HIGH BUTTON SHOE
March 1st, 2006
...... goodest friend, RhettaMae, pointed out to me after my last newsletter of 2 weeks ago, when I complained I was tired and it would be short, that I STILL managed to write a lengthy letter. And yes, I did get the income tax preparation finished up and into the accountant on time. As did she. Mental lists for this year include better paperwork for both of us. In conversing with another goodest friend, LizzyTish, she related the same paperwork organization problems. Not that we don't HAVE the proper paperwork, more that we don't have it organized in the best fashion. In Rhet's case, a box. For the record, I had MINE organized IN a folder, in a box! When I informed her of my thoughts on the better filing skills for 2006, her reply quickly summed up my probable method of the coming year preparedness and wondered who was going to remind me monthly to do this? Which, after about May, I will need a constant reminding. However, I did buy a big red accordion folder, with slots with names like electric, medical, heat...and such, so I may find myself ahead of the game this year, IF i just tackle it once a month. Ronnie wonders how that big red accordion folder is going to look on the top of the refrigerator, where I keep the current "file" of important papers until it gets too bulging..when I then move it to the box.
I can see I still have a flaw in this new plan, but for the time, it remains to be the new plan.My days are still filled with medical appointments for my aging parents. Often, this new turn in our lives leaves me filled with sadness. I wonder when we got here. Certainly, when I wasn't looking.Dad's back surgery is tomorrow in Grand Rapids. I am full of hope that this surgery will be the answer to a road he started on last July, full of twists and turns, frustrations, long waits for appointments, medicines that didn't work, roads full of winter snow, and as tomorrow when we go to the hospital, the prediction of freezing rain. We will be traveling south (toward BrunieMae.www.saltboxfarm.com) so I am hoping the freezing rain will be north where we are and I will drive out of it. With a surprising clarity, I don't always possess, I am finding as Mom's abilities are pushed to her limits, mine are becoming stronger than ever. I do, however, expect when things calm back down, I will again become my old self and not overly functional.With all that is going on, I didn't have time to think about Ranting Raven. So we have nothing new to show you. I still have pictures there for the March edition. We can be found at http://www.rantingraven.com/Exhibit95.php . The new edition will be released sometime on March 1. Our antique Easter Grass shows. It is available. We have had a wonderful response to this old looking natural grass to decorate your baskets, bowls, and treenware trenchers or butterbowls with for spring, or any season. Cost is $4.50 per gallon size bag. Shipping is $4.05 for one bag, $4.50 shipping for two bags. One bag makes a BIG bowl full. I spent 3 days doing little but bagging the grass in the kitchen from the big boxes I had it stored in, in the garage. The whole time with Ronnie, he of little faith that I would sell this, and it took up a lot of room in the garage. To you who have bought this, I am grateful. Otherwise my year would have been one of a big "I TOLD YOU SO". As a lifelong farmer at heart, he loved the smell of cured grass in the house each day. I must admit it made my heart smile. There is NOTHING like the smell of grass. And here we have it...bagged up!Beulah updated the Byers house tour on our website and took the Christmas pictures off. You can find those at http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/byershom.htm .We are creating more greeting cards and you can find more of them in the newest items with the red lettering on the home page. Also a letter from a east coast friend who bought several of the cards, and wanted to share her love of these cards with you. Thank you Nancy.Lastly, I wanted to tell you, that as a part of our mailing list, you will have something special coming soon. Hopefully within a month! Check out our entire website, both the individual items, and the shop tour. Familiarize yourself with the pictures. I am hoping by mid March to tell you the news! OK, so how's that for leaving you spell bound?? Don't you hate that??OK, I still have a suitcase to pack. I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to run it around the house, up and down the hall, to see if I can master those dumb wheels, to keep them on the floor verses my apparent preferred method of up in the air while the suitcase drags along on the ground behind me. Without BrunieMae on this outing, I have no one to continually show me the correct method of turning around in elevators with luggage. Somehow, when I turn around, my wheels are always up in the air. Whhhhhaaaatttt is with that? I will avoid anything with butter! (the September 2004 trip to Wisconsin still fresh in my memory!) And my mother won't have a clue how to get my wheels out of the air! So I am on my own. Scary thought.I tried to buy new boots yesterday, so my suede was clean and fresh. You cannot find a boot anywhere in a store. No where. Sandals I found. So between my luggage problems and old boots (but still void of turkey poop), maybe Mom will just tag along behind me about 50 yards.I will be home, on and off, as weather permits. 3-4 hour drive in Michigan March is always taken day by day.Thank you for asking to be a part of our farm.in fond regard,ClotildaEbay ID comptonhouse