A Nip of Fall

Fall arrived almost a week ago, but we haven't needed to turn on our radiators yet--although tonight it will be tempting. We had the boiler checked out on Monday and the man said it's good to go. This has been a week of checkups--yesterday we had the van serviced and the mysterious "Airbag" light tracked down--it was a blown fuse, which also was keeping the rear wipers from working. Next time I'll check the fuse box myself before having to pay the dealer's hourly labor fees!

We think all of the hummingbirds have left for warmer gardens. The last visitor we had to a feeder was on Saturday morning. Also, this morning a humongous flock of grackles, at least 200, landed in our yard and the neighbors' on each side. Usually hummers keep other birds, even those much larger, at bay. After digesting maple seeds and draining the birdbath, all of a sudden the entire flock rose and flapped away to the north in unison. Maybe it's global warming? The turtle last week was going the "wrong" way, too. Meanwhile, our Cardinal Flower vines on the back fence (above) have finally decided to bloom, after twining all over themselves for most of the summer. The flowers are much smaller than we expected, but en masse they are striking. Of course, we planted them to attract more hummingbirds, not realizing they would bloom so late.

Our geraniums are also glorious right now. Every year I vow that I won't bring any of them in or take cuttings to root, and every year I wind up cramming them into the upstairs south window in the sewing room. This ivy geranium (right) is the deepest red I think I've ever seen. Yesterday I just sat on the front porch and read for two hours because it was warm and calm. Those days will come to an end soon, but I'll take advantage of each one that comes along.

Sam and a Turtle

Today we got to keep Sam, Doug and Matt's miniature poodle, all day and take him to the groomer for a haircut. Actually he wasn't all that shaggy: his coat was just past the nappy stage, bordering on curly, but his nails were long. We hadn't seen him in about six weeks so we enjoyed being greeted with Sam's enthusiastic tail wags when Matt brought him by at 7 a.m.

As Sam and I were heading out to get in the van for the trip to Norma the Groomer's, we saw this turtle, marching across the driveway toward the backyard fence. Someone in the past had painted a red blotch on its shell, so it may have been a pet, or perhaps noted in a scientific study. I remember the annual spring and fall migrations of turtles in Tulsa, where I grew up. It always was a mystery to me how they got through fenced yards, and I wondered how far they really traveled. By the time I dropped Sam off, ran some errands, and came home an hour later, there was no trace of this determined reptile anywhere in the yard. It was headed north so I hope if it got as far as the busy street, it made it across all right.

Norm mowed the lawn and then the sky started to look threatening. Our whole area was under a tornado watch, but all of the rough weather went south of St. Louis today. Sam came home from the groomer smelling sweet, with coat like soft, sheared velvet, but he wasn't in much of a mood to sit still for a picture. Matt came by after work and had dinner with us before he and Sam headed back to Edwardsville. Having Sam around makes us just a bit nostalgic for the days when we had a dog of our own.

Doug's Voice on MP3

Doug Harrison, whose blog averyfineline.com was two years old last month, is becoming recognized as a writer and critic in the world of Southern Gospel Music. This past weekend he attended the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, and wrote several posts on his blog about the experience, including one in which he reflects on Southern Gospel and its role in shaping American culture. If you want to check Doug out in his own words, you can visit his blog and link to his 5-minute interview with Chuck Peters of sglive.com, an internet radio station that plays--southern gospel music. Or you can just copy and paste this link: http://www.southerngospelreporter.com/nqcavery.mp3

This probably doesn't work too well with dial-up but it's easy to access if you have any kind of high-speed connection.

Klondike in Missouri

For more than a year, our friends Mike and Sandy Dixon have been trying to get us out into the far corner of St. Charles County to a treasure of a place they have discovered called Klondike Park. Friday we managed to make the trip. True to its golden name, the goldenrod was in full bloom!

The park is located at the site of a former sand quarry that dates to 1898. It was a source of fine silica sand that was used to make glass at a plant in Alton, Ill., across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The fishing lake now fills the deepest part of the quarry, where St. Peters sandstone was found 120 feet from the surface. Remnants of this fine silica sand still ring the lake today. The sand is very similar to the fine white "sugar" sand that lines Florida's Gulf Coast beaches.

