Dog Eared

Remember when the mail used to arrive in the mailbox instead of being shoved through a hole in the door where the dog turns into a vicious rabid beast and tries to rip fingers off of the postman? Back when there was no dog to haul favorite publications into "secret" corners where she drags all forbidden treats to maul them in private? Ah, those were good times. Philip isn't a magazine whore like I am, but there are three publications he looks forward to: The Rivendell Reader, Dirt Rag, and Bicycle Quarterly. This last treasure was hauled off to the "secret" corner and was violated by my dog's teeth.

Indeed, they can look so beseechingly up at you and you wonder how the heck such a compact package of muscle, teeth, claws, and dense black fur could bring upon one house such mayhem, such disorder, such complete destruction of personal property.

No I don't. I don't wonder at all. The only thing I wonder about is how I fell under her spell in the first place. It's the irony of the black dog.* The irony being that in twenty five years of being terrified of dogs, I was always most terrified of black labs. And now I have one. And I love her.

I can feel that this post is going to wander all over the place. I want to report that Max has had two temper tantrums and neither one brought about a blood bath. One of them was a spectacular show of screams and wails and hyperventilating, a show which only last week would have brought on the side show. So that's promising. Hopefully not misleading.

I have been so happy canning food and picking produce at the farm, riding my scooter on the back roads in the countryside, and watching my jars fill up. This is the kind of thing I love to do the most. I was bound to crash from that high. It's inevitable. I started thinking about how I have to look for part time work. I checked Craig's list for jobs. Then I checked the local newspaper listings. And then I got really depressed and panicky at the same time. My favorite emotional cocktail. I don't want to work outside my home. It's not because I think I'm some kind of princess. It's not that I don't want to help Philip keep us afloat.

I started thinking that here I have this company, I have stuff to sell, I have this business that I've painstakingly built into a multi-dollar institution. I realized that what I ought to do is go get some wholesale accounts. There are lots of cool stores in Portland. Then I was thinking about how I want to produce my apron patterns to sell to quilt shops. So I actually did what I've been meaning to do for all eternity and went to a couple of local print shops to find out how much it would cost to print one. The answer is: they will happily take your left breast for one large printed page. It has become immediately apparent that I can't produce them commercially to sell wholesale. It's too expensive. I don't know where other people get them printed and how many they have to print to make it affordable, but they aren't doing it through my local copy shops.

So my bright idea plummeted and my mood went south with it. I got to feeling like every which way I turn, I am no longer capable of earning a living. Even if I want to. I could work at a mushroom farm for $8.00 an hour and put Max in daycare. That sounds like fun. (Actually I keep thinking about it. Unfortunately I don't think we could afford daycare with a salary like that.) I'm not qualified for most jobs now. It's the classic risk of staying home to be with your child for any length of time. You lose your spot in the professional world.

I would much prefer working on my business. I would like to find out how to promote my web-store, how to bring customers to my shop directly rather than shoot myself in the foot trying to make it doing wholesale. I would like to have my company do well enough that I don't have to work for someone else. First of all, to do that requires time and energy. Two things I won't have any of if I work outside the home even part time.

Secondly, I have not regained my confidence. Remember how I'm the HUMAN MONEY REPELLENT? Is my company worth working on? I've been doing it for three years and it's gone almost nowhere. They say a business takes a long time to establish, but how do I know if it's headed in the right direction? How do I know if it's worth giving CPR to it? This used to be the kind of stuff my gut would help me with. I have no inner compass anymore when it comes to business. The only thing my gut is telling me is that I SUCK AT BUSINESS.

Which reminds me: I found out yesterday that I can take a seminar on running my small business and making it more profitable for the small class price of $595. Doesn't it seem like anyone (like myself) who really needs a class like this is probably not in a position to hand over what amounts to their life savings? It seems to me that a good business decision would be to keep my $595 in my pocket.

Anyway...Philip thinks I should work on my business. Since the refinance went through we have a little leeway before the other shoe drops on our life as poor people. His saying I should work on my business shows a level of confidence in me that I don't think is much deserved. I'm scared to make the wrong decisions. I'm worried that I've already been given the message to stop trying to make money with my own designs and get myself to the mushroom farm where I'll at least get exercise. Is there any reason I should believe that if I do some more work on my company that it'll start picking up?

I started writing mental letters (a favorite past time) to Moda:

"To whom it may concern at Moda,

I think it would be a big mistake not to hire me to come up with great ideas for your "Sliced Bread" line.

