Pineapple and Traffic - Nothing In Common Except They Both Happened Wednesday

A short post today, because I'm tight on time at 3:45 am. Yeah ... short on time. But I had to get the dehydrator that I had working all night back up to the kitchen, downloaded, cleaned and put away before I could settle down to write this (and of course I had to do my daily meditation before doing anything else). It was a good thing I awakened at 2:00 am and simply wasn't in the mood for more sleep - LOL. 

Just look at these beauties! They were beautifully golden, 
which is ripe, but not quite over-ripe. They were absolutely 
perfect for my dehydrator and I'll be enjoying snacking 
on them for a couple of weeks. 

So, after a delightful meditation, I followed my nose to the basement area where I use my dehydrator on top of my clothes dryer (it's a flat surface, has a convenient outlet on the wall, and is easy to clean if needed). Gabbing the dehydrator, I carried it up to the kitchen where I unloaded it into two large containers of lovely, dried pineapple to nosh on for the next couple of weeks. So yummy! 

I cut off the rough skin, and the tops and bottoms. Then 
I slice into pieces, and each slice gets cut up into 
smaller pieces. Two pineapples can make a load that 
will happily last me for several weeks. Yum! 

I really didn't need any pineapple, but when I saw these two beautifully ripe fruit at the grocer yesterday, I simply couldn't resist. Dried pineapple is one of my absolutely favorite snacks, and they dry up beautifully in the larger dehydrator that I purchased 2-3 years ago. That's been a good investment. I've actually used it quite a bit (for one of those appliances that often gather dust in the corner of a kitchen cabinet). 

I wasn't cutting itsy-bitsy pieces, they were reasonable 
pieces for munching (and a couple of them didn't make 
it into the dehydrator at all - LOL). This is one pineapple 
cored, sliced and cut, and I had two pineapples, so it 
was a nice amount of lovely fruit to eat. 

Yesterday started out with a bang for me. I had a great swim, then went home quickly with about 30 minutes to eat breakfast and leave for the shop. I had to get the computers up for Chickie since both DH and I needed to meet with our financial attorney at 8:00 am. Traffic was a DISASTER - slow, lots of road construction, etc. So when Google Maps suggested I pull off onto Normandale Blvd. I obeyed, over the objections of DH. Google led me south and then west. It was a slower route than the freeway (lots more traffic lights), but the traffic was light, and we were able to be at the meeting on time. 

I think that EVERY freeway heading East to West in or 
around the Metro area is under road construction right 
now. It's a MESS. I refuse to drive to Minneapolis for any 
reason if I can skip it. Unfortunately, this was an important 
meeting so the traffic had to be tackled. 

We were joined by our stockbroker who is still recovering from foot surgery. He wrecked himself up on the ski slopes last winter and is still paying the price. He says he'll be back up on the skis this coming winter, but not on that particular slope. Probably a good idea - LOL. It was wonderful to see Tom, though. I've known him for decades now and he's a sharp guy - a good person to have in your financial corner. The meeting was good, and I even got DH back to the store shortly after opening, so it was a win. Then I treated myself with my weekly run to the grocery store where I found the pineapples - LOL. See? It all comes together in the end. 

I'm off to the swimming pool. Have an excellent day and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

We Have A Creek To Our East - Now The County Needs To Do Some Maintenance

Last night, as soon as I unloaded my computer and other stuff from work into the house, DH and I headed over to our City Council building for a meeting with the District Watershed authority. They were holding a town council meeting for everyone affected by a ditch project that will be happening for the local watershed district. Since our property is directly at the watershed ditch, we obviously wanted to know what would happen that could affect our property, and what charges we will be assessed. 

The Rice Creek Watershed District is a huge area, and our 
little area of concern is in the Southwestern portion of this map. 
I was rather amazed by how much area they are really 
responsible for. It's massive. 

Fortunately, the watershed is a large area - from far South to the far North. Our section is one tiny little bit of it, so our assessment is all of $25 (estimated) and we can certainly afford that. The actual work won't be happening until next Fall, but preliminary surveys etc will be done starting in the early Summer. Larger properties will have much larger payments assessed - into the thousands of dollars for large shopping centers and the small private college across the street from my house. 

This particular project begins at Oasis Pond, an easy 1/2 
mile south of our house, and continues north through 
Little Lake Johanna and into the larger Lake Johanna to 
the north - perhaps 3-4 miles north of us. 

The meeting took until almost 8:15 pm, so I had a VERY late dinner and went to bed. I got absolutely NOTHING done with work I had brought home with me, so I ended up doing most of that first thing this morning instead. Thus, I'm more than an hour late getting my blog up today. But it's all good - LOL. At least this time dealing with government isn't leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth, and we may get some good from this project in the long term. 

What they're going to be doing is clearing away brush and 
trees from the waterway, and pulling trees from the bank 
up to the easement, then planting stabilizing grasses that will 
take root over next winter. We'll lose some of our tree cover 
between our backyard and the nursing home on the East bank. 
That doesn't thrill us. We might also lose some of the sugar 
maples we've been encouraging to grow on our bank. I do 
think a walk-through with them will be essential. 

