Thursday thunks.

I realize my blog yesterday about writing an "epic" fantasy probably seemed a little overly ambitious. (Epic, by the way, describes the form of novel.) As I've said before, I'm actually kind of lazy. But sort of relentless.

I decide I'm going to make my store work and that's what I set out to do, even if it takes 20 years. So writing to me is the same. I just keep at it.

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Woke up yesterday morning, and realized I hadn't made my monthly orders yet and they were due -- in a matter of hours. Was working at the store all day and didn't even try to to do them while the summer business was coming at me.

So came home and slammed through them in one evening. I was all over it, like a momma lion on a crocodile...(Have you seen those pictures? Google it. Amazing.)

These orders used to take me two days to do. But I'm much more comfortable making reorders these days, which helps to align inventory with actual day to day results.

I just hope I didn't make too many mistakes.

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This has never happened before. I've gone five days without losing a pound. Hell, it looks like I might have gained one. But I haven't fallen down on the job. I've kept my calorie count under 1500 and my paces at around 10K.

"You're older," Linda ventures.

"Yeah."

"Maybe you're building muscle."

"Yeah. .... Sure."

I just need to stay relentless.

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Somebody added up (subtracted?) all the failed businesses over the last few years, state by state.

I can't find the story now, but what I remember was that, in Oregon, the communities on the coast were hit the hardest, followed by Central Oregon.

Makes sense.

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"Local Defaults Dry Up Under New State Law." Bulletin, 7/26/12.

Not sure what to make of this. What I suspect is, the pain is still there, just hidden under all the entanglements. It just fuzzes up the real situation. Pretend and extend.

Pretend and extend can be a legit strategy, but only if you think a recovery is coming. If there isn't a real recovery coming, you can only pretend and extend for so long.

It's been five years, by my reckoning, since the collapse. I figured before going in, that it would be a 5 to 7 year process. (I'm not sure I ever came to a conclusion about whether that 7 years was from top to bottom to top, or just top to bottom to the beginning of a rise.)

Anyway, since we never really did seem to deal with the underlying housing problem, but did work-arounds in every direction, I'm thinking 7 years was too optimistic.

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