Last night I had a dream about my grandmother, not a regular dream but a visiting dream.  You know those kind?

We used to take rides together in the car when I was growing up.  She would tell me about important life stuff that required having a teenager strapped down for awhile, unable to find a distraction outside of the mountain range ahead or twinkling Christmas lights around town.  She reserved these rides for advice like, “Don’t even think about getting married until you’re 25,” and “You’re a butterfly girl.  Pursuing any career that isn’t creative will suffocate you.”

She was a smart lady.

Sometimes I wonder what she would be like now, walking toward her last steps in life if Crohn’s hadn’t ended her journey so prematurely.  I was tickled when she showed up in a mini van, complete with handicapped tag in the window, and translucent white hair.  She pays closer attention than I think.  We went for a drive.

Up the hills.  Overlooking valleys.  To places that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.  Places that transform with time, shifting in size and magnitude.

“Wow, that valley used to look so much deeper.  It’s really not that big of a drop, is it?”

“I remember when I couldn’t even get all the way up that hill.”

She drove, mostly quiet but giving thousands of words in wisdom through the familiar skylines that we looked at together time and time again.  We sat at the base of a mountain, one I hadn’t seen before, and we were silent.  There was a large playing field at the peak, a professional football stadium.  In the gate stood a man.  She started up the road, quickly.

“Gram, you’re going really fast.  You might hit that guy.”

“Jewel, you gotta keep your momentum high because the hardest part is just before the top.  Don’t stop, don’t slow down.  Or you’ll have to go all the way back to the bottom and start over. He’ll just have to move.”

*blink*blink*

Last week, I experienced a pretty good setback.  And by pretty good, I mean both substantial and positive.  Though I had checked, double checked, and triple checked with lots of official and important sounding people, I was given the incorrect direction in terms of health department requirements and tiny empires of tea.  It seems tea is a gray area and there are particular packaging/repackaging rules that require a hefty amount of paperwork and licensing.  These requirements are now taking up plenty of space on my to-do list.

And that means no more tea until I get it sorted out.

While I’m happy that I finally have a definitive answer and I will eventually be able to offer and produce my tea blends on a grander scale, it kind of sucks that I didn’t have this information three months ago.  You know, before the peak of tourist season.

Sigh.

Thankfully, I’ve been on a little knitting bender….

And I like to flitter from flower to flower.

It’s kind of my thing.

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