HAPPY NEW YEAR to those who celebrated it today (as I did). I love that the "official food" of Rosh Hashonah is apples (ok; with honey, but still). Waay better than eggnog, stuffing, easter eggs or ham, and way way way better than the Hanukah celebratory latkes and sufganyot (fried potato pancakes and jelly donuts).

I used to think that a day without chocolate was a day not really worth living and like Michele, I would eat some really terrible versions of pseudo-chocolate (WW fudge pops come to mind; blech) in an attempt to satisfy my chocolate jones without taking in 200-300 calories. I would also have days of only 1000 cal of "real" food in order to eat a chocolate bar and still come in at a reasonable daily tally. These days though, I seem to be ok with having chocolate just a few times a month, as long as I don't ban it completely (I'm like Allison that way; the minute I tell myself I can't have something, I rebel and either eat it anyway, or overeat a bunch of other food in an attempt to compensate).

just venting instead of eating
 

Oh $&*@! It seems whenever I have a life crisis DH suddenly has one at work and has to quit his job. Or overeat like a pig at night. :rollpin:

I'm going to oversee the interment of my father's ashes today at 3 p.m. Anything that happens @ DH's work, short of him being killed, is a bit lower down on my radar today. Yeesh!

Dagmar :yoga:

Vent away, Dagmar! It's entirely appropriate, IMHO.

Hope all goes well today. :hug:

Sending DH some "big boy" panties, Dagmar. As you said, unless the work environment is presenting personal endangerment, whatever it is can probably wait. Much better to vent than face-stuff.

Happy New Year, Andrea and the other celebrants! As spouse to an amateur beekeeper, we're all about honey with darn near everything. :D

TGIF.

Thinking of you today Dagmar.

Happy New Year Andrea! I am also Jewish but the world's worst Jew. I didn't do anything except wish my dd Happy New Year (my other dd has converted out of the religion so I didn't wish it to her!). You have bees in your yard?? That would creep me out! We get a few bees in our flowers and our silly Great Dane likes to eat them! They must give her a buzz! She shakes her head but keeps doing it!

Michele, we currently have 3 hives going. They aren't creepy at all - the bees are way too intent on what they have to do to pay any attention to us. :) And let me say true raw, unfiltered, unpasteurized honey is amazing stuff.

Becky I sometimes buy raw honey from local sources - YUM!

Thanks for the "big boy" pants for DH - subsequent emails indicate that he could use a sappy violin accompaniment as well.

I asked him, since I was going to my father's funeral in 2 hours, to not send me any more emails today. I'm going to take myself out to dinner when I get back and then go to a movie, come back, and go to bed.

Dagmar :(

Sorting out the violins as we speak, Dagmar. I like your plan.

:yoga: <- Thanks for making me look at this. I am feeling a bit more like it myself nowadays.

We'd like bees and have looked into it a bit. There are a few cons, unfortunately. Despite living in the country we don't have much sunny and not very windy space. We have next to no storage space for kit (smoker, suit, spare hive etc). Honey bees also generally doing badly, it seems, thro' unexpected cold, varroa mite, Asian hornet (on way from France) etc. I think food supply would be OK, given the type of flowers we grow, the ivy and the gorse. "Kissin's out of season when the gorse is not in flower."

Bees are definitely in trouble over here. Add in the incessant spraying of the neonicotiniod pesticides like Imidacloprid - which was originally supposed to be the savior of the ash trees against the emerald ash borer. Who knew (besides the manufacturer, Bayer) that the stuff was fatal to honeybees? :rolleyes: And our EPA has been bought and paid for so thoroughly that they won't even take up a DATA REVIEW until 2018.

It does take quite a bit of equipment, and because of the diseases and mites it is no longer a hands-off operation. To have successful hives requires some time investment and a willingness to "get in there". And to be stung now and then, which certainly has happened to DH! He does admit that for every sting he's received, there's a reason he supplied. No one has been stung outside of a 10 foot ring around the hive. I've had them bounce off my head and back while I'm filling the birdbath, but have never encountered an aggressive or even ornery honeybee. They're very cool little bugs!

My grandfather has bees. He seems to love them - he and my grandmother drove up from my hometown to north of Atlanta at 9pm to pick them up, about a 1.5 hour drive for them. The man they bought them from told them that they were more dormant at that time of night and would tolerate travel better. They loaded the hives in the back of my grandfather's truck and drove home, got back about 11 via stopping for drive thru chicken just before they got to the farm. My grandmother says that the drive thru cashier was quite surprised to see a truck bed full of beehives, and wouldn't open the window again once she realized what they were.

:wave: Shannon, was thinking about you today. Hope all is well.

Yes, I gather you have to wait for bees to go to bed. Trickier with long summer nights. So romantic driving through the night.

I've just made 2lbs blackberry jelly. It's cooling in the jars. I say this as shouldn't but it's Very Good.

I'm around, Birchie. Thanks for the wave. :) We've had some trouble with DSS this week so I've not been very talky. Trying to get my feet back under me.

Give that boy a hug from me. If it's all too much send him round for a blackberry jelly sandwich (and he can take a jar home with him). :)

That would be lovely, Birchie. Can I come have a sandwich with him, too? We both love blackberry jelly. :)

Of course. Beam yourselves over. (I know you know how to do that!)

You can *all* come. :)