I prepared my header banner a couple of days ago. I thought long and hard about the choice and decided that the garden metaphor was a good one: buds for promise and the grass - of lush green and drier brown really do reflect both the last month and a lot of this year. A recurring theme for me this month was hurry-up-and-wait. It was an exercise in patience, faith and belief - mostly in myself - as well as trust. All of them paid off. The downside is that I have to seriously manage my time between now and mid-January and, perhaps beyond. Some of this is great work opportunities and some is seasonal. The latter, I must just suck up and get on with (jamming, making chutney, koeksisters and...) because that's what must just happen. It's not bad. Actually it's good. It is.
I shall do my best to manage it all - and me - as best as I can.
The real upside of all of this is that, depending how some of the cookies crumble, my need to be powering down and cashing out, really is diminishing.
Many, many lessons learned...
Anyhow, and as I always say, regardless of my RL tribulations, the power of three (Silver Blogging Women) remains consistent.
The beneficiaries of our delegations are selected from accounts that participate in #HivePud, and who Traci identifies with the help of, as she calls him, numbers man 
When Traci is about to publish her final results post, she also sends me a list of accounts that meet the basic criteria of age and HP, and then I go through them to see if they meet the additional criteria (see below).
The second last Hive Power Up Day of 2022 is approaching
All that's a very long-winded way of saying that for December, my usual delegation of 100 HP will go ahead and, as has become customary, that delegation will be tripled by matching delegations from 
Eligible accounts must also be -
- be less than 6 months old
- have at least two qualifying posts since the previous power up day.
Posts that qualify must have 200 words or more and exclude posts for Power Up Day, as well as which are specific to Actifit and gaming.- a reputation of less than 61
- not more than 500 HP in their accounts before they power up - both on the first of the month
As a reminder, the the second criterion is because Hive is a community -
Hive is a social blockchain: it's for socialising, ruminating and just generally hanging out.
And that's not all -
Every account that participates in Power Up Day, and does so regularly, stands a chance of receiving a delegation from 
Now, back to our contribution:
What happens if no accounts qualify?
Thanks for asking, and yes it does happen. I don't make decisions on my own, so if, as has happened in the past, there are "slim pickings", the three of us put our heads together, working via Traci who is also with the 
The three of make a joint decision about the accounts that are ultimately supported.
Delegating is not enough (speaking for myself)
Remember that in addition to the delegations, I add these accounts to my fanbase so that they receive a daily 100% upvote (if my voting power is still more than 90%; if it's not, I do try to manually upvote (qualifying) posts.
That's my intention, but as I've mentioned, RL is getting the better of my virtual one at the moment. This is also why I ask
Also,
See you on Hive Power Up Day, 1 December 2022.
PS Thank you for 
Post post script: I am trying to participate in 
I've made it to day 26!
Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa
Photo: Selma
Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it's because I'm doing two things:
- re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine....?
- and "re-capturing" nearly two years' worth of posts.
- From Wordpress, I use the Exxp Wordpress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.
- Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers' community.
Original artwork:
- lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs, images available freely available on
and Canva.