Birthdays and Memories

February is a good month for our family. My brother and I were both born in it. Three years apart. So you know that both of us had a birthday last month, and as usual we gave each other funny cards about getting older and creakier, the you'll-always-be-older-than-me kind of card!

It doesn't take much to transport me back in time, back to where we were born and where we grew up. It can be the little jar of stones that I have sitting on my Memories Shelf, little pebbles scooped up from outside our home near Charlibli, Liberia. Mixed in with them is a dried palm nut. Its shape and the little holes in the end are like childhood friends. Sometimes it is the kerosene lamp sitting on that same shelf, a certain haze in the sky, the sudden sight of a snake in the grass. Once in a while, I open my little bottle of 4711 perfume and take a good whiff, and I am once again a little girl with the German ladies who smelled like that! Every now and then I cook collard greens and rice, just because I love them, and the house is filled with an aroma from long ago. No, it doesn't take much...

So when I came home one day around my birthday and found this from Gord on my dining room table, no words were needed. He knew it would take me back.

Hibiscus

It is blooming, day after day,
and each time, I am a little girl again.
The blooms last a day, close up, and fall onto the table.
I pick them up carefully
because even those closed up flowers
are so familiar...
so much a part of me.

A Christmas Miracle!

You're probably thinking "Christmas miracle" as in the star and the angels and especially Baby Jesus. Well, you would be right, of course! But today I am talking about another lesser miracle, one that happened to our family just before Christmas.

Our friend Curt called one evening in early December 2010 and said, "I've just been looking in one of the fliers I get about farm auctions." I was not too surprised, since I know he keeps up on all that and over the years has gotten some wonderful bargains. But he went on to say, "I don't know why I noticed this item, and I can't remember ever seeing one at a farm auction before, but...they are selling a van with a wheelchair lift already in it." Now I was definitely surprised! "Are you interested in taking a look at it?" he asked. I don't believe these things happen by chance, and I said we should most certainly check it out. Cautiously optimistic. Sort of afraid to hope too much, but really hoping in spite of myself!

We had looked into the price of a new(er) van and realized that without a miracle we could not afford it. Goodness! The price of a van customized with a wheelchair lift is pretty close to -- well, a fortune, let's just say, at least to us. Even the good secondhand ones we saw were priced like new. So we said we would try to squeak every last creaky mile out of the one we have.

And then Curt called...

So a few days before the auction, Barry, Curt, and two mechanic friends went to check it out.

The Red Van

A 2000 Dodge van, raised roof, only 43,000 miles. Good outside, nice and clean inside, MUCH better lift than the old van, everything in order under the hood. It took a few tries to start it, but it had been sitting a long time in a farm shed.

The lift, fully automatic

See how it folds up on itself so you can use the door when the lift is not in use?
(This picture was taken from the driver's seat looking out the middle side door.)

So Barry and I talked and prayed about it and decided what we thought our spending limit should be, and the plan was made. To be honest, we are auction illiterates! But we would bid on the van and see what happened! The auction day was very cold, so Coral and I stayed home, and Barry, Trent, and Curt went to do their best. At the auction, they met Gary, a friend of Curt's, and what a wonderful friend he turned out to be! He knows all about auctions, knew the auctioneers, and was right at home.

My phone rang, and it was Barry. "Gary looked at the van, too, and he thinks it might go for more than what we decided we should spend. What do you think?" Well, I thought Gary was right; it really could go for way more than that and still be cheaper than other vans we had seen. So I said, "I really hate to change the amount that seemed right... but do what you think is best."

Waiting, waiting...then Trent sent me a text: The van is coming up for bid. Unknown to me, Gary had offered to do the bidding for us, and I can just imagine what a relief that was for Barry! Meanwhile back home, I was praying... Lord, you know how much we need a van and how limited we are on how much we can pay. We have asked You to supply for us, so if you want us to have the van, please make everyone else stop bidding!

Another text from Trent: WE GOT THE VAN!! I admit it. I burst into tears, right in my office! Thank you, God! Then I texted Trent: How much did we have to pay? And he said: $7500! Wow! Under our limit! It was such a miracle! When I was sure the van was ours and that they were almost home, I told Coral, "Guess what? Dad and Trent went today and they got us a new van!" Understanding grew slowly in her face, and then she nearly popped her wheelchair seatbelt with excitement. Up they drove in the dark, and Coral and I rushed out to take our first look!

