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.

*Sigh* - Taxes and Ants - They Never Disappear

DH laid down some ant traps yesterday in hopes of catching those micro ants that we had in the pantry. He put them into the pantry as well as into the yellow bathroom that is adjacent to the pantry - the one that Sharon uses when she's in town, and that I've taken over for my own over the past few years. I had seen a few of these micro ants in that bathroom before, and had made sure DH was aware of that. 

So, this is the pile of ants clustering around the one ant 
trap in the yellow bathroom. The small circle below is one 
of the small rubber bands for my braces and it measures 
1/4" (7mm) from edge of the circle to the other edge. So 
these ants are SMALL. They're hopefully taking the poison 
back into their nest. That's what the ant traps are supposed 
to accomplish because if they're inside the walls, I'm 
not deconstructing things to kill the suckers. 

When I got home from work, I checked out the ant traps in the bathroom. Two of them were pristine, but the third was "Disco Club Gone Wild". It was teeming with the crazy micro ants. DH thinks he knows where they are coming from, but I'm not sure we're going to be able to do much about that - it's an inside the walls thing caused by some plumbing fixes from a decade or two ago. Still, we're at least a bit more aware and on top of things now, and he'll tackle things again on Thursday. 

Tonight, right after DH gets home from the shop, we head 
over to our accountant for our personal income taxes. I hope 
I've got all of the paperwork together - I've spent the last week 
accumulating the various reports and printouts. I'll have to 
double-check my charitable contributions and make sure I haven't 
missed any of them. The monthlies usually aren't the problem, 
but I do occasional off-the-cuff donations now and again and 
have to make sure I've got those listed. Just one more thing to do 
on a busy day. 

On the other aide of ants is another annoyance - income taxes. We have an appointment with our accountant late this evening for our personal taxes. I think I've gathered everything we need - I'm pretty good at that. DH is responsible for his own reports on his investments, etc., but I gather all of the household stuff, my own financial things, and other banking materials. As we've gotten older and certain funds have been merged together, it's become a bit easier, but it's always a chore gathering the paperwork and making sure we have everything together. I'll be making sure during the day today, before I chat with Aearwen. 

I love cooking ribs in the slow cooker. Since 
DH and I use completely different Bar-B-Q 
sauces, I actually have a dam set up in the 
middle of the crock pot, and use a roasting 
bag to keep the two racks completely separated 
(and make for REALLY easy clean-up). I curl 
them into their sides, pour on the BBQ sauces, 
put on the lid, and cook them for six hours. 
They fall off the bone. So good (and so easy)! 

So it's a busy day today. I really need my time in the pool to decompress before diving into it. I have my first load of laundry already in the wash, and I need to survey the refrigerator at some point to figure out if I need to cook anything for the upcoming week. We're doing ribs again on Sunday - they were BOGO at the store so DH picked some up. At least that's an easy cook, and several days for eating. I'm off to the pool - need to work out some of this stress. Have an excellent Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

Post 5000!, Ants and the State High School Hockey Tournament

It's Post 5000 today! I'm absolutely amazed at that - I never was one to keep a diary, but I keep posting on my on-line blog, day after day, year after year. It's not always lengthy, and often there's nothing much to say, but somehow when I sit at the keyboard in the early morning hours, words flow and another post is made. I should have checked the date of my first post, but that would take quite a lot of digging. Still, it's worked into a nice routine for me - a way to sweep out the cobwebs of my mind and share with friends both near and far. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey. Now to start the next 5000 steps - LOL. 

Thanks for bearing with me through my 
many posts over the years. I think a few of 
you might have been with me from the 
beginning, others having joined later. No 
matter when, no matter who, you're welcome. 
Thank You! 

We're deep into the Boy's High School Hockey Tournament and we've broken attendance records. Now ... keep in mind that this is HIGH SCHOOL sports. They usually pull in parents, maybe a few friends, but not much else. Except this tournament, which has been held for more than 60 years, pulls in fans, scouts, and even Sports Illustrated (who updates their feed hourly during games), It's even televised, and I always have it on while the Tournament is running. 

Remember from a couple of weeks ago when I pointed out 
empty seats in the Xcel Center and promised there wouldn't 
be any for the State High School Hockey Tournament? 
Well, here's proof. This is from the first day of the games, 
and look around. Not an empty seat in the arena. That's 
the Boy's State High School Hockey Tournament. 

So, we set an attendance record yesterday for the quarter-finals. We had 19,765 people for the two afternoon games, and 20,208 people for the night games. That's more than 40,000 people total for a High School event! This is why it's such a Huge Deal for us, and for a rarity, we don't have a snowstorm to contend with and the temperatures are absolutely mild. We can usually count on snow for the tournament, but not now, in the Winter that Nature Forgot. 

So, we had ants similar to this in our pantry. We cleaned and 
cleaned, packaged and repackaged, and I hope we got them 
all. I had three ants this morning - two on separate shelves 
and one on the wall. We'll keep a sharp eye out for these 
critters. 

I had the tournament on in the background at the shop, of course, and came home to find DH watching it at home. Then ... major shift. DH put his soup into the bowl, opened a new package of crackers and added them to his soup. DROWNING ANTS!!! Probably more than 50 of those tiny ants that love to haunt pantries were in his SEALED package of crackers and dying a boiling death in his hot soup. Of course, the soup was toast, the crackers immediately went into the garbage, and DH started an ant hunt. 

We're on the hunt now. We're determined to keep this 
under control - ants outside, people inside. I'm glad 
we don't have pets - it could have been much worse if 
they had been trotted around to other parts of the house. 

We pulled everything off shelves, pulled all of the items on the floor out. We tossed out food items that probably should have been tossed earlier by their dates, we cleaned, and cleaned and cleaned. The pantry is a walk-in pantry, but really, only one person at a time can fit in there, so while DH cleaned, I quickly ate my dinner. Then I unfolded boxes, cleaned like crazy, and he finally relented and sprayed along the base board throughout the pantry. I found a few stragglers last night (less than xix), and three very slow stragglers this morning, but I think we got this nailed. We might pull everything out again on Sunday for a second deep cleaning, but The Great Ant Purge was successful. Now to make sure to keep it that way. We still can't figure out how ants could have gotten into a sealed pack of crackers, but maybe it was good that they did. It could have been even worse. 

The best thing about Lent is baked/broiled salmon on 
Friday nights for dinner. I adore it, and it's so easy 
to make. It's one of my favorite meals of the week. 

So, today's a "Day Off" and I'm making "Ogre Juice" and then I have a lovely piece of salmon for my dinner. It's the best part of Lent - salmon for dinner on Friday nights. We have an appointment with our accountant on Wednesday night, so I'd better make sure I'm totally ready with all of the tax stuff too. That's on this weekend's agenda. I think I have everything, but I'll have to double-check. So, on that note, I'm calling this done and dusted. I'll be back tomorrow, for the final day of the State High School Hockey Tournament. Such fun! Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.