Taxes and Ants - Huzzah!

So, to start things out. The ant traps, of which DH had set up several, seems to have been successful. Yesterday morning I had a teeming number of stacked ants on the one trap, nothing on any of the others he had set out. Yesterday in the early afternoon, there was some movement around the one trap, but not the frantic activity of earlier in the day. Today, when I awakened and checked the traps, there was NO movement. None. We'll keep the traps in place, of course, for at least a week, maybe more. But it looks to have been successful. The live ants carried the poison back to the nest, and it has passed through the nest now, affecting all of the living ants. 

This is NOT one of my dead ants, but it is 
a lovely photo of a dead ant for illustrating 
the paragraph above. My ants are too tiny 
to get a good photo of. 

Taxes - Aearwen had to cancel our afternoon chat yesterday, and I was fine with that. I still had to get a few things in order for the accountant. So I sat down at the computer and compiled a list of my charitable contributions for the year. These are contributions - one time or ongoing monthly donations - to a variety of charities - not personal gifts of this or that just to help a friend out in a time of need. I still came up with a nice long list of contributions to the tune of more than $1100 for the year. I'll have to continue working on that. It looks like animal welfare is high on my list - two animal charities, and then people - LGBTQ and others who need a helping hand. I'm pretty happy with that - there's no sense in having the ability to help others and not doing so. 

I'm a big believer in donating to charities. I am fortunate 
enough to have funds available, and so I make sure to 
spread some around to help others who are less fortunate, 
or animals - near and dear to my heart. 

Today it's back to work for a day. I have to get focused and use the checksheets I've been developing to get a handle on our Swarovski crystals. DH still wants those to be our next week-long clearance sale, and I know what I need to do to make that posssible. Now, to try and think of a way that won't be impossible for my customers or my staff, and keep things moving throughout the week so that we can easily find each product the customer wants to buy. It's going to be tricky. 

If I can pull off making a workable checklist for this 
upcoming sale, it will be excellent. I've been getting 
practice in how I want to do this by working on the 
inventory sheets for our clearance boxes. Now to 
see if I can apply those lessons here - LOL. 

I actually slept until my alarm went off this morning - something that's fairly rare. Lately I've been waking up before my alarm (which is set for 3:00 am - so a bit crazy, right?). I had just settled down to my morning meditation when I heard DH come down the stairs. Fortunately, he has learned to NOT disturb me in the early mornings, and the sounds of him moving around disappeared quickly. When I was finished with my meditation, I headed downstairs and found him at his computer, playing "Lord of the Rings Online" - a game which we've planed for a LONG time since we were part of the original beta group for the game way back more than 20 years ago (I'm pretty sure it's been more than 20 years now - can't swear that for sure, though). DH has been playing my characters lately - trying to get them more caught up. I haven't played for more than a year, just no time or inclination. Maybe after I retire I'll reclaim my characters for myself. 

We've been playing Lord of the Rings Online since 
the beta and that's a long time. More than twenty 
years now. DH plays almost daily, I haven't played 
for quite a long time. It's a good thing he's keeping 
my girls up-to-date for me. 

So, I'm wrapping this up and heading out to the pool for my third and last swim of the week. I'm really looking forward to being in the water, even if the book I'm listening to is dragging on a bit. Still, it's keeping me occupied and in sync with my swim routine, so I can't/won't complain. I found out a long time ago that listening to books while I swim allows me to have the best workout, so I embrace it whether I'm in love with the particular book or not. I might not love the book, but I do love the characters, so I'm moving along with the plot. Rather like life, sometimes - LOL. We just move along, in spite of the fact that not all days are stellar. Have an excellent day, Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל. I'll be back tomorrow.