They offered to do a walk-through with us next year, closer to the time when they'll actually be doing the work, and we'll take them up on it. I now have their business cards taped to the side of my refrigerator, so I don't lose the contact information. 

The other thing I had to do this morning was hang two strands of silk to stretch out for necklaces I want to have at the shop, and get a shipping label on my holiday gift for Sharon. Yo! Shar ... your holiday box is being sent to you via Priority Mail today. DON'T OPEN THE BOX. If I had wrapped it at all, it wouldn't have fit into a Priority Mail container, so it's unwrapped, just well packed to be secure and safe. 

This photo could easily be from our part of the creek, looking 
West onto our property. Our bank is that steep. And we have 
that many trees to deal with. It'll be interesting to see what 
they'll do with our particular situation. We're the last house 
before the water continues into Little Lake Johanna, just 
past the college. 

And ... unfortunately, ... the Wild (that's ice hockey, if you forgot), happened to lose their game last night against Vancouver. *sigh* We had been on such a nice streak since our Coach was fired and replaced with a new one. Hopefully we'll be back on a winning streak tonight while we're at Edmonton, Canada. Then the team can relax until Sunday at Seattle. So ... I'm wrapping this up and continuing a day that promises to be a busy one. I hope your Friday is awesome and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

Sleepless Tonight - A Rare Event For Me, and Totally Unwelcome

I normally don't have trouble sleeping. I lie down, and I'm usually asleep within 15 minutes, no muss, no fuss. Tonight is a rare exception to my norm, and I'm none to happy about it. I suspect it's the fault of sugar in my evening meal. We had Moo Shu pork from our local Chinese restaurant for our dinner. I had two thin pancakes that might have contained gluten, and I guarantee there was sugar in the Moo Shu sauce. I didn't add any additional sauce, but I just can't get to sleep. 

Most of the foods I used to love at my local Chinese 
restaurant simply aren't things I would eat any more - 
too much sugar, cornstarch, or other ingredients that 
I refuse to eat. Moo Shu is the least intrusive of them 
all, and the least sweet of the sweeter dishes. In a 
range of BAD to LESS BAD, it's firmly on the 
LESS BAD part of the scale. 

My normal sleeping times are 9:15 pm until 3:15 am. It's now 12:45 am, I haven't managed to get any sleep up to this point, and I'm due to awaken no later than 4:00 am (I switched my alarm to a later time, but 4:00 am is the latest I can push things out and still be at the shop when I need to be there. 

This is Travis Walker from Retail Sales 
Pro. I had mentioned him to DH 4-6 weeks 
ago as a possible assist to getting the store 
closed, and DH didn't shut me down. He 
actually asked more questions. He's not 
immediately against having help. I know we 
need some help. So, I'm looking forward to 
talking to him tomorrow, and hopefully 
we will be able to find some common ground. 

The other thing that might be upsetting my sleep pattern is an unexpected phone call that I have scheduled for 8:00 am today. The call, with a man who possibly would be able to help us clear our inventory and close our shop effectively and efficiently is an important one. It's also a very unexpected one, since I had thought I wouldn't get a chance to speak with him for at least another two-three weeks. However, he had an unexpected cancellation and asked if I wanted to be plugged into the open spot today, and I agreed. 

It would be a lot easier to give Travis a good idea of 
what we sell with a Zoom call, but I'll just have to 
use my phone to show him a lot of things. I only have 
20 minutes or so for this free consultation, and need 
to make sure he understands my business and our 
needs. If we end up with a second consultation, I'll 
ask if a Zoom call or Google Meet call would
be possible. 

Unfortunately I'll have to attempt to have a second conversation with him, once I've got DH in the shop along with me. I would prefer that one to be a Zoom meeting between the three of us, and I'll probably have to pay him for the time. I'll certainly bring that up, if he decides that he'll be able to deal with the crazy business I've got going on here, as well as that of our seed corporation, which has inventory needing to be liquidated. It should be an interesting call, no matter what, but now I'll be having it at less than my best. I'll probably look like death warmed over if I don't get any sleep, and sleep is looking unlikely, at worst, minimal at best. 

This is EXACTLY what my problem is. I just can't shut 
down my brain tonight. I keep rehearsing that conversation 
with Travis in my brain, and I can't shut it behind a closet 
door until my alarm goes off. I usually don't react to 
things this way, and so the sugar and/or glutens may also 
play a part, but a very minimal part. No ... this is all on 
my brain and basic worry/hope that this won't/will 
work out to be a solution for us. 

So, I'm going to do some mindless stuff on the computer and then try again to get at least 2-3 hours of sleep. I'm rarely this tense, I usually can fall asleep easily. It's so incredibly frustrating to have this happening when I really need my wits about me. GRRRR. Have a good Monday and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully after a solid night's sleep. Slava Ukraini.