Mike led Norm and me on a hike around the lake while Sandy read and relaxed in one of the picnic shelters in the park. Then we drove to the park headquarters and Mike, Norm and I hiked up a steep hill to the top of the park overlook.

The exposed top of this hill shows the upper layers of yellow sandstone and other rock that were above the prized silica sandstone layers. We could look out on the valley below, and we were above the Katy Trail. Down below, Sandy was using a field guide to figure out what kind of flowers were growing in front of the Dixon's van in the parking lot!


The quarry closed in 1983, and the area was developed into today's park, which opened in 2003. We enjoyed spending this beautiful late-summer/early autumn day with these dear friends. We also ate lunch in Washington, Mo., stopped at Centennial Farms in Augusta and picked up apples, honey, apple butter and three perennial plants to take home, mementoes of a golden afternoon.

At Last, Thursday's Child Speaks

After ambitiously starting two blogs in August, it has taken until now for me to get anything more posted to the other one, Thursday's Child. Maybe I can update it every Thursday? We'll see. If you want to take a look, you can click on View My Complete Profile; the profile page has a link to it. And feel free to add comments or let me know what you think. Thanks for checking in to Home Stories; many of you have written or commented and I'm grateful.

Florida Nature Up Close

Today Norm and I visited the Calusa Nature center, right in the middle of Fort Myers, while Doug was preparing to teach his classes tomorrow. Almost all of Southwest Florida appears to be wetland, and this of course is the rainy season, so it's even wetter than usual. They are 8 inches above normal for their year, while back home in Missouri, we are 8 inches below. Nothing looks like drought conditions here! This boardwalk (at left) is on one of the three trails through the preserve. The other two were under water and we would have needed hip boots and a crocodile pacifier to get through them, but they are open in the dry season from December through May. Trails vary from one-half mile to one-and-a-half miles in length; this was the shortest one.

The boardwalk in this section (above) goes through a stand of cypress. The forest varies from cypress to slash pine, depending on the elevation (which varies 10 feet at most!) and the amount of water standing. This part of Florida was heavily logged in the 1930s, so almost all trees are the same age. Trees grow tall and thin here, in competition for light. Their height helps them, the slash pines especially, resist fire. Apparently fire is a persistent danger in these parts, although it's hard to believe on a day like today. In fact, it rained hard this afternoon and is still raining tonight as I write.

At right is an epiphyte anchored to the bark of a cypress. Quill Leaf, (Tillandsia fasciculata) lives off nutrients in the air and moisture from the high humidity and rainfall.


Other epiphytes in this area include the ubiquitous spanish moss. At left is a spectacular colony of ferns that was growing in the cypress swamp. The light green fronds seemed to capture and re-transmit the sunlight that filters down from the canopy. The whole experience was not unlike visiting the Climatron at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but with the added attraction of many birds, including blue jays, pileated woodpeckers and some tiny gray flitting bird that I plan to look up in my bird book as soon as we get home.

We learned quite a bit about the ecosystem from exhibits in the visitor's center, including the fragile nature of the local aquifers that provide fresh drinking water, just a few yards from the salt water of the Gulf. We are looking forward to visiting this area again in the dry season (winter to mid spring) and also the beaches of Sanibel and Captiva islands, which we skipped on this trip largely because of the really, really hot sun. Midwesterners like us will undoubtedly appreciate that high sun index more in winter than right now.

Palms on Pine Island

We took a field trip today to Pine Island, one of the barrier islands to the north west of Fort Myers. This view is of a fishing pier at the north end of the island, which is also home to lots of palm plantations and an historic site of Indian mounds built by the Calusa Indians, a people that disappeared from the area sometime in the 1700s. It was really hot, so we didn't take the interpretive trail but it would be a good project for a winter visit here.

A close up of the Royal Palms, right, shows just how majestic and huge they can be. On some parts of the island we saw huge downed trees, leftover damage from Hurricane Charley, but this area looked good.














Doug took a picture of me and Norm, left, in this historic preserve.

This was one of many palm plantations on Pine Island. These are Royal Palms. Nearby we saw a tall nesting platform, and over Pine Island Sound we saw two large dark birds with white heads circling...perhaps they were among the 10 or so eagles known to be nesting on Pine Island this year? We enjoyed the area because it had a real mix of uses and didn't seem as manicured and packaged as some of the tourist areas.

