There is always Hope

I am a crazy chicken lady.

My husband grew up on a farm.  I grew up in the suburbs.  When we met, and he told me his family were all farmers, I thought he was kidding.  I was the kind of clueless idiot who thought all our food today was grown on commercial farms, owned by Simplot or Green Giant, and that there weren't really people who did "farming" anymore, unless they were working for some big company.

So when Whit asked me about three years ago to get chicks around Easter, I thought he was nuts.  He was so adamant about it, and reassured me that the kids would love them.  He told me that he would do everything, that they're super easy, and that I wouldn't have to do a thing.

The kids did love them.

That was the only thing he said that turned out to be true.  They were in a box in our garage and they made big messes.  They pooped in their water, they scratched and ate and drank and made messes and pooped and pooped and pooped more.  Did I mention the poop? Then they ate and pooped enough that they grew pretty big and they were hopping out of their stinky box and wandering around pooping in the garage.  I had cleaned the box to the best of my abilities, but they needed a bigger box.  And the coop I ordered never came, so I tried to go buy one at the store, but the season had passed and they didn't have them anymore! Crisis!  On Whit's next day off, Whit and I spent the whole day getting stuff, building a coop and painting it.  This was pretty much the opposite of what I had been promised, and I was not super happy about it.

Egads they were messy and I worried and worried and worried about them.  It was cold, it was rainy, so I was outside putting heat lamps and changing the coop shavings and buying them special supplemental foods and taking them scraps and putting up fabric to block the rain.  (I did get over that.  I mean, a chicken's gonna get wet.)

But then on my birthday, disaster struck.  They'd been laying for a month or so when an opossum found them.  And killed my favorite one!  Did I mention this happened on my birthday??  I was so sad to lose Trip and I really didn't want to lose anymore, but then the opossum got another, and a dog got two more.  I was down to just three.  I did what any sane person would do--I bought more!

This was the first step on my descent down to crazy chicken lady-ness.

It was not my last.

So I bought TEN more chicks.  Because I loved the first seven.  But first, I secured my coop from predators.  I prepared a room and a heat lamp and a space for the chicks.  I took way better care of these little guys.

I still lost two to hawks when I let them out too early.

But the worst, the lowest moment of my chicken parenting was the night of the raccoon.  I had a little four month old puppy who weighed about 2.5 pounds.  We went out to lock up the chickens for the night at dusk and I could just make out the shape of a raccoon ahead of me.  My puppy went charging for it, and I called Foxy back because I knew the raccoon could end her.  I shouted and waved and the big old raccoon ran up into a tree.

I kept walking and found that the chickens, instead of being holed up in the coop, were in complete disarray.  All over the yard.  The raccoon had already killed one, Whitney's (my husband's) favorite one.  I found another one huddled at the far end of the coop.  I couldn't get her to move, or come to me.  It was one of the young ones, and I locked the rest in before going to get her.  I couldn't make out much outside but she wasn't moving at all.  I was worried she might be dead.

I carried her inside and she still wouldn't move.  I could see why in the light.  See, raccoons like to eat chicken's heads.  If they have several around, they will ONLY eat the head before they move on to another chicken head.  (Delightful, right?) I interrupted the raccoon, so it hadn't really eaten this one, just gnawed on it.  Both eyes had been mangled beyond repair, and I was heartbroken.

Whitney offered to wring it's neck.  He told me it was really the only thing to do.

I just could not let him do it. I googled what to do and found out it was in shock.  I got antibiotics and put them in its water.  I pushed its beak down and made it drink.  It would not move otherwise.  I put it in a box and kept it inside, since it was March and it is vital to keep a chicken in shock warm.  Foxy was beside herself, but we put her far enough away that she would leave the chicken alone.

The injured chicken stank.  By the next day it was way worse.  She would not eat.  Nothing.  She wouldn't move.  I kept making her drink at intervals all day.  When I went outside that day, I discovered the darn raccoon had eaten another chicken.  I spent a lot of time re-securing the coop.  I was beside myself.  I went out and bought this kind of expensive spray-on antibiotic and Whitney helped me clean the wounds on her eyes as well as we could.  We put neosporin on them and later I used the spray like clockwork.

She still would not eat.

