High Button Shoe

This should have started out good morning, but it is well past morning now, and the day hasn't exactly been good. Well, mostly OK, I guess. I had to go into town today to sign to have our income tax e-filed, and mail off a box at the post office. You know my gorgeous white truck doesn't like to drive in snow. Perhaps even more so than me. And as it is forecasted for more snow and it wasn't too bad when I left, I thought, no problem, I will just go to town, to the accountants, to the post office and get myself back home. These simple thoughts are often where I get myself in trouble. Today was no exception. The highways were just wet. We had fairly heavy snow all night. But our country road has not been plowed since last Tuesday. We live on a hill, so you can usually always get OFF the hill, as you are going down, coming back UP is occasionally tricky. Long story, short, I got stuck coming up the hill. I am only a stones throw from our yard, but still stuck in the snow. Ronnie left this morning at 5:30 to be gone for this week, so here I am left to my own devices (never good) and stuck in the snow. So I walked home and called my brother to come pull me out, which he did. Called Ronnie to find out where the straps were to pull me out with. Got the shovel and walked back to the truck and shoveled some. Good grief! Anyway, I am now staying home the rest of the week. I think my truck is waiting for spring even more than me. AND I made it through all this frustration with NO chocolate, and NO red licorice. However, I am, without those two stress aids, now left basically brain dead, so bear with me. I do take comfort that the groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of winter in early February. While others moan because of 6 more weeks, my take on that is great, ONLY six more weeks. That doesn't often happen in northern Michigan. Actually I will be pleased if we get spring by April!!

As I mentioned, I signed for the e-filing, so you know of course, that I got the income tax ready for the accountant. And have put into place my "betterment" of what to do for organizing for next years tax time. So I am no longer chained to the harvest table, with all those stacks of papers and the calculator. So I am back to cleaning. The non-resolution cleaning process is going much better than I had expected. Usually by March I have completely forsaken any resolutions, real or non, and am back to my old routines, which apparently do NOT include much cleaning. I have completely outdone myself so far this year. I still have a couple closets to clean and organize, but I have to do those when I am in a really good mood.

The other day I mentioned to Ronnie that I thought the white dining room walls needed painting. My guess is that those ladybugs I saved from certain death a couple winters ago, repaid me for my kindness of leaving grapes out for them to eat and thus survive the winter, by depositing tell tale grape do-do bodily cast-offs on my walls and ceilings. Not really familiar with ladybug poop, I am of course, not sure of this. But the dining room seems to be the only room to have the problem. And it is the room with the big slider windows facing the south, so it is very light and shows everything. Ron wonders how I will ever paint in there, because of 3 big cupboards lining the walls full of stuff. Yes, I know, they will have to be emptied and moved. Why isn't anything ever easy?? And while I would probably paint over all this crud, he says no. I must wash the walls and ceiling first. Drats! AND he thinks these little deposits will probably wash off. I tell him no. I tried that before and they didn't. He persists. To prove him wrong (why do I ever do this?) I get out my ladder and cleaner and up near the ceiling I clean a ladybug deposit. Well, with a little scrubbing it did come off. Now along with all of his "I told you so's", I have a clean spot. Spot being the operative word here. It is totally apparent I just washed this spot. So NOW I have to clean all the walls. Which will of course, make the ceiling look crappy, so I will have to do that too. This was not the cleaning I had in mind for the winter. I did track down and get rid of a pesky spider in the dining room a couple weeks ago. He was leaving major evidence of himself each day, with webs everywhere. One day I moved a bunch of stuff and not believing my good fortune, as I was crawling around under the table with my vacuum, of spotting him cowering in a tight one inch wide spot between a big cupboard and the wall, with all his webs stuff, I sucked him up with the vacuum hose. Ha. No more daily webs to deal with. I tell you, I think you should all come to visit while my house is so clean!! BUT don't mention the clean spot on the one wall.....

Ronnie went back to work last week. He is staying there as it is 2 hours away and winter driving, especially going north is often bad roads, and he would be driving 4 hours each day. So I planned some things for me to do to keep myself occupied (besides cleaning). I got out that digital camera manual, made a pot of coffee, had a good pep talk with myself, and learned how to take pictures! I know! You just don't believe it! The pictures on ranting raven tomorrow I took myself. Yes, I did! And there are several new pictures of my house in the http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/byershom.htm and I did them too.

Are you impressed? I still don't exactly have the lighting down pat yet..but I plan to work on that this week.

Update on my stitches...and the thing the surgeon removed. It was keratosis (an aging thing) according to the doctors office. Non malignant. Some funny little nuisance we get as we get older.

New News: we have changed ISP and have a new email address. It is byers@highbuttonshoe.net

and for some of you who may have tried to get into our website over the past several days, it was down. Beulah is busy rebuilding it with the new ISP. So bear with us. We (she) has broken it down into different categories. It should be easier to upload for you. And we will be adding several new things as she gets time.

www.rantingraven.com comes out on the first of the month tomorrow. We can be found athttp://www.rantingraven.com/Exhibit95.php . You can see our offerings now at http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/itemson.htm which is for ranting raven and crow soup. Scroll to the second half of the page. Also while on ranting raven, be sure to look for PineBerryLane. Miss Elspeth (Wendy) is a most talented artist and I always look at her work before I even check out my items there. We also have the calendar of events up on our website and are showing several of the places we will be at, as we get them firmed up. I am thrilled to be exhibiting at a show in Ohio in June. The information is on the calendar. And always pleased to be included in the shows that BrunieMae ( www.saltboxfarm.com ) puts on in June and September. Brunie and me are headed off in 2 weeks to the Nashville show. (IF me and my truck don't have that dreaded snow to drive in).

I can't wait. We always have the most fun on these day trips. She is delightful to spend a day with. Often memorable, our trips could be Lucy and Ethel on a day trip.

Okay, I need to build up the fire in the wood stove. And think about some coffee on the porch. I shoveled the pavers and porches off this morning and you can barely tell when I shoveled. I am still thinking that all this shoveling will make me tall and thin. So far, NOT. But you never know....

Check out the new stuff.

And take note of the email address change! byers@highbuttonshoe.net

Thanks for asking to be a part of our farm!

in fond regard, Miss Clotilda www.highbuttonshoe.net