Gotta Get Moving

Boy, where have I been? I just checked the date and I can't believe I haven't posted in what? 13 days?! Amazing how time flies.

Work has been very busy. So much going on, which is great for my financial bottom line. I continue to thank God that I am doing something I believe in. Wanna know what I do? OK, I'll tell you. I'm an Editorial Assistant for a very worthy company. There I shared it - sort of. I write, I edit, I research, I help the Managing Editor to do her job and I love it. I'm continuously amazed at how organized I can be for them and yet my own stuff can be such a mishmash of paper and thoughts and projects.

In addition to work, I've been very busy working on Village Works stuff as well. I went to a conference in NY last week. Ladies Who Launch - you'll find their female entrepreneur of the moment in my sidebar on the right. It was such an awesome feeling being in the midst of all those creative women and hearing story after story of how they achieved success despite some kind of seeming setback. They were bootstrappers, much like I have been throughout the years that my business partner and I have been building this thing. They did what they thought was right, like we do, and they are getting there. It's depressing really. Seems like we should further along in this business than we are now but the truth of the matter is it is difficult to build a business when you have a full-time job and children. Not just a husband, mind you, who can let you go sometimes, but children, who won't necessarily understand why you need to be away from home so much, so I try not to be. Add to that a business partner whose job is 100x busier than mine (she's our pastor's admin) and you've got the making for slow progression. I was so frustrated when I left that meeting - encouraged yet frustrated - that I worked all night Friday night and most of Saturday on our business plan - which we've been working on all year (started a LONG time ago but now I need it done) - and our organizational chart and I created a couple of postcards to send to these two storeowners we've been wanting to meet with. That all required a lot of thought and writing and creativity.

The idea, if you've never read The E-Myth, is for you to work your business, not have your business work you. So you figure out your structure. Act as if you had to set things up to have someone else run the entire show successfully and that means writing charts and personnel manuals, that sort of thing. Not as bad a it sounds actually. I like to write and I'm anal so I have to organize things eventually or I will feel like I'm running in circles. It's kind of just a deeper level of a business plan, which is your vision on paper and we all know what the Bible says about vision, don't we? "Without a vision, the people perish." Also, we are told to "write the vision and make it plain." Wise words. If you want to stay on course, eventually you have to write things down, so I did that this weekend. Well, I always do that, but I did more of it and wrote some new stuff too so now all I need is my partner to give her thoughts on the various "positions" there are in our company and we can move on to phase two of this plan - writing ads for people who can help us get things done.

I think I said it before and I'll say it again - we are at a place where we need help because we simply can't do it all alone. She won't quit her job ever because she loves it, but she loves us too so it's hard. My plan is to eventually be the one to run the show full-time but that won't happen anytime soon since we need a house first. So that means we need help. We can't yet afford to pay for the marketing, PR and sales help that would truly push us along so we're seeking out college help, new professional help, i.e. INEXPENSIVE, but quality help so we can all help each other achieve our goals.

So I'm chomping at the bit right now. My latest version of our business plan is on my computer at my job so I couldn't even update it electronically yet. I've still got to actually get to my partner everything I did this weekend so she can look at it but right now it's MAAFA season at our church and that means my partner is busier than she usually is, plus her daughter is in the production so that's even more for her to do. In the meanwhile, we've got bills to pay off - which we can do, thank God - so we can get out website revamp started and finished before the holiday season sets in and she is the one who balances the checkbook and handles the finances. I told her I understood it all, because I do, but darn it, I'm going nuts here waiting on this stuff to get going. The plus side of all this? I just pretty much plan things and she says OK because we already think alike and agree on how things should be so I don't need her approval to do things. It's just COMPLETING the things that gets a little slow sometimes. Now I don't mean to sound hard on her because the fact is I have seasons when I'm up for things and seasons when I'm not and I just coast. Sometimes every creative bone in my body has clearly lost all their marrow and I'm just a shell of who I can be, but do you think she busts my chops over it? Nope. She knows the deal, just like I do. This is another reason we need to just get some help. To keep things moving when she's otherwise engaged and I'm just falling flat. Bottom line - I am so grateful to have a partner in all this and I'm so grateful to have her, someone I can trust, but sometimes I wish we could spend more time together on this business and already know she feels the same. We simply must make it happen. In the meanwhile, I have a new catalog to work on to keep myself busy and I'll continue figuring out how to get the hele we need. Know what I need? An Ebay pro. Know any?

So, that's where I've been - in the land of my job and Village Works and sort of preparing for NaNoWriMo as well because the book I intend to write has everything to do with what I'm going through right now. Oh, and Daughter had a Parent's Day at her school so I had to do that. And there was that funeral I went to. And I've been really focused and motivated regarding my weight loss so that I WAS down 20 pounds but somehow I'm back up 3 pounds and have to get that off again so I can get down to my next mini goal. Thankfully I'm still somewhat motivated to do that, but it sure does add to my already mounting frustration. The reasonable side of me says that losing 20 in not quite 4 months is not horrible, not actually shabby at all since you only gain about 10 pounds in year if you don't watch yourself. But the other side says, "Poppycock! You KNOW what you can do and your mind is just not all here!" True, true. Shoot, I'm even mad there's no good scary movies on TV OR in the video store. See The Omen yet? Don't bother. It's as scary and "shocking" as the original and that was NOT scary stuff. They practically stuck to the original script, which made it all the worse. Oh, and the "extended scenes too scary for theaters"? Yes, maybe if you are in a childen's theater. Bore-ring!

Sigh. I've got to go take children's coats out of the washing machine now and start taking my daughter's braids out. Saturday she turns 3 so that will be my focus all this week. I'm taking her to get her hair done that day and then we're taking a holiday photo because I think I can stand to be photographed right now. Plus we have to get the Dora cake she keeps talking about and I've got to get her a gift and I don't even get paid until the end of the month so I have to borrow from myself to do all this.

Yuck. I'm sick of listening to myself. I've gotta go read now.