Although her eyes looked better and better, she would not eat, even a bit, despite my best efforts.  By day three, the internet said that if she didn't eat she would die.  I had read a lot on blind chickens and I knew that if the rest of the flock helped her, she could survive.  The odds weren't good, but it had happened.  The blind chicken could follow the sounds of the other chickens to find the food and eat the grain.  I thought maybe she would eat in her old surroundings, so I took her outside. She perked up right away and I was so hopeful.

The second I stepped away, she felt my absence and hunkered down.  I was delighted to see her sisters/friends come running over.  Then they reached her and immediately began pecking at her injured eyes.  I was crushed.  I can't tell you how much it upset me, to see her friends, her family, trying to tear at her when she was down.  I cried and cried, so concerned for this little chicken who I had been trying to help (all to no avail) for three days. I can't tell you how many times people suggested I put her down, or let her die.  They told me that I was prolonging the inevitable.  She was in pain.  She was miserable.  Stop trying and let her go.

I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't let her die.  So I read about force feeding chickens.  I read about how they have this little area where their food goes before it goes to their stomach and you don't want to overfeed them or it will burst and they'll die.  Small frequent meals, then.  Whit helped me at first.  I tried to feed her alone and could not get her to eat anything.  She squirmed and flailed and turned away and I made a huge mess.  I was trying with yogurt, which they say is the thing to kick start a gut when it's been going hungry.  We were on day three, the make or break day.  If she didn't eat she would die on her own.

With Whit's help (he's unfailingly supportive, even when he thinks I am being crazy) I fed her.  Then an hour later, we fed her again.  Then an hour later.  Whit made me go to bed after that third feeding.  I wanted to feed her through the night.  After all, we were on day three.  How much was enough to save her??

We did the same thing the next day, but Whit came up with a way to shove her down in the sink so one person could feed her and water her alone.  We gave her a bath and cleaned her eyes again so they didn't stink so bad and a small miracle--one of her eyes was THERE!! I had so much hope.

So that day, she started eating by force and she had an eye.  I started to really hope (for the first time) that she might live.  I told the kids I hoped she could make it.  They would say, "is she gonna die?" and I would say, "I sure hope not."  Eli and Dora started to say "we hope she lives.  We sure hope so."  And Emmy picked up the refrain and began calling her Hope.

Each day I force fed Hope and I put her outside whenever it was nice, but in a pen so no dogs, cats or other chickens could harm her.  They all wanted to.  She was so scared she would hardly move.  I also think she was adjusting to the loss of one eye.  We still don't know exactly how well her "good eye" works.  During those days, she would not eat a single thing I did not force on her.  She would not drink a single thing without me forcing her.  We were at day 11 and she was eating grain, watermelon, yogurt, bread, greens, and on and on, but she still she had not eaten or drunk a single thing without my help.

The problem was that in two days, I was leaving to go to Moses Lake Washington to visit Whit's family.  I had no choice but to dump her into the coop with the rest of the flock to pick her to death or for her to starve because she couldn't eat alone.  I was so scared for her.  I felt sick.

I had asked my mom over the phone if she wanted to take her and feed her and my mom laughed.  My mom had grown up on a mini-farm and she said the same thing everyone else did.  "At some point she has to either reintegrate or die."

"No chance you want to take her to your house?  Have a pet chicken??"

My mom laughed.

And then she came to get Eli's fish the night before we left.  She saw Hope, eating now from my hand without force.  She would not eat on her own, but she loved me.  She would open her beak up for me to feed her.  She never ever tried to get out of her little box.  She let me carry her around like a lapdog.  She loved me and I loved her.  Her eye was getting better.  She didn't stink anymore.

My mom, with her heart the size of Texas, could not resist.  "Oh give me her stuff," she said.  "I'll take her with me."

I will not bother with the rest of the story, since this is already super duper long, but let's just say that Hope survived, one eyed and all.  You would never know she only has one eye unless you looked close, and she still thinks she's part of the family.  She loves kids, she loves people and the only thing she would ever do to hurt someone is peck at their toes if you have a flower on them, because she loves little yellow flowers.  Tasty.

She will jump up in the air to get a treat, she lays a beautiful brown egg, and she is the sweetest, kindest chicken you've ever seen.

There were many moments, many hours, many days and yes, even weeks, when I thought she would not survive.  I had a baby, a puppy, twelve other chickens plagued by a persistent raccoon, a husband and three other kids and it was very very very hard for me to care for little Hope.  I am so glad that I did.

