Contrary cuss.

This blog will be pretty self-absorbed for the next three weeks, and probably won't interest too many people beside myself.

As a downtown business, I'm fond of saying that I lose money four months out of the year, break even four months out of the year, and make money four months out of the year.

Well, that can be refined even further. The 8 weeks of July, August and the last two weeks of December are the majority of those profits. It isn't time to take my eye off the ball.

I'm pretty tired. Linda had an ice-cream social at church yesterday, so I knew I was going to have the time after 4:00 closing to myself. I thought about driving out into the woods, or working in my yard -- but the idea of a nap started creeping over me, until I really, really wanted that nap.

So that's what I did. Went home and crashed.

I absolve myself of all guilt, because I know that these last three weeks of August are so important to my business.

It's a marathon, to be sure. I'm just trying to make it through, and I've just hit that last big hill before the finish line.

The temptation for me is to always see the next week, or month...as the "most important.' Obviously, they can't all be the "most important." But I will say, as far as putting money in the bank, the next three weeks are very important.

I think I've finally reached a point where I see putting money aside for the future as an imperative. Before now, I almost always chose to put the earnings back into the business, thinking I could leverage my cash into higher earnings for the future.

Partly, the store is full. Partly, I'm just older and starting to see the endgame a bit more clearly.

The profits I'm talking about would probably be considered pretty minor by most people, but they ARE profits, and I just need to be the tortoise and keep putting it aside. Funny how small profits can make me feel more insecure somehow that just breaking even. Possibly, I just see was a steep hill I still have to climb.

Also interesting to me is how utterly contrarian I am. Here I am, earning the best profits of my career in the midst of the biggest downturn in my lifetime.

Odd, that.