When we could settle down, Barry told me about how amazing it had been to have Gary's help and expertise on the bidding, and I believe God used him to bless us! Just like He used Curt to start the blessing going and to help us all the way along.

The next day, Barry called the lift company that had installed it in the van in 2006 and asked what it would be worth. Guess what they said! "If we were to install that same lift in your van today, it would cost $7600." So, if you boil it all down, we bought the lift and got paid $100 to take the van along with it!

And this is our Christmas miracle!

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One year later...

I decided that, in honor of Barry's surgery, I should post a one-year follow-up. So here goes...

• The Workers Comp doctor (bless him!) had had surgery himself with excellent results, and so he referred Barry to that very same orthopedic surgeon (bless him, too!)
• "You are getting the surgery for all the right reasons." (What the doc said when he found out that Barry wanted to have his shoulder fixed so he would be able to help me again with Coral's care.)
• One of our friends spent a year rehabbing his shoulder, so we were dreading this. But the surgeon told Barry that if he fixed the shoulder and Barry was not back to normal in less than 6 months, he would retire.
• Bright and early one morning, off we went to the beautiful surgery center across the street from the hospital (good location, just in case!)

• It is hard to settle your thoughts down while your husband is in surgery.
• What you don't want to hear after you have spent hours in the waiting room: "Your husband is not coming out of the anesthetic as quickly as we had expected."
• Thank God for the wonderful recovery room nurse who knew everything would be okay!
  

And then:

• Home again. Hubby is a very good patient. The minute he could do things for himself, he did them. He even quickly figured out how to get out of the recliner (which normally needs his right hand to operate the lever) so that he would not need to get me to do it.
• It is a strange sensation to pull and pull and pull on the long tube inside the surgery site in order to remove the empty pain pump. It feels like you are pulling out a long worm...
• The most amazing thing! After the pain pump ran out of juice, no pain! The surgery nurse, who had lots of experience behind her, had told us, "This will be 10 out of 10 pain!" Never had to use the narcotic prescription or any over-the counters, either!
• Weeks of therapy -- very successful because Barry did everything his therapists told him to do and worked hard.
  

SO...
If you go over to that surgeon's office today, you will see that he is still in business! His office walls are covered with pictures and letters from very grateful patients. And we know why! In less than 6 months, Barry's shoulder was truly back to normal, and he was back at work with no limitations.

I had to laugh one day after Barry's right shoulder was all healed up. I saw him moving his left arm all around with a very dissatisfied look on his face. I was a little worried until he said, "Now this other shoulder doesn't feel right! Something in there is popping when I move it!" Nothing like comparing the good with the better to make the good feel bad!

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Saturday mornings...

Sometimes I wish I were the Saturday-morning-bright-and-early-hit-the-road-running kind of person. How much I could get done! My closets would be in order, bags would be taken to the Goodwill, the laundry would all be done, the back porch would be clean and inviting, all the weeds would be pulled, all the vegetables harvested, and all my transcription work would be done!

But that doesn't seem to be me. On Saturday mornings I snooze a little later than I can on the weekdays, and then I putter around quietly in the kitchen, trying to keep the clatter down so that I won't wake Coral up.

Usually this is our morning together with no real pressing agenda. Barry comes out and starts making coffee. While it perks, we make toast and eggs and sometimes bacon or pork chops, too. We sit across from each other at the dining room table. The newspaper is right side up to Barry, upside down to me. And that is the way I like it. I figure out the upside-down headlines and ask him about the ones that interest me. He reads what I want to hear and gleans other little nuggets of interest to share with me. He figures he is a little old-fashioned because holding the paper and ink right in his hand still seems so much better than reading the news on a computer screen! We chat about this and that and whatever comes to mind as we sip our coffee and take all the time we want.

And yes, my house could be gratifyingly organized and sparkling and always ready for company... but I'm pretty sure that someday when we are holding hands in a nursing home, this memory will be the one that lasts!

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Our world stopped turning...

This morning I awoke to the sounds of our favorite local radio station, just as I always do, and slowly into my consciousness came the memories of that day 8 years ago. On the radio there was a moment of silence -- dead silence -- as if someone had flipped the world's switch off. And then came Alan Jackson's song...

