.

I cut my cage in half and bind it with zip ties after putting a half block 

of wet oasis in it.  The missing plastic in this end is intentional - 

so it will easily fit onto the dowel rod.

Meh.  I don't know what they're called but they can be found at WalMart back in the silk flowers section.  They look like long staples and are very handy for holding the banana leaves in place.

That's a lot of words going on already, so I'm just going to show you how it goes together, 'kay???

Don't laugh.  It's functional, okay?

 That's the gallon can with the plaster of paris and hole in the middle.

Sometimes, I put the smaller blocks of foam at the base

so I can put more greenery and stems of grapes around the base of the tree.

 Everything is all laid out and ready to put together.

 These little pieces of tape are for putting on the cut ends 

of the banana leaves, keeping them from wilting.

 Trim.

 Tape.

 My friend calls this Davey tape.  I've pinned it into place -

And pin banana leaves around the styrofoam, making a single round 

of Davey tape.  Another layer of leaves will go on, just like these, higher

up the trunk of the tree, covering this tape and pins.

 That's two layers of banana leaves, pinned and taped into place.

Three more leaves are wrapped around the top and pinned in place

with those funky florist staple thingies.

 The soaked oasis in the cage gets pushed onto the top of the dowel rods.

 Little sprigs of the fern are snipped and pushed into the oasis to

hide the mechanics of the tree.  Jade greenery is pushed into it afterwards

all the way around, making the palm fronds.

 Spray with leaf shine to make it pretty (and shiny).

Tadadaaaa!

Fruit can be put on picks and pushed onto the trunk of the tree for a fruit centerpiece.

I've also put pickles and olives and cheese on picks and pushed them into the trunk of the tree.

The client today only wanted the tree, the fruit and dips for her reception going on the table.  The grass skirting, by the way, is made of eight grass skirts from  Dollar Tree found on the toy wall, tied together and attached to the plastic table cloth (that was taped firmly UNDER the table) by double-sided tape.

I hear of lots of luaus and tropical themed events going on all the time.  Have one for yourself and a couple of dozen friends and make a palm tree for the centerpiece.  People are going to love it!

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Thank you again, for your continuing thoughts and prayers for Mama and myself as her recovery continues.  I'm not that strong of a person, I've no doubt it's all the well-wishes on our behalf keeping me sane and her recovering.  Y'all let me know when you're doing to be in the Deep South of Mississippi and I'll have you over for a cup of coffee or a glass of sweet tea on the front porch.  Hugs and kisses, everybody!

Mary

Mayree's Repurposed Story: Mama's Stuff.....

Life is crazier than crazy right now with Mama's recovery, keeping up two households, a few cakes, a little catering, and the production of Havard Lane Totes to carry to the different arts and crafts festivals in the Deep South.   Several local folks made the comment yesterday that Mama was always good at 'saving' stuff and, as exasperating as it is to manipulate through the piles of it at times, it's because of her saving stuff that Havard Lane Totes are around and doing so well.  This Mama's Stuff story is being repurposed recycled reposted with that in mind...

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For Mother's Day and Mama - because all her good stuff (of which I'm made) is precious to her, even though I give her a hard time about it...

There must be something about growing up in the Depression as one child of thirteen that makes a person a packrat for the rest of her life.  Mama is the ultimate packrat. She calls it her stuff -- yeah, because she can't stuff her house any fuller of it.  I went out to help Mama clean in the kindergarten the other day.  It's her building but she had graciously loaned it to me to open a day care in.  I had cleaned it out and it was ever the cutest little day care in Greene county (actually, the ONLY one for a while).

 What I cleaned out was Mama's stuff:  fabric softener bottles, wipie boxes, 15 year old magazines never read, paper clippings, bits of string, pencil stubs.  We boxed, bagged, and hauled her stuff to the old crib that was used to store the winter feed corn in and left it there for several years.   At one point some of the brothers came home and cleaned the crib out, burning Mama's stuff.  She was incensed with them but I got the scathing tongue lashing for putting her stuff in harm's way to begin with.

