It’s hard to believe the latest Mercury retrograde is over, as obstacles continue to be thrown in my way.  For example, I finally decided that perhaps by taking inventory of what I have and what I need it might act like a motivational tool.  Almost immediately I felt completely defeated when I realized I’d ordered 5,000 of the wrong labels last fall.

Now I can’t quit the business until 2025 or something due to the number of back labels I have for the Totally Decadent Fruitcake.  Plus of course I’m out money I don’t have to order the back labels that I actually need, which are for the Okanagan Harvests.

Then late on Tuesday afternoon I received a call from a young-sounding female health inspector saying she’d like to come and do an inspection.  I said no problem, and we set an appointment for 1:00 the next day.  Of course I then ran downstairs in a lather and turned on the auto-clean for both ovens, and gave the inside of the fridge and cupboards another cleaning.

Fortunately she was a sweet young woman, and we spent a pleasant hour while she checked the fridge and freezer’s temperature, looked under the sinks and asked about my baking method.  We generally kibitzed around talking about things like the intrepid town of Prince George.  It turns out she lived up there for a few years, too, and could totally relate to my tales of learning how to party hard in that town.

If you read my September newsletter, you’ll see I have a recipe for green tomato relish in there.  I decided to make it after publishing the recipe, and then went Oh My God.  By following the instructions I ended up with a vat of liquid in which vegetables were roiling around.  There was no way I was going to pour that into jars.  Why?

So I ladled out the vegetables and discarded the several cups of unused broth and pureed the pulp a bit in the food processor.  Now I had something resembling chutney, which I put into jars and which are now in the fridge.  I had some on a ham sandwich for lunch and I must say it was really nice.

Other obstacles include closure of a store that carried my product, as well as no reply yet from the local Lions Club, or in fact any Lions Club representative anywhere.  On top of it, a pithy e mail sent to a columnist was ignored.  You’re probably starting to see how hard it is for the small entrepreneur to remain positive.

And yet, there they were: six beautiful martini glasses, each with a different coloured swirl of glass embossed elegantly around their stems.  Once again, at Value Village I was able to find that small bit of hope that keeps one going.  Now I can have one of my brazenly strong cocktails in a different coloured glass every night.  You see how very small things keep someone with a very small mind happy?