It might be that there are hundreds of posts like mine today. I haven't even checked. I remember exactly where I was on 9-11 -- what I was doing, why I turned the TV on, and then why I could not turn it off again.

Here is the song, just like I heard it this morning.



(For an excellent video with the song, click here.)

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Snow on the Mountain!

I was driving to an appointment yesterday morning - driving west on the street next to ours, straight toward the Rocky Mountains. A little jump over the houses down below, and I could be right there! Usually by this time of year, all the snow is gone from the front range, melting quickly in the hot weather, running down the ditches, and spreading out on the plains below. But not this year! It is the middle of July, and there is still snow on the mountains.
When I was a little girl growing up in Africa, I could not remember seeing snow. I remember one time we somehow got an apple. I wasn't used to apples, and I didn't much like them. But I remember my dad wished he could figure out how to grow an apple tree, and thinking to help him along on that, we carefully dug out the seeds from the core of the apple and planted them in a little can. After a while, a little green shoot came up, and we carefully watched and tended it until one morning, to our great dismay, we discovered that one of the cats had snacked on it overnight! This was a huge disappointment to us, but Daddy did not seem too upset. He said it would not have made apples anyway, because apples need frost.

I puzzled about "frost." Even though I had seen lots of pictures of snow and people wearing coats, I could not imagine it. The coldest thing I knew was the little tray of ice cubes in the little freezer compartment of our kerosene refrigerator. This is the same refrigerator that struggled and groaned and smoked its little kerosene wick trying to freeze one little tray of sweetened powdered milk into ice cream! I thought surely one little exposure to those ice cubes, and an apple tree should definitely be as cold as any apple tree needed to be! So I made the helpful suggestion to my dad that if we grew an apple tree and wanted apples, then we could take the tray of ice out and spread it around the bottom of the tree so that the tree could make some apples. I still remember the grin he gave me, just like it was yesterday!

If you had asked me what "snow on the mountain" was, I would have told you it was the hedge outside the bathroom door! Most of the little round leaves were a mottled green and white, but all the tiny young leaves on the top were delicate pink. Remembering it now, it was one of the most beautiful hedges I have ever seen.No apple trees for me. But if I had the seeds and a can full of dirt, you know what I would be trying to grow! A "snow on the mountain" hedge of my own!

(I look at this picture of me, and I can't recognize myself in that face. I don't remember that red dress except for seeing this picture of it. But I know it is me because of the hair! Check out those waves carefully coaxed into shape with a comb dipped in water! But the real giveaway is the end of my braid. My mother never let loose ends hang down. She always wrapped the end of the braid around and clipped a barrette on it to hold it! And that is how I know this is me!)
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Catch up time!

It's hard to believe that it is over a month now since I went to visit Carol-Ann and her family and my mother. I was in Canada for the last week of March, and it went by so quickly. I don't know why time has to act like that... skipping along when we are having fun, dragging its feet when we're not! It's high time I gave a little report!

Carol-Ann fixed up my bed in her large office area in the basement. This was perfect, as I took my laptop with me, and so down there I could keep up with my medical transcription whenever I wanted to. We settled into a homey routine, and most days I worked in the mornings. Then Bruce came home from work at noon time and shuttled me over to Mum's where I enjoyed the best lunches with her and her friend, Ruth. Then up to Mum's room where we would talk and laugh and catch up. One day I was so tired, I just curled up in her bed and took a nap. When I woke up, she was a bit disappointed that I had not gotten the full two hours of sleep she had hoped I would get! That's my Mum!

At supper time, Bruce would come and pick the two of us up to go back to their house for supper and the evening. I got to watch some of Kinza's favorite shows, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I just had the best time sharing in their everyday life. I even got to help with homework!!

Here's a picture I took on the day I was leaving. Mum was sitting in the big chair in her room.

My Mum

March 31, 2009
She will be 92 in July.

I showed her this picture on my little camera display, and she exclaimed,
"Oh, there's Daddy's picture in the background!"
And so it is.

