HUGE (and I mean HUGE!) Life Change!!!

On the 2nd of February all was going quite well for my business (and still is!). And then I get a text from Christina on Saturday saying the people Linda and her are staying at are looking for an accountant. Sometimes you get that feeling that you just need to follow up on something so I kind of shocked her when I started asking questions. :)  It's a corporate farm in Rupert Idaho. My dream has always been to live in the country and to do work with something that is farm related. So learning that was a whoa moment! After talking with them Monday it was even more amazing how right it felt. Another interview Wednesday went quite well and then a bit of a briefer one Friday; the first two were over an hour and the last probably about a half hour. It's amazing to me because I've always been terrible at interviews. I never know what questions to ask etc but this one just flowed. Granted it's been about 25 years since I interviewed but still!! 😃  The trick is getting myself ready for a move! I've been in my house for 21 years! There's a ton of stuff to go through and they want me over there in April! And then there's the business!! I'm contacting CPA's and there's a lady I know that belongs to a bookkeeping networking group. We're meeting to go over my accounts (around 80 and 30 payrolls!) and see how they can be divided up. I need to be able to give my clients options! It's amazing that one week life is as usual and the next week all the sudden there's a really good chance that life is on a totally different track. It's crazy! When life changes for me it does it QUICK! It's not quite as quick as the life change when Dave left but a week after finding out about a job I've interviewed 3 times! And am starting to look at houses. All that's left is the visit to the farm and I'm headed over on the 23rd.

This trip has had many changes to it! The first change was before I ever left Portland! The flight was delayed due to lots of snow in Salt Lake. Ended up spending the night at a friends in Salt Lake since I got in at around midnight and my flight to Twin Falls was supposed to land at 11! Made it to Twin Falls around noon Saturday and puttered around. Met with a realtor over in Burley. Awesome guy! He's still going at 92! It was snowing in Twin Falls when we had lunch, managed to temporarily out run it on our drive (Christina's with me this weekend!) to Burley but by the time we left the guys home it was coming down pretty good and drove in the snow storm to our current location. No meeting Sunday morning due to ice, which was the pits because I was hoping to see everyone!

Gorgeous Sunday sunrise in Rupert!

The cutest dog! She's quite the character! :)

And the job is mine!! Met with the CFO today and took a tour of the properties and the buildings where they fix farm equipment, vehicles and make parts. Took a look at the books and discussed and I think I'm really going to love this job! There's going to be a lot of learning but I'm used to learning new businesses. This will just be a lot more intense! :) And I took a look at a house this evening and it actually matches all my criteria. I may make an offer on it tomorrow and see what happens. It would be contingent on my house selling. Exciting times indeed!!

Looking from the office that I'll be working at. In the summer when all is planted and growing it'll be quite the view!

I took a trip to the coast earlier this month and had an awesome time. A couple of days at the beach and lots of wonderful visiting. A person we didn't even know gave me 4 perfect sand dollars! So cool!

Winter... and almost March! Big news next week!

Well... it's what we call a back loaded winter this year! Christmas had a few days of cold weather and snow but other then that it's been a dud. Until this week! We got snow Sunday, Monday morning and again today. And they're saying there's a possibility tomorrow night and maybe Thursday... wow! That would be 5 days in a row! It snowed all day practically but didn't stick until about 6 tonight and now we have 3 inches on the ground! I'm always amazed how bright it is outside with the snow!

There will most likely be really big news next week! This week has been wonderful practice! :)

All those dead flowers make a wonderful place for the snow to rest! :)

After Meeting

After Meeting

This years plans and mussings

I've been doing a lot of pondering and thinking about where things are headed this year. The first step is to get me where I need to be. It's become more and more real that I'm somewhat off track. I've just felt off and I believe part of it is I'm not allowing my Father to lead the way I need to. It became very real in our meeting this evening. There are things that are in the way of going forward and to go forward they HAVE to be taken care of. There's no going around them because if you do you'll find yourself even more off track. I'm very good a trying to figure out a way to go around an issue in my life that needs to be settled and gotten rid of instead of just doing it! Then any semblance of peace is gone.  Really they're minor issues easily gotten rid of but habits are a funny thing and before I know it I'm back at it. It was also mentioned tonight that there could be a bigger thing in that needs to be taken care of but our Father will step us through the process one by one. If He were to build on what's in my life as it is there would just be a huge tumbled mess in the end. It works much better to work on a solid foundation where everything is taken care of. Things creep in but I need to be willing to listen and to obey. It's amazing how strong the human nature is. Even knowing that there will be peace in willingness I still fight. Grr!!