The day care is closed, has been for several years.  The family has reverted to calling it the kindergarten and it is again full of Mama's stuff.  Every ribbon from floral arrangements, styrofoam meat trays, aluminum pie plates, margarine and CoolWhip tubs, egg cartons, strawberry baskets, material scraps for that quilt she's going to piece together, more magazines, Mrs. Claudia's Mississippi Press Registers, at least three years old, and Tupperware.

Everything has a purpose and at least one use. The floral ribbons are needed in case she puts flowers in the church and the arrangement needs a touch of color. The meat trays and pie plates are to set her flowers in when cold weather comes and forces them to be brought inside, never can have too much of those. Margarine and CoolWhip tubs go to Naomi's;  she's forever cooking and sending food and those won't have to be returned. The hens are laying again and she needs the egg cartons, maybe not a hundred, but they'll be handy if she does.  The strawberry baskets can magically be transformed into by a child into an Easter basket with just a chenille wire and plastic green grass.

One day, really, she will piece that quilt together but settling on a pattern has been a bit difficult.   And the magazines and newspapers need to be gone through in case there's any good recipes in them. Mama doesn't like to miss out on good recipes.  Never mind that there are adequate numbers of terra cotta and plastic trays for the plants to sit in. Those sweat and may mildew the floor.  She doesn't like her Tupperware getting away from her, the grown grandchildren still may need it even though they've all set up their own houses.

I see her blood pressure visibly rising every time I discuss the mayonnaise jar collection and its' disposal.   You'll notice I said I discuss it, the conversation is decidedly one-sided.   Empty prescription drug bottles are not even a conversation topic;  a necessary entity of Mama's stuff, their existence qualified by their small size and ability to be crammed into minute drawer spaces, purse pockets, and corners of boxes.

You would have to see all her stuff to believe the magnanimity of it. Truth be told, Mama likes her stuff.  She thrives on attaining it and is ever planning how to get more. Maybe growing up during and after the Depression her family wasn't able to have stacks, bags, and boxes of stuff everywhere and Mama's making up for lost possessions. Maybe it's comforting to her.   Maybe I'm way off base and Mama has one of those  stuck behind the piano.

She could, you know.  That's where all the really good stuff is.

I Am My Daddy's Little Girl

I am my daddy's little girl.  Fourteen years span the oldest brother's birth and mine; three brothers between us, the youngest male five years older than myself. Mama somehow partially herniated a disc in her neck during labor with Favorite Child.  If it had been entirely up to her, I'm not sure I would be here today, but Daddy wanted a daughter to go along with those four sons.  So here I am.

Daddy named me Mary Sharlene.  Mary, he said, because surely a girl couldn't go all wrong being named after the mother of Jesus.  It's a family name, too, the Mary McLeods in his genealogy too numerous to count.  Sharlene is a combination of Mama and Daddy's middle names:  Claudene + Sharp = Sharlene.

 Just like Mama was sure all her sons could cook, launder and iron clothes, clean, and sew on a button, Daddy made sure I was adept at most of the traditionally male tasks.  During the years of actively being his daughter I came to know how to look for earthworm castings to know where to dig for bait; measure, cut, clean and glue PVC pipe; put on traditional shingle roofing; staple ceiling tile; strip, stain, and paint furniture; hang, tape and float sheet rock; and plant and tend a garden.  Mama will tell you Daddy didn't know much about gardening when they were first married but he took to it quick.  Daddy's garden was always fine.

 It had been unusually warm weather this time of March, thirty years ago, and the garden was put in extra early although the last cool spell of February had us hustling to make newspaper caps for the seedlings - none were lost to frost.  Mama's careful saving of the almost-infinitely-useful newspaper assured the tender plants life.  Thirty years ago I had worked side by side with Daddy the entire Saturday in the garden, tying up the tomatoes, laying the corn by, and putting a little more fertilizer to the potatoes and hilling them up one last time.  Daddy and I had been on the outs with each other for a solid year or so, me having developed the almost-independent voice and opinion of the almost adult and almost independent.  We knew we loved each other, though,and that our alone-together time was memorable, whether running trot lines on the river or painting or working in the garden.