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 11/07/2008

My Button Box

When I was little, my mother had a button box. She depended on it. Where we lived, there were no nearby stores that sold cards of buttons in every shape and color. If we lost a button, we had nowhere to go but to the button box. We would not have thought of throwing out an old piece of clothing without first cutting off all the buttons to put back in that precious box.

I can remember playing with those buttons -- big ones and little ones, round and oval and square, plain plastic and wood and mother of pearl. Some even had a fancy little diamond inset on the top, and others were covered with fabric to match the long-discarded dress. Oh, what a treasure trove of imaginations was in that old button box!

I haven't been able to find a box just like my mothers' yet, but I've started my own button box. Just like we did many years ago, I always carefully cut the buttons off any clothes that are ready for the rag bag or the cat bed or the trash can. Whenever I find old buttons anywhere, I gather them up and add them to my box, and it is beginning to be just as interesting as the one in my memory!

We are sort of like the buttons in my box--all different shapes and sizes and colors, some of us fancy and others casual, some of us dressed up and showy, others of us plain and quiet. Put us all together, and we are so interesting! I love our button box! Let's enjoy it!

(Do you recognize the doily? It is the one I made for my mother years ago!)

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 10/27/2008

My Silhouette Pictures

Someday I hope to find silhouette pictures that are just like the ones my mother had when I was little, but for now these are pretty close!

The silhouettes are painted on curved glass with a plain peachy-beige paper behind to make the figures show up well. There is a thin brass frame around the edge.

I don't know why I loved my mother's pictures so much. And what is more, I don't understand how she could have carefully packed those glass pictures and taken them half way around the world with her without some special reason... How can she not remember now that she ever had them? We are talking about a lady who remembers every detail of everything that ever happened to all of us, past and present, and who can put my memory to shame!
Maybe those pictures were just meant for my enjoyment!

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 09/08/2008

Our Liberian necklaces

Like girls everywhere, we loved to dress up, and these were the necklaces we wore. We used to wear them in several strands, or in one long strand tied in a knot. They are made from gray, brown, and white seeds threaded on a strong slender thread, sometimes using wooden spacers made from the hollow stem of a plant.

The necklaces are glossy and smooth, and I still love to hold them!

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 09/07/2008

I'm certainly missing some days on these daily pictures, and it is not because I am reading my favorite books, either! Oh, how I would love to go back in time to the days when I could fill every spare moment with reading and rereading all my favorite books! As has been mentioned on this blog before, I learned to read when I was very little and read everything in sight, even using a flashlight under the covers at night to read that last chapter after I was supposed to be asleep!

Like these...And these...I was totally lost in these stories, completely gone into other fascinating worlds.
And, even now, when I am reading I cannot hear what others say to me. It is just as if they never even said anything at all!
(How frustrating that must be for everyone who has to live with me!)

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/21/2008

On my Memories Shelf sits this beautiful wooden container.It was specially made by my father on his lathe. I'm not sure if that lathe could also be used with metal, but I think so, because from somewhere in the back of my mind comes the memory that he also was able to make parts on that lathe for the engines when they broke.

I love this container because it shows off the beautiful hard red wood found in Liberia and also because my father spent so much time making it perfect.
It is not just a solid piece of wood...
It has two separate parts to the lid so that I can drop things in it through the little opening, or I can open up the whole top... if I could think of something worthy of storing in it! Right now, it is beautiful all by itself!

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/18/2008

Uncle Wiggily Game

Look what I found! While Barry and I were browsing in an antique store a few days ago, I spotted this game and pounced on it with delight! Did the box for our old game look just like this? I can't really remember what it looked like. Maybe it was so beat up that it does not stay in my mind! The copyright on the box is 1949, so it has to be real close.

Here are the rules...

the cards and playing pieces....

...and here is the game board!

I'm just going to have to play this for old times' sake!

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/17/2008

Castor Oil & Toilet Paper

My childhood illnesses were not normal flu and ear infections and sniffles like those I helped my children through. We had things like jigger bites and mosquito bites, malaria, and dysentery. We took a very bitter little pill every night to help us keep from getting malaria, but occasionally we got it anyway. We knew people with huge tropical ulcers and tuberculosis. One of the ladies who lived nearby had lost most of her fingers and toes because of leprosy. When I was about 7, I caught hepatitis A (we called it "infectious hepatitis") from someone else who had it, and I was very very sick for about a month. Thinking back on it now from a mom's perspective, I can imagine how difficult that must have been for my mother, because at times she was not sure I would ever get better.

