I truly believe everything will work out as it should, which is not always as you planned. A lot of things will change but everything happens for a reason. I never thought I was having kids and now there are so many around here I own a limo so they can all fit in the same vehicle. I originally went to post secondary school to be a chef but now I own an armoury, an auction house, a plowing company and more. You know that saying “Not my circus..not my monkeys”? That does not apply to me because it pretty much is all my circus and all I do is coordinate and referee the entire show. Oley’s has now been open for 9 years and sometimes it feels like an eternity since I opened the doors but other days it seems like yesterday. I can only hope it will continue on for many years to come and continue to evolve in whatever version it was meant to become and I fully anticipate some expansions in the future just as my family unexpectedly did.

I promised last month that I was going to talk about my daughter. I knew what to do with a boy but when I was pregnant and almost the size of a house but still sicker than a dog I had to accept the fact I was having a girl and figure out what I was going to do. There wasn’t much figuring out to do in the end because I’m simply raising the next edition of me (if you don’t remember I am the second version of my mother’s youngest sister). I would love to talk about all her mishaps but there just isn’t enough room in this entire paper, probably not enough room for one week’s worth of her owies, hilarious misunderstandings and comments. If anyone ever tells you that boys are more rough and tumble than girls- well do I ever have the girl to prove you wrong. For every one trip I have take one of my boys to the emergency room I have taken her 5 times including for eating a hair clip, multiple rounds of stitches and at least two concussions.

This is the girl that has no issue telling off a police officer but tried to bail out of a car at highway speeds because there was a spider above her head. She once got locked in a building when I forgot she was there instead of at school and came back just a few minutes later to a very unhappy child and a very long lecture. She has a permanent scar right beside her eye where a dummy round came out of a pump shotgun and hit her, an instant after she was reassured there was nothing she had to worry about as it was not loaded with a live round and nothing bad could happen. This is also the child who stabbed me with a fork (but it wasn’t ME she meant to stab-insert eye roll here), broke a base cabinet door off with her private parts falling off the counter she wasn’t supposed to climb on and started JK with two black eyes that no one knows how she got.

This year she shot her first deer and turkey (which she found out a few weeks ago is actually a bird-then we all laughed at her). We now have a constant argument over why she can’t do things adults can and she hates that there are somethings I just can’t explain (and even more I don’t want to). As much as I tell her it is because she is not old enough and she will understand later-she turns around and surprises me with lovely facts that sometimes even make me speechless and blush. There are many days I hope things don’t change and that my daughter’s heart always stays as loving as it is now. But if something does need to change- please let it be her coordination, lack of filter on the things that come out of her mouth and for my sanity’s sake may she have all boys because I don’t think I can survive version four. But the same as I have changed and my businesses have changed- I guess that will be as it should be.