Sincerely,
The Human Money Repellent"

I do have lots of great ideas. My head is full of them. (Even as I write this I am wondering if that's actually true.) If I can't use them, wouldn't they be a great asset to someone else?

I really don't know what to do. I don't know what's the smart choice. I know I can't do everything. I know a direction has to be chosen. I think this not knowing what to do is payback for all the times I have been exacerbated by other people not being able to decide what to do. Here's me: with their shoes on.

Why oh why did Max's Magic Eight-ball kick the bucket??!!!!

Philip has basically decided for me. He wants me to work on my company. So we agreed that I would spend the next week finishing up my canning projects, then clean and begin the torturous process of cleaning up and organizing the garage, and then I will hunker down and start to clean up and organize my business (which requires that the garage be cleaned and organized since it's filled with my business and store things). I just hope I'm not wasting more time and energy on a horse with a broken leg.

I need an expert to step in and advise. If any of you are experts, please step in and advise. Otherwise, just watch and see what happens like I'm going to be doing.

In other news, it is a gorgeous day out there. Fall is here. I feel it in the air and fall is a great time to not be depressed. I love the cold as it creeps into the sunshine. I love how it grabs at your bones and fills them with crisp energy. I'm going to go pick more tomatoes and enjoy my last few days of "care free" homesteading fun. Doing the things I'm best at doing. And listening to the first four songs on the Wilco album that features Billy Bragg and is nothing but Woody Guthrie songs and poems made into songs. The same four songs...OVER...AND...OVER.

The poor neighbors.

*I really think this should be the title of a book. Since I'm not writing any books but keep coming up with great titles for them, I wonder if I could come up with a career based on selling book titles to authors?

Update: I have had a chat with a good friend who has helped me begin to clear away all the extraneous crap that stands between me and doing what I want to be doing. What I need to be doing. I can tell you that I am already breathing more deeply. She's going to help me come up with an ORGANIZED plan. This is why we have friends. I will report more on this at a later time when I am not in need of blasting music before the kid comes home from school. I don't know if there's an end to this tunnel, but I do know there's some light somewhere ahead of me in it. I hope it's not "white" and filled with Jesus.

Chapter 13

Where, oh where have I left my stoicism?

I am a prickly specimen. While roses may be my favorite flower to cultivate in my garden, one of my favorite wild flowers is the thistle. This particular one cropped up in my garden in the early summer and in spite of it's very vicious leaf needles which grab at my ankles, I have enjoyed watching it's tight porcupine buds develop and then barely open enough to let the pretty silky purple threads emerge. It reminds me of two things: Scotland (my first favorite place on earth), and myself.

A lot of the time I don't like to be reminded of myself. While I am pretty confident in my capabilities, have learned to appreciate many of my gifts, and generally love the life I'm living, I am by no means so in love with myself that I enjoy seeing myself reflected in the world. However, in the thistle I see myself as I really am. I won't appear like a thistle to many people who know me, or think they know me, because I am medicated now. But ask any of my very oldest friends who knew me long before I ever went to therapy, long before I had my own home and found my stride, you will hear about a very prickly person. Hell, just ask Philip!

I used to come unglued if anyone read my magazines before I did, just to give you a little example.

I love thistles for reminding me of my alternative plan in life: to buy this little station house that was for sale in the highlands of Scotland (near the Great Glen Water Park) and cut myself a swath of garden, bake bread everyday, fresh scones, write, and take daily walks up the ragged hills to breath the freshest air I have ever taken into my lungs. The only reason why we're not there now is because we couldn't figure out how to make a living there.

Which is ironic because I'm faced with the same problem now, here in Oregon (my second favorite place on earth). But this is a tiresome subject. Just because I'm afraid of my pile of bills, the ones that haven't yet been paid, doesn't mean anyone wants to hear about my financial woes AGAIN. Unfortunately, my mind is preoccupied with how the hell to unload all this great stuff I have to sell that I seem unable to sell. What good does it do me to have great stuff if I can't sell it? It does tell me something though.

It may be time to accept that selling my used things, and the products I make myself, and the great products I've acquired from others, is not my calling. Seriously. Because the universe has put a protective shield around me that protects me from making money. So what if the only thing I'm really meant to do is write and keep house?

Which would be ironic, since it's truthfully the only thing in my life that I absolutely feel I must do, no matter what. I love to design products, and I design damn fine ones too, but I can't sell them for fortunes nor pennies. Everyone knows it's hard to make a living selling handcrafted goods, but I even had a store. I had a store front with great windows and I couldn't make it work. I have had a website for a year, a really nice one, and I have gotten a handful of orders (Thank you Pam, you wonderful friend! You make up at least a quarter of my on-line business!)