We did not know anything about Tylenol or decongestants or any of the other drugs we can get so easily now, but there was one thing we knew ALL about, and that was Castor Oil! My father was absolutely positive that, no matter what invisible bug was attacking his body, it could be flushed out once and for all with a good dose of Castor Oil!

And we children also learned first hand of its germ-flushing capabilities! How we hated the taste of that stuff, but Daddy had come up with a solution for how to get it down in one big gulp. He took a clear glass custard dish and filled it about 1/4 full with water in which he dissolved some baking soda (already sounds yummy, doesn't it!) Then he opened the Castor Oil and poured in a big dollop, right in the middle of that soda water. You could see the oily patch floating on the surface. ("That baking soda will cut the oil," he would assure us as we tried to put off that awful moment!) We knew just what to do, because we had watched him do it so many times. He would stand with the custard dish in one hand, poised for swallowing, and his left hand on his hip. Then back his head would go and he would gulp it down. No matter how much that soda water "cut the oil," there was no disguising that awful horrible taste! Then he would stand looking at us, and the first burp would come, and the taste with it....AGGGHHH! I can almost taste it now! "U-buh-buh-buh-buh!" he would shiver with that burp!
At the first sign of illness, we all took Castor Oil!

This wonderful treatment did not end with actually getting that oil down (and keeping it down)! About an hour later, we did not dare leave the house because of the extreme....ahem!...VERY extreme laxative effects of this wonder drug! It would be impossible to describe how very, very flushed those germs were...along with every other blessed thing that could possibly have been retained in our little intestines! We were clean as a whistle when this whole procedure was over!
Thus, you now know why the bottle of Castor Oil would indeed be only half the picture if "the roll" were not beside it!

(Now if you click on that picture and read the label on the bottle carefully, you will see that the manufacturers make the preposterous claim that this product is "Tasteless & Odorless!" The very fact that they felt it necessary to put that on the label tells you something! How many things do we buy that assure us, right on the label, that they are "tasteless and odorless?" 'Nuff said!)
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PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/15/2008

The iron

When I was a kid, this was the kind of iron we used. The bottom part is solid iron, so it is very heavy, and for that reason this one does not sit on my Memory Shelf but is on the floor beside it. Pull up on that little round knob, and the handle comes off. This is a very important feature of the iron.
A big round metal plate sat over the wood fire, and on it were 3 or 4 of these heavy metal irons (without the handle). They got blistering hot; in fact, they were downright dangerous, now that I consider it! When it was time to iron, the handle was pushed down onto the top of one of the irons to fasten it on, and that iron was used until it was too cold to do the job. Back to the wood fire we went and traded the cold iron for a fresh hot one while the first one heated back up. It was a good system that worked very well, but there was no such thing as a quick press or touch up to a wrinkly dress. Clothes had to be ironed on "ironing day" when the fire was lit and the irons had time to heat up.

By the time I was in my mid to late teens, we had a small generator that provided a bit of light for a few hours in the evenings. We also had a small electric travel iron that did not draw too much current. Even so, we could see the lights dip each time the iron came on. I'm afraid we were getting quite spoiled by then, because I remember times when we would run to our father and ask him to turn the generator on so we could use the iron for a few minutes! And he did it!

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PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/10/2008

Aluminum Juicer

What I wouldn't give now for an orange or grapefruit or lime, totally ripe, picked off the tree outside the back door! We didn't know how good we had it when we were kids!
This juice squeezer is just like the one we had. Ours was used to make orange and lime juice. We hardly ever made grapefruit juice, and I think it must have been because the grapefruits were so huge they would never have fit in this squeezer! We cut the fruit in half and put one half into the open squeezer......lowered the handle and pressed until all the juice was squeezed out of the fruit and drained down into the bottom through those little slits. Then we poured the juice out the spout into a glass and went on squeezing fruit until we had as much as we wanted. And it was SO sweet!

The whole thing came apart for easy cleaning!

We drank the orange juice or limeade out of aluminum glasses like these...(That sounds like more than enough aluminum than we should have been having, if you ask me!)

