And now she is no more.

She was there and I planned on going to see her yesterday, but then I decided it would be tomorrow.  Tomorrow is now here and it is called today.  And now she is no more.  It is strange how this death thing works.  Some people hang on and linger and put it off and wait for another day.  Just one more day.  Just another hour, or another year or another anniversary.  Or not.  I do not know which is better, but I think she did it just right.

Many times in my hospice days I had set by a persons bedside for hours, or weeks or months, waiting for the Angel of Death.  And when it happened, after what ever period of time, and even then we were not ready.  It was too soon.  The family needed just one more day.  One more hour.  One more minute.  But that was not to be.

What did I learn from my hospice training?  I learned not to put it off until tomorrow.  Tomorrow may be too late.  5 minutes from now may be too late.  And yet I still procrastinate.  I have projects in various stages of having been abandoned for something I found more intriguing.  Another brass ring in this thing called life.  And it is called life for a reason.  It is meant to be lived.  It is meant to be lived now and in this moment, because there is no tomorrow.  Tomorrow never comes.

A friend just called and invited me to lunch and since I have not seen her in a while, I am dropping every thing and going.  This may very well be a tomorrow that came and I did not see it.

I have a license if I passed the test!

So, just like I told you I would do, I applied for my license to make food at home and sell to the public.  Deric Stowell and I went to class yesterday.  Now you know Deric!  He is all over the natural gardening and he is an actual Master Gardener.  Has all his little certificates and runs the seed bank at the library.  He is active in politics and is an all around citizen of the year!

So last Christmas when it was time for me to cater the holiday dinner that I cater every year, I enlisted Deric to help me make tamales.  Oh, and Michael McGuire also.  Trust me, I work better alone, but sometimes I have helpers just so I do not have to talk to myself.  Last year it was Deric and Michael.  So we got to talking about making and selling tamales as a means of trying to make ends meet in this dog eat dog world.  We see ads in the paper all the time for "Homemade tamales! $25 a dozen!"  Now that looked like some easy money.  In the course of 4 hours, 3 of which was cooking time, we had made 5 dozen tamales.  Probably spent $25 on product so this seemed like the way to go.  $125.00 tax free dollars!

Now Deric also spends a lot of time at the County Extension Office, so when the opportunity to attend and receive a license came up, we were all over that!  So yesterday we met at the Black Swan, the Chinese restaurant that is on 7th.  I had egg fu young or however you spell that.  He had fried rice.  In my anal retentive state we were very early and so had lots of time to kill.  Then off to the meeting with 19 of my closest friends. The lady who gave the class was very nice and very knowledgeable.  Three hours later we were done.

No, I can not sell tamales or anything with meat in it..
No, I can not make salsa and can it.
No, I can not make Jalapeno~ jelly with real Jalapeno~.
I can make and sell homemade egg noodles, but they must be dried in a dehydrator.
There are stringent rules on the gluten free stuff.
And there are 3 different disclaimers that need to be put on everything I make and sell.
And I must wash my hands every 3.5 minutes and dry them on a clean paper towel.
And the cat can not walk across the counter while I am mixing and packaging.
Oh, and it would be wise to carry an insurance policy just in case someone chokes on a ring I dropped in the batter.

But it was fun and I learned how to wash my hands properly.  Well, sort of.  Deric made me walk all the way down the stairs when we left.  Little shit head!  So, now it is back to the real world.  I got one goose egg yesterday and I brought it in the house and washed it very good and put it in a special place.  So with pleasant memories of yesterday, I went in the kitchen and looked at the gluten free starches, flours, and additives.  I am going to need to get a big plastic tub and scrub it out good, dry it until it is bone dry, find a lid that fits.  That will free up the one cupboard I had kept the stuff in which is right next to the wheat flour with the dreaded Gluten in it!  (Sigh!)

Perhaps it would be best if I just mowed the grass and finished dragging that Apricot limb to the tin shed.  I am going to get my little hatchet and chop chips out for my smoker.  Bret made it look so easy when he started dragging that limb that I told him I would move it later.  I think he may have nailed it to the ground because the damn thing is stuck right there by the clothes line!  Anyway, it is Saturday and I need to go to Lowe's and get covers for my basement windows.  Or not.

Just got off the phone with a friend and she said something to the effect of "If God had meant for today to be perfect, he would not have invented tomorrow."  Made sense to me.  Think I will just go with  that