Deadline met!! Whew!!!

Christina is in the La Grande area now. She's so happy and excited to be starting in the ministry. They'll start gospel meetings Sunday. I know when things slow down a little bit that I'm going to really miss her but then with my Auntie coming home there will most likely be someone else around for a little while. (That's my assumption and I could very well be wrong!!) Lots of change this year for all us! I got to say I'm very, very thankful for the strength that is available from my Father. It's beyond amazing!

The weather this month has been pretty crazy! Luckily this last week and half has been good!! We had a huge snow storm (for Portland standards) a couple of weeks ago. I've never seen it dump snow like that here. It was actually falling at an inch plus an hour! When all was said and done my place ended up with 8 or so inches and the next week was been stuck and home. Luckily there was more then enough work to work on.

All payroll and essentially all 1099's have to be to the employees AND the government by January 31st. Last year I didn't have to worry about the government at the end of January. One more step to do tomorrow and all is done! That will make sure a much more restful Sunday! :)  Then onto finishing all the year-end bookkeeping. I patch information together for the 1099's and then go back and fill in the holes. :)  It'll be a couple of months of employee training so they can take some of the work off my back! I was invited to a tour of a non-profit company called ALSO. Pretty cool non-profit! They help those with disabilities become more or less independent. I say more or less because they actually provide 24-7 care for those that need it while living on their own or with one other housemate in an apartment. It frees up the parents. Often the parents that need the help are getting to be older and are unable to handle the care it takes to help their child and they're often at their wits end of how to handle a child that they love very much. I was very impressed.

Where in the world did this first month disappear to??? Crazy how fast it has disappeared!

And she's off!!!

It's hard to believe that today is here and Christina has officially left for the work! It was a pretty wonderful December having her visit for the month before she left. I love how happy she is. There were lots of tummy butterflies for her today but the pictures that I just saw have an ear to ear smile! :)

Erika and the girls came for a visit today but I bummed that I forgot to get pictures! But I do have Christmas Eve pictures! :)

We also had a potluck a couple of weeks ago for our field so I got lots of pictures.:) It was a very special evening!

But you know what... I will miss that girl!

Shirley and Christina 

Some of the kids in our field with Christina

Megan, Christina and Karen

The 'kids' :)

Cuddling a bunny!

Grandma and Scarlet

Teagan with her princess present

Erika

Grandma and Scarlet

Christina and Scarlet

Getting ready to leave!

Heading out the door!

On her way!

A Winter Wonderland and Pics!

We're having a rare December where were actually having snow/ice. Last week we had some snow and then it quickly turned to freezing rain. That lasted for a day and a half and, unfortunately, there was lots and lots of tree damage. Luckily my place was fine but my neighbors had lots of large branches down in their yards. A week later we have had more snow! This time we got three inches instead of just a skiff and NO freezing rain!!! But it's going to be COLD, for this area anyway. :) Friday morning is supposed to be 19* and Saturday morning is supposed to be 16*. It's been a long time since it's been that cold!!

Business wise things are very, very busy. I've hired another college student that's taking accounting. I really think she's going to work out quite well! So between the two of them I should start seeing some relief next year. I can't wait!!! I did find out that I have 75 clients!! Yay!!!

I got my passport a couple of weeks ago!! Amazingly enough it only took 2 weeks!! It's off to the Philippines I go next year. It's been a dream of mine for a long time to go there! My aunt will be coming back with me. The plan is to have my employees trained to do the basics by the time I leave!!

Christina time here is getting very short! Only 2 1/2 weeks left! She'll be in the Burns/LaGrand area come the end of January. So really, she's getting a bit of a taste of the weather she'll see there!! She's got to test her suitcase a couple of times this last week! So far so good as far as I know!:)

The girls love this tweety book!

Great Grandpa with Teagan and Scarlet 

Just a little bit of freezing rain!!

It can be gorgeous!

What my east facing window was like last week from the freezing rain!!

We had to go out and deliver Christina to the train station

The snow storm this evening...

My new car... the carport doesn't work

so well when the east wind is going and

there is a snow storm!

Exciting news

So now that everything is all official and Christina's name is on the special meeting list I can say that she is headed out January 1st on the special meeting rounds and then to LaGrand/Burns field. It has been beyond wonderful to watch her evolve into a wonderful young women. It's hard to believe but she'll be 22 tomorrow!!!! (Which reminds me.. I haven't gotten her a birthday card!! Whoops!! I'll run to the store when I get done with this!) There has been many learning experiences crammed into the last two years for her, some of them hard ones, but ones she'll need as she gets older. It's really wonderful for me because I know her natural nature and to watch the work of our Father in her has been beyond amazing! Her last day of work for school job is Wednesday and tomorrow for the pizza place. She may even get a party at the pizza place, our guess since they were asking about her favorite cake flavor and a customer kind of did a whoops comment. :) That would be beyond exciting for her since she has had very few birthday parties! It's right around Thanksgiving and when she was in school they had the week of Thanksgiving off so it was very hard to get a group of kids together for one and we finally gave up! The apartment lease ends this week and for the most part she is out so she's now home until January 1st. I know there will be many, many wonderful experiences ahead. There will be some hard ones as well but that's where our Father's strength helps.