I really feel that there will be some big changes this year business wise. A new website is going to be going up in the next few months. It's been YEARS since it was changed and that's not a good thing in this day and age. New procedures are going to be implemented that will make next years year-end easier. It's kind of been a 'by the seat of the pants' business up to now. This last year was better but I still felt like I was scrambling a lot. Looking to try and minimize the scramble! I'm headed to a Dave Ramsey event later this year. So I'm pretty excited about that! My first ever business trip!! And it's almost completely paid for, in cash!!! So I'm sure that will give me some good ideas! :) And I'm rereading the Entreleadership book he wrote. There's a lot of really good stuff in that book! Bit the bullet and signed up for the monthly book club as well and last months book was Boundaries. Super good book!!! Not sure what this months will be yet.

The house is going to get new siding this year. There's a couple of really bad areas that I'm really hoping aren't bad in the main frame area. There were 3 out of 4 corners that had no protection for the edge of the siding so the rain just went in and over the years is caused issues to the point that the windows are leaking. One small part is done but now for the rest. Fingers crossed that this is the only issue to tackle this year.!!

Now to stay on track. I'm kind of an all or nothing person. It seems like I have all these grand plans but then there's so many things that I need/want to change that I get bogged down in the process. And that's where allowing my Father to lead me this year comes in. Focus on that and all else will fall into place where it needs to be. Maybe the above plan isn't His plan, only time will tell but just be willing for whatever needs to happen! As I well know, life can change in a moment. I also know that there's help through anything when there's obedience and willingness.

Whew! And DONE... What a day and week!

It's been an amazing week and a very nerve wracking day. Woke up this morning to my computer running SUPER SUPER slow and an error message. I have a very wonderful computer repair guy that was super kind to take a look on Saturday. Turns out it seems to have been just a major program glitch that was draining the memory to the point nothing would open. So glad it was an easy fix! As a result my off-site, year-end payroll's are DONE and filed and the off-site books 1099's are DONE and filed! Tis an exciting time! 😊 It's been a hectic and crazy month but it's now super close to being done! Finalize books for 2017 in the next month and I'll be way ahead of where I've ever been!

The exciting part of the week is that Expertise.com emailed me and I made their top 13 bookkeepers  (out of 137 that they vetted) in the Portland area, so I'm featured on their website for the next year- for FREE! That was a beyond amazing email to get!! We've picked up three new payrolls this year so that's a good thing!! Business continues to slowly but surely grow. I'm excited to see where this next year leads!

I'm so, so thankful for everything. My Father has been faithful to me but there are definitely times when I realize that I'm not near as faithful as I should be back! He's pulled and guided me through so much and yet sometimes that ole human nature rears it's head and it can be HARD to fight! It really comes down to how hard do I want to fight? A thought I'm appreciating is to keep my eyes on the goal and not what's going on around me. With everything that's available it's super easy to allow it to take over all the spare time and leave nothing for my Father. It's amazing and scary how quick time can pass without one even realizing it when buried in social media and computers!

Pippy is determined to get some attention! ;)

It's kind of hard to tell but the clouds were super cool to look at. My aunt took the picture for me. :)

A special picture of Christina and Aunt Belle.

A pretty amazing sunrise a couple of weeks ago.

Now this was a super cool sight to see! There's a sun dog on the bottom left side. I only noticed the arc when I was taking a picture of the sun dog. Put the camera up and went Whoa!!!

My Mother-in-law... was so good to see her again. It'd been much too long!!!

Day after Christmas everyone was over!

A nice picture of Christina

The day after Christmas was Gorgeous!!! And icy!

The whole crew minus Aunt Nancy, couldn't get her in the frame! :)

The cats are LOVING the new window sills! (day after x-mas)

Wintertime! and 7 years....