Updated note: I apologize for the strange gaps between pictures and copy on this post. I have studied the HTML code and I think by hitting the Return key too many times I inserted some code I don't need. But I'm too chicken to try deleting it; I'm afraid I'll lose the whole post. Live and learn.

On the beach, among other places

Saturday morning we visited Ft. Myers Beach, which is located on an island separate from the mainland. Doug drove us over a high causeway to get here. The settlement is full of beach houses, hotels and small tourist trap businesses painted in the signature colors of South Florida--yellow, orange, hot pink, turquoise. The beach was mostly deserted, because there has been a bloom of red algae. The Gulf of Mexico here looks as big as the ocean to landlubbers like us, though.


Before we arrived at the beach, though, Doug gave us a walking tour of Florida Gulf Coast University. Sure enough, it has a lot of lakes, and this sign emphasizes the unique status of the alligator in the ecosystem.


Doug's office is in the library; the newest faculty have offices there because the school is beyond capacity at this point. FGCU has 8,500 students enrolled and about 3,000 live on campus. The office has a door that locks, but the walls don't go quite to the ceiling. Nevertheless, professor Harrison looks quite at home in his new space.

Florida Weekend

We arrived Friday evening at the Fort Myers airport to be greeted by one of South Florida's famous "rainy season" thunderstorms. The attendant at the car rental counter helpfully upgraded us from a compact to a minivan at no extra charge, so we decided that Florida can be welcoming, after all!

Saturday morning's sunshine greeted us and we set out to visit Doug's office at Florida Gulf Coast University and Ft. Myers beach. Doug's apartment on the far eastern fringe of Ft. Myers is very comfortable. The second floor unit in the picture is his.

Behind his place is a lovely view, including a small lake. It is posted, as are all waterways in Florida, with a warning that alligators reside within. So it's not exactly a wading stream. One obvious feature of the Florida landscape is its total flatness. People who think Kansas prairies are flat really need to come to Florida. All of the water, just lying in marshes or running the the myriad canals, would be a welcome sight in Missouri, Oklahoma or Kansas right now, too.

Festival Weekend

Labor Day weekend in St. Louis features many festivals and events. Our favorite is the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden. We went on Sunday afternoon and not only saw and heard the Taiko drummers (Judi's favorite) but also glimpsed part of the Chihuly blown glass exhibit that has been the talk of the town all summer. The yellow sculpture at the left is at the entrance to the old-fashioned rose garden. During the storms on July 19 that knocked out power all over the metro area and destroyed numerous trees, including over 50 valuable trees at the Botanical Garden, none of the outdoor glass sculptures were damaged.

Dale Chihuly 's works are found throughout the Garden. Most of them can be viewed inside the Climatron for a separate admission charge. Among those on general display are these floating bulbs in the lily pad gardens in front of the Climatron. If you have ever been to the MBT, you'll recognize the Climatron's reflection in the photo at the right. (Note: Chihuly's works are copyrighted. Permission has been given to photograph them for educational and noncommercial use only.)

The highlight of the weekend for us is the Japanese festival. Judi has a "thing" for Taiko drummers! This ancient art started as a defense tactic. Villagers would beat their drums loudly to fool an attacker into thinking there were more people there to defend the town than actually were there. It was revived as a performance art a few decades ago. The Festival has had guest groups from San Diego and Hawaii, but St. Louis now has its own talented group of Taiko drummers and they performed an entertaining program in the 80-degree sunshine. During the festival, we got in at least a mile of walking, counting the distance from our parking place to the entrance and various tours around the grounds. We also saw a procession, women practicing for a kimono fashion show, and an exhibit of Ikebana flower arranging and Bonsai. We had a good time and the best part was Judi waking up on Monday without a stiff knee! The wounds from the laproscopic surgery in June are slowly but surely healing up and the full range of motion is returning. Next week we will be visiting in Florida for a few days, and looking forward to a long walk on the beach, if the next hurricane will just stay out to sea!

Carnall Hall Centennial Weekend, Finale

Pure as the dawn
on the brow of thy beauty,
watches thy soul
from the mountains of God
over the fates of thy children departed
far from the land
where their footsteps have trod.
Beacon of hope
in the ways dreary lighted,
pride of our hearts that are loyal and true,
from those who adore
unto one who adores us,
mother of mothers,
we sing unto you!