In our lives, there will be many such times, times where we feel like giving up.  Times where people are telling us we are stupid to keep trying.  There will even be times when our family and friends try to tear us down.  Satan wants you to give up in those hard moments.  He wants you to give in.  He wants you to throw in the towel and by the way, he's the one behind you telling you to pick at those family and friends who are down.

I am here to tell you the following:

DO NOT GIVE UP.  HAVE HOPE.

If you do, you never know how good things can get.  Even with one eye, life is pretty good.  God loves you and he has a plan for you.  It's a plan you can't see, and it's a plan you can't predict, and that makes it so hard to have hope, to have faith that it's there.  But it is.

If a little bitty three pound chicken can do it, so can you.  And when I say your Father in Heaven loves you more than He loves that little chicken, you should believe me, because it's true.  He has so much beauty and joy in store for you that you can't even take it all in right now, and you can't comprehend it's magnitude.  Just have a little hope and keep on going. Your good times are right around the corner, I promise.

Crusty

Just after we moved into our new home, I purchased a venus fly trap.  It sits in a little clear plastic cup that you keep full of water so when it needs water it can suck it up from below.  I'm not sure if this is really how you're supposed to do it, because as a kid I remember misting them, but in any case, it's what the directions said when I bought it and I believe in following directions, for the most part.  

A few weeks ago, I noticed the peat moss around it looked kinda moldy.  So I thought I should let it dry out a bit.  Last week, I noticed it was dying!  The little trap parts were turning black.  I realized it was… CRUSTY!  I had gone from probably overwatering to under watering and it wasn't going to survive unless I did something.  I did not go to great lengths.  I just refilled the plastic cup.  You can't dump in a lot of water or it's too much.  You can't ignore it or it's too little.  As with many things, it requires a delicate balance.  

This got me thinking.  There are a lot of things in life that require constant maintenance.  In fact, most everything does.  No matter how often you feed your family, or yourself, if you wait a few hours, you will be be hungry again.  Sometimes I feel like all I do is feed the kids, clean up and feed them again.   Similarly, bath times.  Clean them up and they're messy again.  But you can't stop, because then they will get stinky and CPS will come and take them away.  

If you look around, you will see this principle everywhere:  plants, animals, working out, teaching kids, cleaning, work, and on and on.  I tried to ride a bike a few years ago and discovered that, in fact, that phrase, "like riding a bike" is not correct.  I had a lot of trouble because I hadn't been on one in years and years.  Everything requires maintenance or it will fall into disrepair.  I learned about this as a child, the tendency of everything to fall apart if not maintained.  In science, it's called Entropy.  I think I will bag that term and just call it being Crusty.  

This week, I got Crusty.  

I was thinking about the gospel and I got all Crusty.  I was mad.  I won't bother you with details, but I was angry.  My faith was shaken.  I went to talk to my husband about it, one of the few people in the world I can say anything and everything to.  Instead of being appalled, mad, condescending or many other responses, he was his normal humble self.  He tried at first to explain his positions to me, but it was too late for that.  I was Crusty.  I needed more than reasoning because I was past reason.  I realized that we began the conversation sitting on either end of the sofa, but we had moved even further apart and were raising our voices.  

In fact, we were approaching a fight.  But I didn't want to fight with him--I love him.  So I moved over right next to him and I hugged him to show him I wasn't mad at HIM.  I loved him.  I wanted us to be on the same page.  That's when he bore me his testimony.  You know the gist of that, because after we spoke last week, I wrote my blog, about him and his testimony.  You might have noticed his words factored very heavily into last week's blog because folks, I was not feeling it much last week.  I was still a little Crusty. 

But that was a turning point for me.  Whitney (my husband) pointed out that I hadn't been doing everything I should have been doing.  I hadn't been going to the temple.  I've been in nursery for what feels like years now, and if you aren't mormon, I will explain.  It means that after Sacrament meeting (which is an hour long meeting in which I typically watch all my kids alone because Whit's working), I head straight to babysit the kids aged one to three.  I referee fights, give snacks, help them go potty and generally just babysit.  While everyone else is in Relief Society and Sunday School, getting uplifted, I am just being beaten down.  They usually limit people to a year, I think, but I am in a brand new ward, I know no one and I am still in nursery.  That means I haven't gotten any nourishment from church.  I haven't been reading enough in my scriptures or praying with enough fervency.  These things are the ways we water the plant of our testimony and mine was drying up.  