Daddy had asked for my help.  I was glad to that Saturday. The hot March sun exaggerated the contrast between the green hues of the living garden, the dark of the soil, the blue of the sky.  We laughed and worked and enjoyed the labor of our hands.  When the tiller was finally put away we smelled of sweat and two-stroke motor exhaust, granny beads in ever crook and crease of skin.

Mama had cooked a big supper.  I remember the first of the scratched new potatoes in milk gravy and cornbread.  There was always cornbread for Daddy (cornbread and buttermilk with a generous shake of black pepper was his favorite Sunday-night-after-church meal).  The meal was consumed, dishes washed,and bodies bathed.  I wanted to go to town loafing for a while.  Daddy was in his recliner.  "That was good work today, we'll be eating corn in another few weeks,"  he said, having given me permission to go juking.   I leaned over and gave him a kiss on his forehead.  "Have a good time tonight, Sugar.  I love you."  "I will, Daddy.  I love you too."

 I was home and in bed when Daddy died of a massive heart attack in his sleep a little after two that Sunday morning following our day together in the garden.



It's been thirty years, come March 22nd.  I am still my daddy's little girl.

Paying It Back: I Love Mama

A mother's love.  My mother's love.  I know there are some awful mothers out there.   I've a friend who's biological laid her in the floor of her grandmother's home, stepped over her, and said "There she is if you want her -- I don't."   I can't imagine it but know it happens, my friend has no reason to lie.

I have a pretty good mother.  I would say a perfect mother but she does have a few minor but selective hoarding issues that tarnish the definition.  And she's awfully passive aggressive to everyone she loves and since she loves just about everybody (but any and all of our presidential candidates for the last 16 years) the behavior extends all the way to the bag boy at Piggly Wiggly too.  She's spoiled just a tad even though she's not started smelling yet and tends to be a bit sloppy with housework.  Her place-for-everything-and-everything-in-it's-place generally means wherever whatever gets laid out is where it stays before, during, or after use.  And she has a few opinions on the Scriptures that I can't find a precedence for anywhere but in her mind.  The fact she likes flavored water weak coffee and doesn't like dark chocolate still makes me wonder if I wasn't born to one of her sisters, even though older folks and Wade call me Perlena Junior,  that's a big rip in the cloak of perfection for me.

She's an excellent nurturer, even if she is a bad liar.  We call Brother #4 FC, Favorite Child.  It'll bring Mama to drop big ol' alligator tears when she hears us say something about it, her peely wally admonishment she- loves-us-all-the-same falling indifferently on the ears of those of us that aren't Favorite Child.  Favorite Child status gets awarded at different times to one of the five that's done something splendid to enrich her life so sometimes someone other than FC gets to BE favorite child.  But not often, the title being his by default.  That's okay with us, too.  She's the sole beneficiary of the unspoken game.

She paid for fifteen years of piano lessons for me.  Classical piano lessons - pricey - no playing by ear here.  She funded years and years of cleaning band uniform, munchies and boarding fees to contests, clinic after clinic, Lion's Band trip, Junior Miss Pageant dress (hhhhey, no haters, I did the pageant:  was awared the Congeniality Award, too);  wedding;  washing machine; sons' haircuts; and lets me use one of her vehicles 'cause I gave my own to one of The Fellows, his own transportation needs to/from/and around Mississippi State exceeding my own.  Mama continues to help by supplying eggs for cakes, memories for the blog, and sewing lessons  for Havard Lane Totes.

She's given so much for her fambly in time, effort, and love than I feel like I can ever repay.  Then again, being a mother isn't about getting repaid for anything done for the sake of your child.  I figure, though, it's time to pay it back in earnest, loving through action than in word.