--Arkansas Alma Mater

SUNDAY, AUGUST 27-- The official centennial celebration ended Saturday afternoon, but several of those who attended stayed over and many goodbyes were said after our complimentary continental breakfast in Ella's Restaurant. I left this weekend amazed at the bonds that still pull Carnall women to this place. Unfortunately, only three of us were from the era of 1960-67, and no one else from my time was here, although I know a couple of them wanted to come. The gals from 1945-1959 were ferocious in their loyalty and many of them have contributed both to the restoration effort and the scholarship, which will perpetuate the memories we all have through a new venture, educating students in a Hospitality curriculum. Carnall Hall was the epitome of Southern hospitality in its day. Although it is no longer a residence, its former residents have ensured its physical and spiritual survival, maybe even to the 150th anniversary, as centennial chairwoman Fran Nutt , class of 1950, said.

I reprinted the words of the first verse of the Arkansas Alma Mater hymn above, in part because they capture, in a somewhat antiquated idiom, the feelings of my fellow alumnae. During the Friday night dinner, one table of '40s gals and their husbands burst spontaneously into singing it, mostly in tune. For some astounding reason, we still know all the words "by heart." I printed them alongside a photo I took Saturday night of the South Tower of Old Main. This tower recently acquired a clock for the first time in the building's history. The oldest building on campus, Old Main was built in 1875. Like Carnall, it was empty and almost condemned in the 1980s, but money was appropriated to restore it and it re-opened in 1993. The chimes in the North Tower still mark the quarter hours, as they did back in 1963 when it was just a short dash from Carnall's west door to one of my English classes on Old Main's fourth floor. In those days, I almost could cover the distance in the time it took for the full Westminster chime to play and strike the hour!

All weekend one of my desires was to see what had become of my favorite room, the tiny single third-floor room I occupied my junior year. On Sunday morning as the maids were cleaning the vacated rooms, I got my chance. This picture shows the original dimensions of the room--my twin bed fit neatly just beneath the window; my dresser was on the left wall and my desk and lamp were on the right. Now the space is merely the "sitting alcove" of one of the largest (and most expensive) rooms in the Inn. In the renovation, space was taken from the adjacent attic and the room expanded--unseen at left are two queen beds and at right a spacious bath. Room 309 rents for around $195 a night, the price list says. When I was a residence hall counselor living in this quaint attic space, my room and board was free, although the rate that year was about $345 a semester. I was pleased, though, to see that my little old room still lives, and retains its marvelous view from Carnall's center top of the expanse of lawn and trees outside. A similar room across the hall didn't fare as well--it became home to an ice maker and soft drink vending machine!

I have more reflections about the memories this weekend stirred about my time in this space, but those will appear in the future on my other blog, Thursday's Child.

Carnall Hall Centennial Weekend, Part III

SATURDAY, AUGUST 26--This evening after supper Norm and I took a walk around the oldest part of campus, looking at names on Senior Walk and admiring the many century-old trees that still stand on Old Main's "front lawn" which is also Carnall's front yard. I told him that being able to enjoy this weekend was the best anniversary present possible for me. I recalled the many times I walked back to Carnall at night, after studying in the library or going to a meeting at the Disciples Student Fellowship house, feeling lonely and wondering if I'd ever share this marvelous view with the Man of My Dreams. Well, it took over 40 years, but we finally got to make that walk together! This day also was Norm's birthday and I found him the perfect present at the silent auction for the Carnall Hall Alumnae Scholarship. It's a 12-inch glass block with the letter N etched on it. The folks at Airport Security in Tulsa were dumbfounded--we were the first to ever take an engraved glass block as a carry-on item, apparently. After it was examined and swabbed down, we were allowed to bring it home, where it rests in the north window of the dining room.

The weekend's events included an informal dinner on Friday night. Norm is surrounded by Carnall alumnae from the 1950s in this picture! It's interesting how they lowered the ceilings but carved a space to highlight the tops of the columns that still support the ceiling beams in our former dining room. The floral wall paper is replaced by sedate sage green paint, and the windows are adorned with brown velvet drapes that would make Scarlett O'Hara envious. On Saturday morning a brunch and recognition program was held in this room. The silent and live auctions of donated memorabilia added about $2000 to the scholarship fund, which now stands at around $73,000. The sixth scholarship we alumnae have given was presented to a non-traditional student who will be a senior in the Hospitality and Restaurant Program. Our old study hall is now a classroom for the students in this program. The old TV lounge is now Ella's Restaurant, which features delicious breakfasts and lunches and very upscale formal dinners. The old formal living room, where many a date waited nervously for one of us to descend the staircase, is now a cozy bar, named Lambeth Lounge for the architect who designed the renovation.