It finally occurred to me this week that maybe God is teaching us something with all this entropy stuff all around us.  It takes constant vigilance, continuous effort, never-ending enduring to the end for us to become what our Heavenly Father wants us to become.  And even then… news flash, it won't end.  Because our lives are not static.  Like it or not, we are living beings and so we are always either growing and progressing or we are falling backwards, becoming Crusty.  

The only way we can become like our Father in Heaven, fulfill our potential is to study the things of God. We can't learn about the sky by looking at the ground.  So this week, I've tried to study the scriptures, pray, and focus on pondering the things of God instead of the things of man.  It has helped me tremendously.  My hope to all of us this Sunday before Christmas is that we may all turn to Christ and focus on learning of Him, this week and every week so that we don't get Crusty.  And I hope you all have a Whitney in your life who will bear their testimony for you, or spray you down, when you need that little bit of extra nourishment and can't see it yourself.  

Timing

I am mortal.  Weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, they all seem to zoom past me.  One day I am going to die.  Until then, all I really have for myself, all I really own, is my time here. 

Time isn't really the same for God, since He isn't facing eminent demise like we are.  I mean, I have the hope and belief of a life after this, but if God exists, which I believe He does, He knows, because He is living it.  It gives Him interesting perspective and insight into my life, your life, and every mortal life.  I believe one of the main things we have to learn here on earth is to place our trust in God and be patient.  

I have four children.  I am almost an expert on patience.  I'm either telling them to practice it (a futile reminder), or I am practicing it myself.  I wait all day long.  I wait on the kids to eat breakfast.  I wait while Emmy goes potty.  I wait for the bus.  I wait wait wait and then wait some more. 

In all this waiting, I am typically armed with knowledge, albeit limited.  For instance, I know the bus should be here around 7:35.  It might be a few minutes early, so I insist we get there by 7:30.  It might be a few minutes late, so I always wait with the kids until at least 7:45 before I start to worry.  In all this waiting, I typically have a general idea of when my waiting will end.  

In life, we frequently don't have that sort of timeline, or predetermined expectation.  Or sometimes, we do, and it gets blown out of the water.  My husband and I were talking tonight and he shared a very powerful testimony with me that reminded me of all the times I have had to wait, and all the times I have struggled with that.  He said when he was at BYU for undergraduate, he had two main life goals: to become a doctor, and to get married and have a family.  He prayed for help with these regularly.  He worked hard and did his best to make them happen.  He went on a lot of dates, and he studied in all his other free time.  

To his great disappointment, or I might even call it heartbreak, when he applied to medical school the first time, he was not accepted.  The world, including his family, friends, and BYU's (in my opinion inept) pre-med counselor told him to give up. They told him that he obviously wasn't meant to go to medical school.  He would never be a doctor.  He was wasting his time.  Whitney prayed about this decision.  He felt like it was his calling, and yet, everyone said he was wrong.  Everyone in the world told him to quit.  

After praying, he received the certain and steady answer that he would be a doctor.  That he would help many people and that he should not give up.  He left home with very little money and no job and moved to Texas, to pursue residency in a state with several medical schools.  He also found a job at MD Anderson and was able to develop some publication credits (in the science field.)  He kept dating as much as he could.  To his great dismay, he still had not found anyone he felt he could marry.  He kept praying about it and God told him to be patient.  The Spirit reassured him that God had a plan for Whitney and that He would lead him to his wife someday.  

Whitney kept dating.  He kept working.  He kept praying.  It was hard.  He struggled.  He wondered whether he was worthy and whether he would ever get into medical school.  He wondered if he would ever get married.  He had faith in his God and in the Holy Ghost's promptings.  He carried on.  

Then, one day, after studying and retaking the MCAT, after getting two research thingies (I am not medical okay!?) published, he got accepted to medical school.  I should mention here for the record that he was right--he was meant to be in medicine.  He was made Chief Resident in residency and he was named Doctor of the Year last year by his system, and even now he is getting all kinds of patient recognition awards.  The man was meant to be a doctor and God helped him to stay the course.  

