Curve Balls

         Life sends us curve balls that cannot be ignored. If you don't catch them or bat them away they can whack you in the head!

So, all those plans I had for going to help my sister move to her new apartment evaporated in an instant with a pair of feet sliding out from under my husband on a sheet of ice. Four broken ribs, an operation scheduled...

My sister is still moving. Her friends have been fabulous and I can't thank them enough. But I so wish I could be there to help. Moving a full house to a small apartment is a daunting task - what can you take, what should you leave, what should you give away or sell, where or where did you pack that??? If your elderly and your health isn't optimum it's even more overwhelming. But her new place is nice, she can have her cat, and the food, she tells me, is scrumptious. Fingers crossed that all goes well...

The ice we've been contending with, caused by a warm spell and a fresh layer of snow, is treacherous. The snow hides the ice and does not adhere to it, so it's a bit like stepping on a sled. Even ice cleats and trekking poles do not guarantee that you'll remain upright! I can attest to that since I've have fallen several times myself. I guess my extra padding comes in handy for something...

We're doing okay - we have many caring friends willing to help. Maybe we haven't hit a home-run, but that curve ball won't knock us out.

 

I'm Still Here!

         I apologize for a rather long break in writing. Much going on. Just finished my year end for the farm. I'm one of those people who procrastinates all year, then tackles a year's worth of monthly envelopes in February to get my annual GST report figured out. When it's done the rest is essentially ready for the accountant to do our taxes.

This whole process was very much complicated by some glitch causing my once balanced bank account to become unbalanced (somehow the starting balance got corrupted); by my mouse responding like it had lost its mind, refusing to accept my directions; and by my printer refusing to print from the ancient computer I use to do books. Many thanks to a good friend for several hours of trouble shooting to get it going. Then, when all done I attempted to produce the GST report, and the report only included GST paid to one company, eliminating all the rest! That's when I quit for the day.

        Next day I tried again and the whole report appeared, but it would not print. WTF! I could still print a document from other programs other than Quicken so I suspected the program itself was the problem. Called my printer fixing friend and tried to fix the problem over the phone, nope. She said she'd have to come over. But I kept plugging away and discovered a place in the program where the wrong printer icon was selected, changed it and WHOOPIE! Fixed.

        I'll be heading to Colorado soon. I'll be helping my sister who is moving to a senior apartment complex. She has a house full of furniture and many, many years of accumulated stuff to deal with, a house to sell, and, like me, she's no spring chicken! All the decisions a person has to make to downsize! Once again I'm determined to slice away at my own accumulated goods - you know - all that stuff that you keep in case you'll use it some day, and you never do.

 

      An exciting upcoming project is our Free Flow Honey hive, thinking of all that healthy wild flower honey and honey wine. We got our hive from Australia, the one many of you have probably seen on FaceBook that drains the honey off into jars without disturbing the bees, and it's all put together and ready for bees. We're really excited about this project and my husband has been reading, reading, researching. He's gotten advice from a local, very helpful, bee keeper, and the Honey Flow people have a fabulous website complete with excellent tutorials on every phase of beekeeping. The bees are his project (I'm allergic), the learning to cook with honey and mead making projects will mostly be mine.

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Check out the Honey Flow website, fascinating:

Flow™ Hive - Honey on Tap HoneyFlow.com.auAdwww.honeyflow.com.au/

Harvest Direct From Your Hive. Less Labor, More Love. No Mess, No Heavylifting · No More Squashed Bees.