Carnall Hall Centennial Weekend, Part II

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25--We arrived to find The Inn at Carnall to be wonderfully restored, a welcome sight, considering that the last time we saw this building in 1999, it was abandoned, surrounded by weeds and a chain-link fence, with the roof and porches rotting off. Some of my friends were probably puzzled why I wanted to visit the centennial of a building, but as one of the other women attending said, "late at night, when I stay in my old room, the spirits of all those women who lived and studied here are still there." I lived in Carnall Hall (pronounced car NELL) from the fall of 1962 to the fall of 1964, my sophomore, junior and senior years at the University of Arkansas. The hall was named for Ella Howison Carnall, one of the first women faculty members at U of A. Ella was associate professor of English and modern languages from 1891 until her untimely death in 1894 at the age of 32. This building, opened in 1906 as the first dormitory for women at the U of A, was named for her. It cost $35,000 to build the Colonial Revival/Victorian structure.

Carnall Hall ceased to be a dormitory in 1967. It was occupied for a while by a fraternity and some academic departments in the 1970s. The building was accepted for the National Register of Historic Places in December 1982. In 1991 it was closed down completely and its slow deterioration began. The building was saved in a long struggle by alumnae, legislators, local preservationists and some university officials. A private developer was found in 2001, and the Inn at Carnall, a 49-room upscale hotel and Ella's Restaurant, opened in 2003. The renovation cost $7.1 million!

Some of my friends had attended earlier events to celebrate Carnall's resurrection, but this concluding centennial weekend was my first opportunity to see what had become of the old home place. The grand staircase from the center hall to second floor has been restored, as have the well worn pine floors throughout the building. Former dormitory rooms have been combined and expanded to create suites for king or double queen beds and private baths! No more scuffing down the hall to take a shower or brush our teeth! This was Room 307 where we stayed. Norm wasn't the only male guest who commented during the weekend that he had finally gotten to spend a night in a women's dorm.

Carnall Hall Centennial Weekend, Part I

THURSDAY, AUG. 24--The first leg of our journey to Tulsa and Fayetteville took place on our 38th wedding anniversary! We stayed in Owasso, OK and although Judi's cousin Mike was working, his wife Debi treated us to a great dinner. We caught up with Debi's family news on Thursday night and saw Mike the next morning. Mike consented to pose for a rare picture with Judi.

By mid-afternoon we were on our way to Fayetteville, Ark., via the Cherokee Turnpike (non-existent in the '60s when Judi knew Oklahoma Highway 33 so well she could drive it in her sleep--and often did!)

Anniversary

Tomorrow is our 38th wedding anniversary. That August day in 1968 was hot and humid, and tomorrow threatens to be the same. We'll be celebrating as well as traveling to visit my cousins, Mike and Debi Burch, in Tulsa. We also are going to visit Fayetteville, Ark. for the centennial of Ella Carnall Hall, my undergraduate residence hall, which is now a celebrated Inn where students learn in the U of A hospitality program. (Norm is excited that he gets to stay in a women's dorm!) We'll send updates from the road if I can find the right web browsers, or after we return to this modern computer at home. I took this photo a couple of evenings ago of a male Ruby Throated hummingbird sitting on the electric line behind our house. I had tried to get a picture of him at the feeder, but he was too fast for me. I thought the silhouette against the sunset sky captured something of the sense that August brings...change, and perhaps a flight or two, are in the wind. More later.

Out at Night

We have been enjoying sitting on our front porch in the evening, on cooler nights. We burn a cintronella candle and listen to the cicadas and tree frogs for a while. Back in the spring we bought some moonflower seeds and planted them in a pot. Wild green vines have grown all over a trellis and string until we thought they would never bloom, but earlier this week, we got our first flower. The blooms open in late afternoon and last only one night. This one opened this evening.