I had started a timeline last Wednesday beginning with the ire felt at coming down here a full day ahead of necessary.  I kinda sorta wanted a day with Youngest Fellow + GE (Gur'friend Extraordinare) all to myself but Mama insisted I lead the way for her and FC down here.  **insert gripey face**  Thursday was spent getting all the presurgical testing done, the surgeon's final interview, and preadmittance to the hospital cleared up all the while dealing with FC plus Brother #2 in their we're-older-and-know-best-dammit capacities.  It's alright.  I know they are and do.  It's irksome, though, when you're 51 going on 85 and know a few things yourself.  Friday was tough, watching Mama being wheeled down the hall, feeling the incredible dichotomy of trusting the Almighty to do His job regardless of the outcome and uhhmmmmmm trusting the Almighty to do His job despite the outcome.  Surgery was delayed by a couple of hours and then voila!  was done.  ICU surround-sound-beeping and Mama unconcious with intubation and tongue hanging out, not to mention the tower and monitors and the intubation and the pressure cuffs on her legs constantly inflating and the chest drain and the central line and the intubation and canisters of drainage on every corner of the bed and floor, was disturbing.

She was a model of aortic-valve replacement surgery:  a text-book procedure.  Saturday morning she woke up breathing fine on her own, intubation went bye-bye, and she started barking orders talking.

She spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in the Intensive Care Unit - not because she needed to be there beyond Saturday evening (24 hours required?) but because a room wasn't available on the Cardiac Care Unit.

The chest drain was removed early Monday morning.  AAAaaack!  I didn't to stay to watch it and wished I hadn't've watched the removal of the central line Monday night.  The catheter had been removed Monday morning before coming down here to CCU.  She was tickled beyond pink (and her coloring is nice and pink, too, by the way) to get her big gurl panties on yesterday.  Forty, previously. and now twenty milligrams of furosemide have made sure she potties like a toddler. And she is a toddler again, the shuffling steps looking precariously balanced.

They've got my last good nerve in a lab here somewhere, furiously trying to clone it and get it back to me before leaving  tomorrow.  I sent it to them Monday shortly after FC left going back to work.   Without it I've been managing on love, trying to let Mama see not only how well I do love her, but also how well she taught me to love -- how well I was paying attention.

Mayree?  Well.  It's got to be love -- otherwise it'd be guilt and I don't do things like take her false teeth out and clean them and put them back after every meal and every night for guilt.  I can do things out of guilt.  I've plenty of training with that too, but holding a warm cloth to her head while she tries to ack up phlegm isn't guilt.  I have no explanation why it's easier to help a child than an adult with acking.  I think it's due to adults being able to interject noises with the action.  Children throw up, plainly, simply, and often explosively.  Adults add a blech and sliminess to it making it entirely different.  It's love, pure love, that keeps that cloth in place.

Carefully scratching around the edges of bandages with just enough touch to be touched without causing any redness is love.  Rubbing dry cracked feet with lotion and trimming those skanky nails is love.  Dressing the spot of eczema directly atop the natal cleft (google it, please) and covering it is love.

It's also love that holds her seemingly frail (it's not) hand and drags her grumbling, griping, and panting down the hallway another ten feet beyond the previous walk.  She's ahead of schedule on the walks.

 It's love that opens all the food and drink containers, adding just enough salt to make the bland food taste like food; that peels and slices the apple in the right thicknesses to make for late night snacking sans bottom teeth.  She's not anemic or dehydrated.

You could say I'm a devoted daughter and I'd have to argue with you.  I'm a daughter of a woman of the Deep South that was one of seven daughters, one of the youngest two, that was a careprovider for her mother also.  It's a genetic predisposition I'm glad to possess, knowing that love is better shown and returned here in the bathroom handing her toilet paper than in any melodic ode or well-crafted poem.  She's a valuable resource, a real Proverbs 31 woman;  I'm priveleged to call her blessed....