Happy Birthday to a my wonderful daughter. Where has time gone?!?

Oh and I applied for my passport today!! Whoop!!

Slowly but surely

I'm getting around to actually ORGANIZING! It's tough though being as busy as I am! But I'm learning to simply take the time needed to get a little done here and there. The shape my house is in is part of what determines my attitude!  To be quite frank, I didn't grow up with the greatest example and it is hard to overcome the way you grow up! It gets done and then there's a back track and then more progress... Don't dump dishes in the sink and run back down stairs to work, actually take the 5 minutes needed to clean up the kitchen and it helps one to feel so much better at days end!

As my family can attest, I'm not a natural organizer. Things tend to quickly become disorganized so I'm trying to come up with ways that will help me stay organized. Bed Bath & Beyond was my to go place this weekend. :) A shoe rack on the floor of my pantry cupboard worked wonderfully, drawer organizers for the kitchen utensil drawers and jars from IKEA to empty packages of beans etc. The jars make for nice decoration as well as keeping what I have to use within the line of vision. A two for one! :) My bedroom is super close to being all organized!! Erika put together a contraption for me and shelves that were in a closet are now all gone! And I have an awesome new to me dresser.

The girls came with Erika so while she worked we had a wonderful couple of hours together! They are growing up so quickly! It's hard to believe that Teagan will be in kindergarten next year! Crazy! They're in a good preschool/daycare place right now. Scarlet's doing well with the diabetes. There are advantages to being diabetic from the get go!! It's simply the way life is with nothing to refer back to. They have a cool contraption on her now that allows them to monitor her sugars continuously throughout the day. It's connected to their phones so they can check sugars without actually having to poke her during the day. They do need to physically check morning and evening to keep it calibrated but that's it! And if sugars are too high or too low it'll buzz. It certainly makes life a lot easier for the preschool!! I would think in a couple of years she'll be on a insulin pump.

Now an update on my container of potatoes! It actually worked and I have a bunch of purple potatoes! I really want to do this next year. All I need to do is find some organic purple potatoes next year and let them sprout and then plant!! The awesome thing is all you have to do with a container is dump it out and pull the potatoes out. No digging required. One thing I was really surprised about was the lack of rotting, although I did make sure there was holes poked every and one container was inside another so it didn't sit in water. None the less it rained A LOT last month and the potting soil felt soaked. I think we had somewhere between 8-10 inches of rain last month. So this month I wasn't expecting to find many good potatoes when the container got dumped but there wasn't one single rotten potato! There's still some swiss chard growing and herbs but other then that the garden is completely done.

Now back to work! :)

Hiring?

I took a look at my financials last night and am realizing why I'm overwhelmed! I have now surpassed last years gross sales. I do have a couple of ladies helping but only in a small way compared to what I now need. It's hard to believe that the business is now at that point! Anybody experienced in payroll and QuickBooks and needs 15-20 hours a week of work??? Or know of anybody?? I need to have someone trained by April! Kind of thinking of going to the community college...

Poor Teagan was not feeling well at all last Saturday so no pictures were taken. :( She was down right miserable, poor thing. My dad got as clean a bill of health as he's likely to get. The dementia is definitely increasing though and the diabetes is not in good shape. :( So if nothing changes he'll come up in December so Christina can get some time with him before leaving.

Long day tomorrow so off I go to bed! :)

Days like today...

Days like today make it all worth it business wise! A client I've had for 3 years now has been desperately trying to get one of her clients to switch to me as a bookkeeper/payroll person for about a year now. This last month they decided to do it and I officially started working with them the end of September. The call I got this evening just makes me feel so thrilled! They conference called me this evening. My long term client and the new one and my long term one said that now she doesn't have to sing my praises anymore, she just sits back and listens to them sing praises about me. Just what I needed after the fiasco a couple of weeks ago!!! However I can't let it go to my head because I have learned the hard way that that is not the way to go! Something has a tendency to bring me down, and bring me down hard!

Weather permitting, it looks like I may need to visit Medford in January. :) There are soooo many changes happening this next year! All good as far as I know but changes none the less! :)

I might get to see the girls for just a little bit Saturday morning. Erika is going to go get a mattress for me and may drop the girls off before she heads out. Won't be for that long but a little bit here and little bit there is worth every extra minute that I can get with them. We are all so busy that sometimes it's hard to find the time. And with them being at their dad's half the time that narrows the time even more!