Another creature that is busy around the porch these days is the hummingbird- or several. Some stand guard and chase others off; hummers are really small terrorists in that they run off almost anything. They even buzz Norm when he goes out to change their sugar water! I caught this female sipping early this evening while the male was around back guarding the other feeder for a while. I'll try to get a better picture in coming days, but these little buzzers are quick.

Earlier today we met with the Compton Heights Christian Church Reading Circle at a coffee house called 6 North, in the Central West End of St. Louis. Our book this month was Tortilla Curtain by T. C Boyle. It was the first book by this author that either of us had read. It concerns two couples, one well-off and the other barely surviving, showing the contrasts between people who have fled Los Angeles for a "safer" life in one of the canyons and people who risk everything to enter this country in hopes of making a living. Now that illegal immigration is a hot political topic, this novel made for timely reading. It doesn't offer any easy answers but it does what all good fiction does: it puts a human face on the abstractions that we would prefer to ignore.

Raspberry Time

August is raspberry time in Missouri. We have a thick patch of ever-bearing raspberries in the perennial border at the back of our yard. We transplanted 4 plants from our Ferguson yard when we moved here in 2001, and we now have a thicket! We picked the first handful about a week ago and since then have been getting about a half cup a day, with more to come. They are great on cereal or ice cream. We'll freeze some for winter and if I find some more delicious Missouri peaches at the market, I'll put some in frozen peach pies as well.

What Happened to Summer?

For years now, my summer has begun in May when classes ended. If May is full of promise, June brings fulfillment: family reunions, resplendent gardens, summer projects initiated. July is full of festivals, patriotism and grown baby birds coming to the bird feeder. The garden glows with flowers like these black-eyed susans that bloomed this year. But too soon after July 4, the clearance sales begin!

Mid July is often hazy, marked by a suspension of time punctuated only by the buzz of grasshoppers and crickets in the drought-stricken lawn. On this past July 19, we experienced a fierce storm that resembled an inland hurricane. It struck with little warning and left broken trees littering the streets and whole neighborhoods--up to 1.5 million people at the worst point--without power for up to a week or more in 100-degree weather. We prevailed during our 121 hours of no electricity through the generosity of neighbors who let us plug a fan into their generator, and the proximity of the air-conditioned university campus, which never lost power. It was more of an inconvenience than a catastrophe, but the experience gave us a new appreciation for the obstacles faced by Hurricane Katrina survivors and those who have lived with substandard conditions for years.

By the beginning of August, back when I was teaching, there was a sense of urgency to capture quickly what was left of summer, because school would begin in three weeks or so. Even now, I look at the overgrown mess of wild vines tangling what was once a tidy garden, and note the increasingly territorial behavior of hummingbirds around the feeders, and sense that summer is waning, just as surely as the sun is rising later and night shadows gather earlier. The cicadas rasp louder every evening in the oak tree out front, and the tree frogs are growing a little hoarse with their calls in the night. Any day now, flocks of blackbirds and then robins will gather on the nearby golf course or county park fields in preparation for migrations south. By Labor Day, this progression from summer to fall will be impossible to ignore. But for now, I'm going to try to savor what is left of summer--the exercise sessions at the outdoor pool, a vacation trip to the Ozarks, reading a long novel. We will replace the tired and crisped annuals in some of the beds and pots with fresh fall-blooming plants and wait for our moonflower vine on the porch to finally bloom--another sure sign of the season's changes.

Just A Little Late

Ever since I started thinking about retirement, which was back in 2003 when Norm retired, I said I intended to start publishing a blog. I was inspired by the work of some of my friends and students, especially Doug's fine blog commenting on Southern Gospel Music: Averyfineline.com. Then niece Debbie sent us a link to her blog, Updates and Reflections, that chronicles her life and family news, with wonderful pictures. I wanted something sort of in-between; a blog that sometimes was a little edgy with commentary but on ordinary days let our family and friends from Thailand to the Netherlands, from Oregon to Florida, peek in on what we have been up to. But still I procrastinated--even after retiring from my university teaching job a few months back....

A week or so ago, Doug observed that I have a habit of "thinking about it" that sometimes drags on for years. He was referring to my past decade of deliberating whether to get another dog or not, but he could have been talking about my publishing plans, too. So here it is, a little late, and still in need of refinement as I try to figure out how to use these tools. But feel free to check in whenever you please and I promise to keep your e-mail inboxes less cluttered!