Back to the time period we were in, Whitney kept working really really hard in medical school.  He kept dating.  He kept praying.  He had accomplished the first step in one goal, but he had a lot more work to do and he did not shirk it.  He also had another goal which he felt he had not made any progress in.  For a while, he thought maybe he found someone.  Her name was Birgette.  Or something else similarly close, but not quite right.  But it turned out, they were not a good fit and Whitney was back to square one.  He prayed and God told him to have faith.  He would find her.  She was out there.  

Then finally, in November 2005, Whitney was in his third year of medical school when he met me.  He knew very quickly that this was it.  He had waited, he had worked, he had been patient, and finally, he met the right person.  I'm not going to say it was a fairy tale, but our story is way better than Sleeping Beauty.  We even had our first kiss during a Disney movie.  Oh wait, that might make us sound lame...  

In any case, the point is this: God has a plan for me.  He has a plan for you.  It's super easy to wait when someone says, "Bridget you need to be here at 5:04.  Not 5:03, not 5:05.  5:04.  Okay?"  Of course we can wait until then.  Anyone could do that!  You just count down the hours, minutes, seconds and fill your time until that designated time arrives.  

God doesn't work like that for a reason.  When we are praying for something, struggling with something, He doesn't tell us, "Don't worry.  In 3 years, 2 months and 16 days you will find that!"  Sometimes I wish it worked that way, but it just doesn't.  We are expected to have faith and to learn the lessons we need to learn before we can get what we're asking for.  In the book of Nephi, God tells him to build a boat.  Why oh why didn't he just GIVE him a boat?  He could have had another guy who was an expert boat maker just show up and hand one over!  It would have been so much easier and Nephi would have gotten to the promised land (America) so much FASTER and had so much more TIME to appreciate his newfound blessings.  But no, Nephi had to build the tools to shape the metal.  Find the metal.  Shape it, and then build the dang boat.  What a nightmare!! That's all before taking a bazillion years on a boat built by someone who is a complete novice to get over to the new land.  Talk about faith promoting.  Talk about development.  Talk about enduring to the end.  Good grief.  

As humans, as mortals, as people, we WANT our blessings.  We don't really understand that it's the life we live while pursuing those things that has the value.  It's the waiting, it's the obstacles, it's the effort that changes us.  That's what makes us who we are, what molds us into the people God wants us to become.  I am writing for those of you who are floundering, as I have floundered so many times, to those of you who are moaning, crying, wailing or gnashing your teeth because you want something, or forget want, those of you who need something so badly you can taste it and you cannot wait another single, solitary second, I will say this: 

God has a plan for you.  

It's more splendid, more beautiful, more breathtaking and awe-inspiring than you can possibly imagine.  It may even have something as wonderful as a Whitney at the end of it.  Or as beautiful and unimaginable as my four angelic children at the end of it.  Those things might even be the beginning of a whole new chapter in God's itinerary for you.  Take heart.  Have faith.  It's so hard, so hard, so so so hard.  I know that.  Life is difficult and it's a struggle and we don't want to wait and believe and believe and just keep believing, but it's the growth we have during that all that believing that makes the blessings God has in store for us possible.  So just hang on, and I promise you, it's right around the corner.  You are stronger than you know.  You can wait just a little bit longer.  He will help you do it, and it will be worth it in the end.  

Bah Humbug

If you've been near me around Halloween, you probably know it's not my favorite holiday.  Before you completely freak out on me, I participate.  I dress up! I was Rainbow Brite this year, and  I went to several Halloween parties.  I even took my kids trick or treating.  I also let my daughter have a Halloween Birthday party in May, at which we had trick or treating, costumes, and so on.  I guess my main problem with it is that I feel like it encourages greed, grabbiness and a lot of candy, all of which I feel like I already battle as a parent a little too often.

So then, why is Christmas my favorite holiday, beating out even my beloved Valentine's Day??

If you look at it objectively, Christmas sort of encourages greed.  I mean, every kid comes up with lists of things they want and then they expect those things to just be given to them.  It pushes grabbiness, too.  I mean, on the day after Thanksgiving, my kids took turns sitting on Santa's lap and he asked what they wanted.

My three year old said, "I don't know.  Anything."

Santa prompted, "Well, if you tell me what, I can have my elves make something special."

Emmy finally says, "Okay, a teddy bear."