Winter arrived yesterday and is continuing into today... It's only the 2nd or 3rd time in 24 years of living in Portland that we've had a white Christmas. No snow actually fell today but it never thawed so yesterdays snow, sleet, freezing rain stuck around. So glad Erika has her pickup! It allowed her to get around so we saw them yesterday. Tomorrow (hopefully) they'll be here again as well as Bobbie. It's been much too long since I saw my mother-in-law! I hear she has a pretty neat golden dog.

Tomorrow is 7 years since Dave left. I'm thankful that it has brought home the fact that you never completely know what is actually going on in someones life. Even those that your close to. Sometimes there's struggles within them that nothing is said about. Maybe hinted at but not actually addressed. One day there will be answers. We just hope that it's not 20 years from now! :)

Also, I found out the my kidney just dumps a lot of protein. It's functioning just fine according to the doctor. If the numbers were to get to a 1000 then she'd be worried and they aren't that high! I knew there was high protein, just wasn't aware of the actual numbers. Whew!!!! Does explain me going to things that have high protein.

Snow before the freezing rain

Pippy was quite intrigued with Erika. The girls were napping so he showed up. :)

Scarlet doing her front roll

Teagan is so flexible! 

Rhododendron nicely iced 

Half way decent amount of ice build up

My back yard

Rosemary iced

This is cool. Silver dollar plants drop their seed pods leaving the circle intact so I have ice circles!

Tonight... Road kind of thawed but is a sheet of ice again.

Another life journey

I've never had a really serious medical issue. There was the fifth disease in my early 30's but I wouldn't classify that as serious even though my neck couldn't turn for months. And it triggered arthritis, but that hasn't bothered me much at all over the years. But this last month I decided to try for a different life insurance company. They give tests to see where you are health wise. Blood tests came back fine but urine test not so much. I've always had high protein in urine but they've never figured out why. But this time the numbers were WAY beyond normal, even for me. Microalbumin/Creatinine should be 21 max, it was 264 and the retest a month later was 313, and the Protein/Creatinine should be 200 max and it was 617. YIKES! So I've been referred to a kidney specialist. The doctor is guesstimating that kidney function has dropped 20% this last year. I'm pretty sure diabetes related is off the table since I'm just on the cusp of being pre-diabetic, hypertension is off the table since my blood pressure is if anything opposite (It averages 100/70), life insurance company tests the white blood cell counts so I'd think cancer is off the table since that was fine... So my guess is some autoimmune issue is going on since there's a fair amount of autoimmune issues in the family. Not medication related either since I take no medication.

So I'm going to begin my Reliv journey to see if that will help. It helped bring my iron down a few years ago. So lets see if it can heal whatever is going on with my kidneys. Reliv has been known to help numerous things that are big issues, from cancer to diabetes, to..... It really is some amazing stuff. I have a horrible tendency to not take it as I should but now that there's something serious going on... I do believe I'll be much more diligent! We'll keep fingers crossed and I will keep track of my journey through this on this blog.

I am VERY thankful for that urge to try another Life Insurance company and thus it got caught!

Musings....

Dave has really been on my mind. Next month hits the seven year mark of his disappearing. It's hard to believe that it's been that long. I often wonder how he's doing, what he's doing, where he's at. It's amazing how fast seven years can fly. That first year was the longest year of my life. The second was quicker and now they just fly right by! I wonder if that has happened for Dave. One thing I'm thankful for is the help of my Father, the assurance that in the end all will be as it should be, whatever that may be. We do hope that one day Dave will show up. That we'll know some closure. That we'll get the assurance that he's okay. I'm often asked about what my reaction will be. To be completely honest I have no clue. I'm sure there will be hurt and maybe some anger but I can say at this point that the anger hasn't been there. After all, we don't know his side. I suspect some things but that's it.

When all is said and done it has allowed us to understand more of what others go through. We had a pretty protected life. Life experiences allow us to grow and be more compassionate no matter how old we are. And I'm on to another life experience. :(  I'll cover that in my next blog post.

If you see this Dave, we think of you often and hope that you're doing okay. You'll know when the time is right to come back into our lives. Please follow that feeling and don't think any of us will turn our back on you! That WON'T happen.