Mia, Thank you so much for the kind words. Dr. Smith had practiced medicine here in this county for 50 years. There are just no words to explain how important he was to everyone here. He was not only a fine physician, but a well-respected much-beloved leader in our community. Today I believe we will have the largest and most well-attended funeral ever held in this county as everyone comes together to celebrate the life of this remarkable person. Bon, I want to be mad, but instead I find myself trying to look at the situation that occurred as a tragic accident and I truly have compassion for the gentleman who hit him. A couple of years ago, a young girl suffered fatal injuries in an accident involving a miniature train here. It would have been understandable if her parents had shown anger and bitterness toward the gentleman who was driving that miniature train, but they didn't. They showered him with compassion, forgiveness and love instead of anger and bitterness. Their example of such grace and wisdom in the midst of such a terrible tragedy reminded me that we can choose how we react to tragedy, and they chose to react in the most incredibly loving way possible. I believe their actions set an example the rest of us here in this community will try to emulate for the rest of our lives, and even now at this time of such heart-wrenching grief, I hope we all remember that the person driving the vehicle that hit Dr. Smith surely deserves compassion and forgiveness as well. Was I angry when I thought of the senselessness of the accident? Sure, but you cannot dwell on that anger and you have to let it go. For this community to heal from this tragedy, we have to focus, I think, on how Dr. Smith lived, not how he died, and we need to celebrate everything he meant to everybody here for so many decades. It is hard when a community sees one of its true heroes pass away, but this community will get through this. People here in Love County take seriously the fact that 'love' is a part of our name, and I know this will sound silly, but it is true. Every single person I've ever met here will do anything and everything in their power to help someone else, whether it is someone they know or just a stranger passing through town. It is what makes living here so special. People here in this county do not have an "us" or "them" mentality. As a community, we have a family mentality, that everyone here is our family and we all have to love and take care of each other. It is simply the most amazing place to live. We live in and with love for everyone here every day. I think of our community, no pun intended, as love in action every day. I do feel better about y'all burning cedar knowing it is inside a cast iron stove. I assume such a stove would contain the sap and not allow it to escape. It is good to know the fire department is nearby and that they have a good, sturdy building. I know from experience that it takes years of planning and fund-raising to get a fire station like that funded and built, whether the department is a professional one or a volunteer one. It took us three years to get our fire station built, and a few more years to get the entire interior of it finished to our satisfaction. Unfortunately, until you have an official fire station building, your department cannot apply for government grants (which are hard to get anyway because so many departments need them and competition to earn one is fierce) and you surely cannot easily get a loan either. You really aren't a fire department without a station, as far as governmental grant-funding organizations are concerned. Looking back, I am amazed we ever were able to scrape up enough funding to build our station (which is huge and beautiful to us but not fancy). We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Sam Noble Foundation, based in Ardmore, which gave us a significant grant that paid for a good-sized portion of our fire station. We wouldn't have this station that allows us to serve our community within their generosity. Tim said to tell you that the ash from cedar is sort of sticky like creosote and builds up in the stovepipe, so y'all need to keep an eye on it and clean it out as needed during the winter season! We just don't want a terrible tragedy to happen to y'all. Dawn

Maggie, The kids are adorable. What cute poses! Have you recovered from Sandy? Your town sounds like it was hammered. Our library is built up on a good sized hill and is still standing. The town square was flooded badly. The post office and fire departments suffered damage but will recover. Our famous bascule bridge was opened during the storm and came through in better shape than we had a right to expect. So, all in all, our public infrastructure is wet, battered, but still in operation. Every week it seems we have one fewer "Closed Due To Storm Damage" sign around town. Progress is slow but is happening. A few downtown businesses are gone for good though. You are so right about the volunteers, agencies, faith based groups. We met people from all over the country here to help. Even Hawaii. Most of the FEMA people were retired and FEMA calls them to service during times of disaster. They are well seasoned in disasters and their calming influence was much needed. I was very impressed with how well all the volunteer groups buoyed the kids' spirits. They were scared and Mom/Dad were busy and preoccupied but it seemed like somebody was always quick to spot need and offer support, a Kleenex, or miraculously show up with a teddy bear. It does make you proud to be an American. I was also proud that there was no looting in our area so officials could concentrate their efforts elsewhere. Thanks for checking in. Hope you're okay or will be soon. /tricia

Well it would've worked in the situation I had just last night. I started the washer (12 year old Kenmore/whirlpool direct drive toploader) & about half an hour later needed something from the garage. When I stepped in a huge amount of water my first thought was the hose had burst. But no, the washer was overflowing like Niagara Falls. Water flowed from my laundry room into the garage, and in the opposite direction into small hallway & half bath across from the laundry room. Unfortunately there is wood flooring in that hallway & half bath. I wish the builder of my house had installed pan with a drain in my laundry room. I also wish I had a drain in my laundry room floor. I agree with Asolo on the single lever shut off valve & turn it off after using your washer EVERY TIME. Also I highly recommend never running washers, dryers, dishwashers, etc. while sleeping or away from home. Thank goodness I hadn't started my washer & then gone to bed last night. The washer would've over flowed all night and I would've had a huge amount of damage instead of the very small amount we ended up with. Also my parents had an incident 2 weeks ago where their dishwasher almost caught on fire, the control board was smoking. When it was opened for repair the board was charred black! Turns out there was a recall on their model for the control boards catching fire. If they had not been home their house could've burned down.

Connie Kempf; my similar issues with store, salesman, inspectors, and even manufacturer and the regional representative!!! They don't understand the engineering aspects of vinyl flooring! In my case the problem involved temperature in a HVAC control room with sunlight on the flooring. They had NO clue even though I engineered a successful solution even though they said it could not be done with vinyl!! They don't understand the specific application and the engineering aspects of vinyl flooring! You can see my nightmare earlier in this post dealing with the various industry personnel. The inspectors have a conflict of interest and are not trained well enough either. As I mentioned you can find my rant on the vinyl flooring industry earlier in this thread. Please note, before buying one should read ALL marketing materials and WARRANTY info which is where ALL their dirty secrets are contradicted and are hidden in the fine print!!! Be forewarned you probably knew more then anyone of them combined. I believe most manufacturers do not recommend rolling loads (esp wheel chairs) and the problems are only compounded if individual is over weight and sub-floor has defects. It's my opinion, the salesman should have stopped the sale when he heard you would be running a wheel chair (esp a heavy power chair) across the floor. From my experience none of the staff to which I was exposed had any knowledge of proper application and installation of vinyl. Even in my case the first thing they blamed for flooring failure was on the sub-floor and floor joists. Reality, the sub-floor was within the flooring manufacturer published spec. Obviously since I'm not there I can't comment on your specific floor. Also note, I'm a self proclaimed vinyl installer beginner, with no prior flooring experience! (my only prior training is in electronic and computer science engineering with 45+ years experience solving engineering issues as Staff Engineer, I can now claim I have retrained myself on vinyl). SJ McCarthy is a regular poster here and may chime in with some helpful suggestions for your situation ?