Aha! Thanks for the help guys--actually just figured it out myself. Bye bye hash. Super simple and unlocked!

It wouldn't have taken me so long to figure out the protected form part, except there is no option of the "Developer" tab on the 2016 Mac version of Word (unless it's hidden somewhere differently than the Windows version).

Since I've got all the experts "in the room," is there a way that I can now lock the text like it was before but WITHOUT those pesky text boxes (the grey things!)? I changed a few of those "placeholders" that don't need to be edited, and it would be cool if I could just TAB my way through the table copying/pasting without overwriting those default texts (e.g.. Day 1, Day 2 in the photo).

Thanks again for all the help! Love this place!