Moving along.

After the hawk incident, I found myself once again, trying to get my brain wrapped around the idea that you cannot control everything.

At the end of my brainstorming all the options, which I have done before, it came down to one thing:

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.

Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world, as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

Yes, you have heard me say this before, for a good reason, because it is the truth.

I cannot keep my chickens from getting killed by predators on occasion.   What I can do is every possible thing to minimize that probability.  So far, they have an automatic door, a solar chicken run, rocks all around the bottom of the  fenced in yard, electric wire all around the top.  I lock them in at sunset, every night.

So today, I took my $8 purchase of aluminum cake tins, some wire, some cord, scissors, a hammer, some nails, and I put up a hawk deterrent.

I also have an 18" tall  owl with a bobble head coming from Tractor Supply, as an added

item that hawks do not like.  Predators beware, I'm on a mission.

I did not travel to have Christmas with my daughters.  I erred on the side of caution, and stayed home.  To keep myself from feeling emotional about it, and getting maudlin, I cleaned.  And cleaned.  And organized.  My Overstock dealbuster rug came, and I put it down in the studio.  Naya and Willie will love it.

I moved magazines  and books from shelves down near the floor, to shelves that are more easily accessible.

I dusted and I attacked every surface.

Sometimes the simplest fixes make me happy.

I have a few more areas that are on my list.......I figure I'll have my spring cleaning done before spring gets here.

I have found myself thinking of my mother, who lived in England during the depression, and was in the English women's army, the ATS, through WWII.  Her family was poor, and the cardboard in her shoes as a child, led her to be obsessed with shoes later on in life.   

Until the day she died, eggs, and potatoes were her favorite foods.  And butter.  Lots of butter.  Things they couldn't get in tough times.

I imagine what she would say about all that's going on today.  I think she would make tea and say, hold the line, this is a hard time, but it's not forever.

So I'm going with that.  Think I'll go put the kettle on.

Change isn't always good.

Ok, so here I am back on Blogger........I have had my own Word Press Blog for over a year now, and to be quite honest, I am not impressed.

I get a hundred spam comments every day, and have to go through them to approve REAL PEOPLE, and I find that supremely annoying.

Plus there are many, many days that it is unreachable, and I have to contact the server to see what is wrong.

So I find myself doing some soul searching......and please, feel free to share your opinion if you have one.

I spent a good amount of money getting my web site, up and running with Word Press.  It is nice, yes, it really is.  But it doesn't always work well.   Over the last year, I have had people message me that they can't get on it.  Then a message from the server appears, that if I would just pay for THIS upgrade, or THAT feature, it would certainly solve the problem.

Then there's the facts......which I have to face.  I sell more on FB than I ever sell on my web site.  In fact, the only time I sell a lot on my web site, is if I have a sale........otherwise, getting people over here is like pulling nails.  A web site only works if you can get people to see it.

FB, on the other hand, I have no trouble getting people to notice, to comment, to buy.

And then there's Instagram, which I could do a lot more with, if I were so inclined.

So the question I ask myself is this:   why do I bother with a web site?  It's not like I am at the beginning of a long career of weaving, trying to build a customer base, in order to do mega sales.

No,  I am actually on the down swing here.  I have downsized considerably in the last couple of years.  I got rid of all my rug looms, all my rug warp and fabric to weave rag rugs with.  I stopped doing weaving weekends, because we live here.  I stopped doing custom rugs,  and then after a couple of years doing baby wraps, I stopped doing custom orders for those, as well.

So really I am returning, or trying to return, to the retirement gig I envisioned, years ago.  Trying to have the life, which I have imagined, where I weave what I want, when I want, and otherwise sit and knit, or read, and just basically enjoy the fact that I don't HAVE to do anything I don't want to do.

A few day shows, here and there.......selling things by chance, and not in the full throes of a retail marketing endeavor, which, btw, I have hated since day ONE.

So I think I have answered my own question.   I am returning to Blogger.  I know the argument is that blogger might suddenly disappear and take my blog with it, but hey, I myself am going to disappear one day, never to be seen again.  So I guess that's not such a difficult concept.  And so far I've been blogging on here since 2007.   And God knows, it's easier, and feels like home.

So I'm going with it.

I wrote this a couple of days ago, and then decided to think on it a bit, and not be rash.  Then this morning I get an email from Word Press, wanting more money to fix some issue.  WHAT ISSUE?????   The one where I pay a lot of money for something that constantly needs fixing???   The last time this happened, I was on the phone with tech support for hours, and it still cost me money.

So I just clicked on www.crazyasaloom.com, and SURPRISE, I can't even get on the site, not on my lap top, or my phone.

So yeah.  I'm done.

I will leave it up a couple more days, to see if I can get on it, to tell everyone where I've gone.  I can only hope you will all figure it out.

This is the snow storm from the other day.   Now today, the rain has made most of it disappear.

 60 degrees outside!   

What a crazy year it's been.

No family get together for us this year....staying home......it's raining and the wind is blowing.

Quiet day.....did some weaving......starting to reorganize the studio.

Once again, I am  caught between loving my chickens, and wishing I didn't get so stressed about them.  Yesterday I went out to give them a treat, some stale crackers, about 3pm, and I walked into pandemonium.  A HAWK was in the chicken run, trying to get one of my chickens.....and they were all quite hysterical.  I grabbed a stick and went after him.......and eventually after a hectic few minutes, he found the door and flew out to a nearby tree.  I was so upset, I ran out and made a snowball, threw it up at him in the tree, and HIT HIM.  He flew away. He's lucky I didn't have a gun.

Today, the girls are on lock down, so I cooked a box of spaghetti for them.

I don't know about you, but carbs always make everything better.

I'll probably keep anguishing about keeping this flock of chickens, until something bad happens, and I swear I'll be done.