"What color?" Santa asks.  (I'm thinking, COME ON, stop making me work here, dude!)

Emmy asks for a yellow teddy bear.  The other night though, my little non-grabby three year old informs me she can't wait for Christmas because she will get her yellow teddy bear with a bow, her red bear with a bow, and a box of candy.

?!?

*&%$

"Why do you think you're getting all that?" I ask.

"Because Dora (my five year old) said we get two things and candy."

Okay, so Christmas makes even the happiest kids a little greedy, a little grabby, and there's candy involved.  So why do I love it!?

Well, probably everyone reading this is thinking of the obvious: because the heart of Christmas is not about Santa, presents or even Christmas lights.  It's about celebrating the birth of our Savior, celebrating His life (a perfect one), His example, and His love for us.  It's about so much more than the "commercialization".  I have heard people complaining about how commercial Christmas has gotten for years and years and years.  I think the first memory I have of someone criticizing this aspect of Christmastime comes from Charlie Brown, where little Charlie himself sits whining and moaning that it's all about money and stores and presents.

Ya know what?  I love all that too!! Bring on the commercialized, Santa and Rudolph-centric parts!!! I adore those!  And I will tell you why.  I've been thinking about this all week.

I could start with all the explanations for the existence of Santa and justifications of gift giving.  The wise men brought Jesus gifts, so we give others gifts, too.  Or Jesus isn't here, so we celebrate His birthday in the way He would want, giving to others.  (Just as He gave us the greatest gifts--his perfect example in life, the atonement, and the opportunity to live again.)  I could mention that Santa's existence dates from the stories of Saint Nicholas.  All of those things are true, but they aren't the gist of why the commercialization doesn't bother me.  None of them explain why the greed in my kids isn't so annoying.  It doesn't explain why I try to force myself to do a shelf elf and make cookies and carol and hang lights.  I think to really explain, I need to go back a bit.

When I was a kid, I was all about the presents, like every other kid on the planet.  Christmas, for me, was all about the gimme gimme gimme.  Then I recall with perfect clarity that one year when I searched the whole house for my mom's stash.  My mom plans ahead, so I knew the gifts had to be hidden somewhere, some bought months in advance.  I found it.  In the back of her moth proofed closet, there it was.  All our presents.  Every last one.  I was really excited that afternoon, and I felt a little all-knowing.  Like somehow because I knew what everyone was getting, myself included, Christmas would be better than ever.

Boy was I wrong.  That Christmas goes down on the books as the worst Christmas of all time for me.  I still loved my Savior.  I still loved that He lives and He loves us and I knew all of that.  But that year, I was sad because all the magic of giving, of seeing people get things and not knowing what they were, was gone.  See, when you're a kid, you're excited because you don't know what's in all those paper wrapped boxes.  You're excited for what you will get, and seeing how excited your loved ones are at what they get.  When you're an adult, you're excited because although you know what's in those boxes, you put a lot of time and thought into what the people you love will want, so you are vested in it.  If you're just a kid who knows what's in them, you don't get credit, and you didn't spend time figuring out what to get, so there's no excitement.

That's when I realized that it's in the surprise of receiving, or seeing the joy in others all around me that I found my happiness at that time of year.  As I grew older, that feeling only intensified.  Don't get me wrong, I love getting presents.  But mostly, I just adore giving gifts to people.  I love sending them things.  My mom is the same way (which is why our house is full to the brim of toys and crap for my kids!)  And that's why, to me, even the commercialized part of Christmas is pretty darn good.  I am hoping my little bratlets grow up like I did and find that there's more joy in the giving than in the receiving, but even if they don't, the giving itself makes me happy, no, more like downright jolly, and that's enough.

I think that's the spirit that our Savior appreciates about the celebration of His birthday.  I envision Him sitting upstairs, eating cake with his Dad (and maybe my brother Jesse) and thinking about the happiness all around the Earth on that one day, and I think it makes Him happy, too.  I guess I am saying, don't get bent out of shape about stores having sales and people buying stuff other people don't need.  Just smile and relax.  Christ is still in Christmas as long as we are trying to bring joy to the ones we love.  So go buy another present, eat another cookie and say your prayers for a few extra minutes tonight.  We have so many things for which to be thankful.  If you're reading this, you're probably one of the people I am thankful for.  Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you all.