Sat stats.

Sorry about the Shakespeare laden blog yesterday.

I googled to get one quote, and instead found quote after quote.

That Shakespeare is a pretty good writer. (I know, none of this is exactly a revelation.)

What kills me, is that so many of his best lines weren't created for the big "To be or not to be" type speeches, but are throwaway lines.

I suspect most modern writers would kill to have just one throwaway line become classic.

Maybe it's time to actually sit down and read Shakespeare straight through. Maybe I'm old enough to appreciate him. The language doesn't scare me as much as it used to. Maybe at 58 years old, I'm becoming about as smart as a smart 30 year old....maybe....

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Been gardening in 3 hour stretches. Which still make me more sore than I used to get. Mighty sore. (By the way, we got Mighty Thor #1 in this week, heh.)

As always, I'm amazed how much can be accomplished in that time span, once I get to work.

My plan this year was to start subdividing existing plants, and filling in the blank spots. Many of the original plants were placed too close to each other and need to be moved around anyway.

But, looking at some of the empty spaces, I think I need to let them lie fallow one more year so that I can be absolutely sure I've eliminated the weeds. I probably need more plants in the back, and I think I need more shrubs in front. And I need soil.

Some of the refuse piles I started a few years ago have become dirt, but not enough of it. I probably should just get a dumpload of dirt and another of manure. Put them over the current refuse pile, and kill two birds. (Speaking of birds, I'll have to make sure there isn't a quails nest -- I don't really want to KILL two birds.)

The architecture of my lot is such that I could have a spectacular garden someday. Little by little.

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I still have today to go, but it looks like this won't be the slowest month for Pegasus Books since the Great Recession started, but probably the second or third. The slowest was this January. So the trendlines aren't great.

But I'm talking about very small percentages, here. Less than 5% one way or the other.

What I find encouraging is that there seems to be a pretty solid floor, which is at or slightly above the baseline total I need to do a good job. I could survive at lower numbers, but it would be harder to have the kind of store I want.

My ideal total would be about 20% more than it is now. This was the goal I strove for throughout the 00's, and the store was well above it before the crash.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about it. The second half of the year is going to be better -- by failsafe.

Summer and Christmas.

The best thing I did was to lock into an automatic withdrawal for my savings -- so once I take care of that, all I need do is break even. This works so much better than the old idea of trying to save whatever was left over at the end of the month-- because of the way I spend, there was NEVER anything left over at the end of the month...