THANK YOU

Thank you each and every one of you for your kind words, thoughts, phone calls etc during this time. I am so grateful that Mary ( I never even knew she was called Mary Ann by friends) seemed to have only suffered terribly for the last day and the Doctors thought she may have had a stroke of some sort. I saw her late Tuesday afternoon and I prayed she would die overnight and fortunately my wish was granted. Even though I am almost 58 I have never actually seen a person so soon before death and it was so sad and shocking to me. But enough about sadness; Mary would want us to buck up and go shopping.

Do you have the Marshalls ads where they declare you to be Shamelessly Shoportunistic? Well, those ads were meant to describe Mary. I always knew she liked to shop, but I was never fully aware of the consequences until we started on the house. Closets are jammed full and the more you pull out of them the fuller they become...it is like something from Fantasia. Each room has rolling racks for clothes and there is 24 feet of hanging space in the basement. In the last year or so she has just been keeping clothes folded on the spare beds and the couch in the Parlor. You know those sweatshirts that "mature women" ( OK, Old Lady Sweatshirts!!) wear, the one with Peter Pan collars and embroidered birds/flowers on the front? We have given away more than 100 of them, over 100 purses, over 40 coats and jackets and the killer ( no pun intended) so far we have donated 34 new curling irons. All in all I have bagged over 100 bags of clothes that have been donated to Good Will/Salvation Army/ St Vincent DePaul and Planet Aid. There is a bedroom 2/3 full of yarn...floor to ceiling...that is my next mission. The goal is to have the house cleaned out by February 1 so we can paint, rip out carpet and generally spiff the place up for a March 1 Market Debut. Keep your fingers crossed, the clothes were just the easiest place to start. So this is how we grieve. I brought a couple of purses home and a couple coats and I have already put them in a bag to donate; I am scared to bring in more stuff and have it accumulate. On the up side I now have 8 King Tom Turkey Plates...look them up on Google, I am honestly too tired and lazy to provide you with the link. I also have a set of Mountain Woodland by Nasco...very autumnal. Did I need more dishes..ummm..no, but she would have wanted me to have them because I am the one that has cooked for holidays since I became part of the family 17 years ago.

Gotta run, but thanks again for everything and now I really have to think seriously about Christmas.

Janet

Edited to add: I found enough energy to get you this picture. I have 8 plates, the platter and the gravy boat (cracked and badly repaired).
This means I now have 3 kinds of turkey plates and can feed 24 people as long as they don't mind sitting "Native American " style on the floor.