Tidbits

Strangely, since not all the races ended the way I voted, the Tuesday results felt just about right. Locally, statewide, and nationally. Even where I very much disagreed with the outcome, it felt like a bit of shakeup that was probably needed. Some of the winners are going to be exposed to daylight and we'll see how they fair. Vague enough?

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Ironically, in it's own way and I think without meaning to, the T.V. show HEROES was presented in much the same way as a typical comic series. Lots of restarts, character changes, and interruptions.

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Linda has a table out, where one entire side is filled with these taller paperbacks; you know, the ones that are about half an inch taller than the normal books? And they sell like crazy. They blow out the door. (Linda's theory is that people want a quick pick and they know these books are new and they just grab them.)

Doesn't happen in my store, for some reason; but I'm thinking maybe I need to come up with a similar presentation, somehow.

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So much easier when you're broke.

Had three really, really slow days this week at my store. And then realized, that I'd probably lost a whole hell of a lot more money from the stock market drop than I did from a lack of customers.

Weird.

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I need to take advantage of these cool spring days to really dig into the garden. Lots of grass and weeds to pull.

I've been stumped by a lack of top soil. I meant to have a dump truck load delivered this year. The older I get, the lazier. Is that normal?

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Speaking of slow business. It looks like this month is going to be a replay of last month; a strong start, followed by a slow ten days or so, hopefully ending with a stronger end.

Overall, I'm about where I expected to be. Yesterday, for instance, was a very good day.

But the three days before that? uh, la, la.... Tuesday was a flashback to the bad old days. No one coming in, no one spending money.

It's very easy to get bummed out by those kinds of days. Mostly, though, I remember how it used to feel when I was living hand to mouth about ten years ago. When my daily cash flow really mattered, and I had to get that money in the bank at the end of every day. You sit there, at the counter, and feel -- rejected? Passed over?

Not a pleasant experience.

I've been around long enough now to look back and realize that it all evened out in the end. The solution back then, as now, was to have a cash cushion in the bank for cash flow shortages. I should have sold my car, stopped eating for a month, stopped buying product for however long it took to get a few thousand dollars in my bank. Hell, until my bank finally did me the favor of not covering my overdrafts, I probably could have had my cushion just from the penalties!

The stress that would have saved!

But you get into that trap, and it seems to reinforce the short term solutions which leads you further into the trap.

Oh, well. I survived it. But I started have flashbacks this week-- unnecessarily so, since I now have more than enough cushion -- to those bad old days, and I'm thankful that I now face them with a certain amount of equanimity. And make sure I never fall into that trap again.

Oh, and I don't think the recession is over....