On and off for the last few months, I have been working on the next edition of our Guide to Green Hope Farm Flower Essences.

Earlier in the fall, a lot earlier actually, I re-organzied the Essence lists in the Guide to include all the new Essences made since the last edition was printed. This is, like, step one in a eight thousand step process. I don’t know exactly what I was planning to do next- I always take a meeting with the Angels and Elementals of each Flower to go over our definition to revise them, and these meetings take time. Perhaps I was planning on starting that part of the project- but before I did so, I decided to compile the sweet letters and lovely feedback you have sent us in the last few years into one document. As I have mentioned here before, my hope was to post this document on the website as well use many new quotes in the next Guide. It is still my hope.

When Jim does a project, he always has a pretty good idea of how long something will take. I am notorious for saying, “Let’s slap up a new tool shed this weekend.” Jim is notorious for bursting my fantasies about what exactly can be “slapped up” during a weekend. This sums up the plot line of our life together. I suggest wildly ambitious projects to be done in ridiculously short amounts of time. He tells me it will actually take ten thousand hours, then we both roll up our sleeves and get started.

Without Jim involved, I had no idea compiling this document would take so long. The nice thing is that it is fun to read all your letters again and revisit with you and your stories. The challenging thing is that the project is like that fairy story about the endlessly refilling pot of porridge. Every time I think I am on my last pile of saved stories, I find another one.

While some piles grow, others diminish. Each week I go out to the barn where the last of the Guides are in storage and count boxes. How long until I absolutely have to finish this re-write and get it to the printers? I play games with myself about this. I don’t ask for any hard numbers from Thembi about how many boxes of Guides she actually brings into the office each week. I gloss over how many boxes are left, forgetting the number between when I count them in the barn and when I get back to my pile of unsorted stories.

This week, as I worked through more piles, I could see Angels signaling me that it was time to wrap up this portion of the re-write project and get to the other stuff. I tried not to pay any attention! After all, there was still more of your mail to re-read!!!!!

Their gestures grew more animated in the last few days. As I told myself,”Just a few more inches of this pile!” I could see them doing the “WRAP IT UP NOW.” signal.

So many great stories and wonderful insights! Does it really have to be today that I put the rest of the mail back in a new folder for the Guide AFTER this one? Jim would say yes. And he is not alone. In fact, I hear an Angel right this moment telling me, YOU NEED TO DO THIS NOW!

Just a few more stories? Please?