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/09/2008

Reading was my most favorite past-time from the time I was about 5 or 6. However, we were far from any bookstores, and there was no library anywhere. From here and there over the years we somehow acquired a few choice bits of reading material, and then I proceeded to read them over and over and over and over...

We had several copies of Uncle Wiggily books like this. They were the size of a magazine and had (as you can see from the cover) numerous short stories in each copy. I'm still on the lookout for more of these, as the first sheet in this one is missing, so I don't have the publication date.
Here is an inside shot.
We also had an Uncle Wiggily board game that we played over and over with our friends. I haven't found one of those yet, either.
(Of course, I know I could go internet searching, but since it is so much fun to browse antique stores, I'd rather do it that way for right now!)

ADDENDUM: I just looked at the front cover again, and I see that it says the copyright date is 1943.

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/08/2008

4711

Just one whiff of this, and I am transported back in time to my childhood!

My parents worked with an interdenominational international mission organization, and that meant that on our little mission compound we had Canadians (our family), Americans who taught school, and Swiss and German nurses who operated the clinic. We called all our parents' coworkers "aunties" and "uncles."

On hot days when the rest of us were just plain sweaty, the German and Swiss aunties smelled cool and wonderful, sort of spicy and sweet! We admired the cherished bottle of body spray from a distance and just loved to be near them!
One day I found a bottle of 4711 in a store near here and was immediately cooled and refreshed just by my memory! So of course I bought it, and here it sits on my Memories Shelf. And some days, like today, I spritz a little on just because!

Here's the description of 4711 that I found at the website of a store that sells it now:
"Launched by the design house of Muelhens in 1772, 4711 is classified as a refined, fruity fragrance. This unisex scent possesses a blend of citrus oils lemon and orange, light floral rose, and sandalwood oil. Recommended for daytime wear."

Created in 1772 and still being sold today at a reasonable price!
(And that is the story of the interesting-looking bottle on my shelf!)

PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/07/2008

My Bear Bowl
(And here is an extra-special bonus! Najee took a nap on this cloth and left some of her fur behind, just as a treat for you!)

I don't remember where this bowl came from or why it was considered mine, but it was my special porridge bowl. No one else ever got to use it, that I can remember.

We did not have oatmeal or cream of wheat except on very special occasions. Our porridge was homemade! My father had a hand grinder that was used to grind rice into little pieces, and we had that every morning for breakfast. It cooked up just like any other porridge and could be lumpy or smooth depending on the skill of the person making it.

My Bear Bowl helped me through many dreary breakfasts of porridge!





Here is another view of my special Bear Bowl!

And here is the bottom. I have not been able to find out anything about the company that made my bowl.



(If you were to look really closely, you would see that my bowl has not survived all its travels in one piece, and the head has been carefully reattached!

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PICTURE OF THE DAY -- 08/06/2008

Cookbook and Calumet

When I was growing up, I thought "fast food" meant sandwiches for Sunday lunch! Cooking from scratch was the only thing I knew, and my mother wanted to be sure I knew how to do it properly -- complete with an apron! ("Good cooks always wear aprons, dear!") Saturday was baking day, and Carol-Ann and I took turns making the bread. We started the dough rising right after breakfast on Saturday, and the beautiful golden brown loaves were cooling by early afternoon. Sunday lunch was special because we got to have sandwiches made with that bread. It seemed like fast food on Sunday, but it took all Saturday morning to make the bread!

While the bread was baking, I usually tried out a recipe from my mother's big falling-apart cookbook. I started a collection of those in my own "Recipes" book. I opened it up today and saw that there are grease and flour spots on many of the pages. Here is Lemon Sponge Pudding, one of my very favorites!
The Calumet can is one I saw in an antique store and couldn't pass by, because the very sight of it brought back the days of clumpy baking powder, weevil-filled flour, and ants in the sugar. I remembered smoky wet wood smoldering in the stove, and beautiful cakes that fell when the heavy cast-iron oven door clanked shut. Best of all, though, I remembered how much our youth group loved the cookies I made! This can looks just like the ones we used to have. I know that brand is still around, and the can has not changed much, so when I saw that can in the antique store, I thought, "Is this really an antique?" I turned the can over and decided it was! See for yourself...
And here is one more picture, especially for Carol-Ann!