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We're scheduled to go home tomorrow.  It's been a week of emotional extremes, biting the inside of my mouth to keep from opening it at times.  She's not always easy to tend to;  even the nurses recognize she's spoiled rotten.  She's adored here and they take exceptionally good care of her, the nursing staff taking the occupation to all time level highs.  I'm so glad we're here at Ochsner's.  I'll be even gladder when we're not here at Ochsner's.  Now if I can just break into Mother's for that brownie recipe before we leave I'll call it a successful trip all the way around!

Thank you all so much for your prayers during our preparation, surgery, and stay for the miniAVR.  Prayers work:  Mama's been the text-book example for the surgery and recovery and that's not for her age, either.  That's across any age group.  We're blessed and we know it.

MawMaw Havard with FC's daugher, Tiffany

Much love to you all.
Mary

Strawberry Jelly

Last Monday I made a WalMart run for cake supplies.  I prefer buying locally at the Pig as often as feasible;  however, it still pays to drive the forty mile roundtrip to Lucedale  for flour, butter, and confectioner's sugar.  Mama needed a few things from Chavers' Fruit Stand,  iconic of the mom-and-pop operations indigenous to the South, with the freshest produce south of Hattiesburg.  Mark (Chavers) had locally grown Eubanks strawberries for $16.00 a flat.  A flat; that's nine quarts of strawberries! 


The whole store smelled of red ripe strawberries, so much so that, like Pavlov's dog, I immediately began salivating.  My only thought was to procure a flat of them for the purpose of making jam to enjoy the flavor created by this smell later on in the year.

Only the ripest parts and strawberries were used to make the nine pints of jam Mama and I made Monday afternoon.  Roughly six cups of less ripe strawberries and pale bits and pieces were put in a non-reactive pan, covered with water, and brought to a slow boil for ten minutes to cook a very tart, delicate pink strawberry juice used to make this jelly.

It was strained through a flour sack dish cloth once;  the cooked strawberries then combined with fresh pears and a bit of sugar to make a simple compote.

WearEver aluminum really does last a very long time.  

See the handle burned off on this pot?  I'd say it came that way, but

I know otherwise.  This is a favorite pot at Mama's house.

For strawberry jelly 3 3/4 cups of juice, 4 1/2 cups of sugar, and a box of SureJell fruit pectin were used.

It really is a matter of following the directions for cooked jelly in the box.  I'm going to type them exactly as they are there and document with a few photos:

Stir 1 box pectin into fruit or juice in saucepot.  Add 1/2 teaspoon butter or margarine to reduce foaming, if desired (I don't add butter or margarine.  Mama does, though).

Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly.

Stir in sugar quickly.  Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat.  Skim off any foam.

Ladle quickly into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops.  Wipe jar rims and threads.  Cover with two-piece lids.  Screw bands tightly....

And then the directions go on to say to cold water bath it.   The USDA says to do that too.  Uhmmm....errrrrrr....  We never have.  Don't water bath it at your discretion...

Voila!  Six cups of jelly -- just like the directions said!

A half-pint of strawberry jelly and half-pint of jam were shipped to Gainesville, to the young man that is the 800th 'like' on Facebook.  I was so tickled it was him!  His paternal grandmother is one of those awesome encouraging souls you wonder if you're ever good enough to deserve knowing.  She's a friend -- a very good friend.  Apparently, she's a pretty incredible grandmother, too!  When she saw the page at 799 likes she asked her young-ish grandson if he'd login to his FB and oblige the 800th for me.  Without flinching, hesitating, or questioning in any manner, he did!  What kind of love is that? Amazing.  It's a beautiful thing in my life, knowing Mrs. Mary's there.  Thank you, ma'am.  Love you BIG!

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We travel to New Orleans this coming Wednesday evening.  All of Mama's presurgery tests will be done Thursday with the mini-AVR scheduled for one o'clock Friday, March 2nd.  If y'all don't hear from us soon, you know why.  Thank you for all your thoughts, prayers, and support.  <3 you all!!