We used Google ad-words, we advertised our store, we even had a huge sale to try to unload most of our stuff and sent out close to 100 newsletters to tell our customers about our 40% off sale and no one came except Louise. Whom I love. If you have a store, and you put signs in the window that you're having a fabulous sale, and you tell everyone on your mailing list about it, and no one comes to shop it, it is clear that you are a loser at commerce.

So what I keep thinking about is whether I ought to close down Dustpan Alley as a business, stop putting time into making things that don't sell, stop putting time into drawing attention to my website, and go get myself a part time job to help pay the bills, get rid of my medical insurance which I can't afford, get debt consolidation which kills good credit but helps avoid bankruptcy, and just write.

I've had Dustpan Alley for three years now. I can't sell my stuff at craft fairs. I can't sell my stuff online. I can't sell it in a store. I can't sell anything worth a shit. Even when I'm desperate. Surely, surely that is a pretty clear message. I haven't lost confidence that I make cool things. I do. I know I do. People seem to love what I make, they just don't want to buy it.

I'm not whining, by the way. I'm just painting the picture. The truth. And trying to figure out what the right next move is. I'm tired of wasting energy on enterprises that go nowhere. More to the point, this last one has brought me to planet broke-ass. Philip has a job, one with a lot of potential, one he's really happy about. But the fact remains that for the time being, it pays about $1200 per month when our bills are about $3500 per month. Anyone can do that kind of math. So what next?

I am obviously going to look for part time work. I'm sorry if this seems weak, but if I'm working part time (provided anyone will hire me for the hours I can work while Max is in school, because, you know, we can't afford any daycare) I can't also work on Dustpan Alley. Not in addition to doing my mom gig, taking care of the house, and writing. The writing can't stop or I'll have to be sent to an institution.

This is all I think about all day long now. How I have so much to sell in goods I bought for the store, now in storage, that I can't even unload for 40% off, and I have furniture that is gorgeous and totally collectible that I tried to sell under it's value that no one wanted to buy off of Craig's list. (But when I decide to bring the price way down people gasp and say-oh but it's worth so much more! Can't seem to win. Besides, I kind of think that even if I try to sell it for dirt cheap, no one will bite.) Next month is coming and we're not even going to have enough for the mortgage.

I guess it's nice to have something other than my fat to worry about huh?

They take your house when you go bankrupt, don't they?

I don't want an empire. I don't want to be filthy rich. I don't want a complicated life. I just want to be comfortable. I just want to make the right choices for once. I just don't want to lose my house. I just want to not be scared every month to open my bills. We don't even have cable. We don't have cell phones. We don't have a second car. We don't have anything fancy. Our hugest splurge is really good quality food and lots of good quality beer, and going out to eat once or twice a week.

It's ironic that we went completely broke trying to make a living.

I'm tired, people. So tired. And totally scared every single day. And too paralyzed with worry to know what to do next. I can't even afford my health care. I cannot stop taking my medications so I guess I better find out how much they are without insurance and weigh that against the price of insurance.

Guess I'll let the kid vegetate in front of the videos again today and go hang out with the plants again. They don't have any answers for me, unfortunately, but perhaps they'll help to bring down the awful panic I feel rising in my chest.

Because I'm so worn out. I'm tired. I'm really effing exhausted.

Later: The more our situation is examined, the more clear it becomes that I will have to get full time work just to be only $1000 short of making our bills every month because the kind of jobs I'm qualified for out there pay about $8.00 an hour. I think the right thing to do is to close down Dustpan Alley as a company and keep it only as a blog. I could get rid of all that stuff in storage by selling it cheap at garage sales. Or maybe I should have someone else sell them who isn't a human money repellent, since I already tried to sell them cheap and no one wanted to buy. Do you think the Universe will be tricked by this ploy? The galloping in my chest is very bad today. We are out of decaf coffee which never helps.

Random Harvest

(and how it isn't distracting me from my other problems)

I guess it isn't a random harvest if you purposely pick up a trowel and dig in the dirt looking for something to pick. These are the little treasures I came back from the garden with. The potato plants are beginning to die off which means I could just dig them all up now (a very satisfying activity) or leave them in until I need them.

Chick has her longing eye fixed on the egg.

Pulchritude is a word that kept coming into my head last night and not sure of its meaning, I just looked it up. It means "physical beauty". I ask you, how could a word that means physical beauty sound so much like a simmering vat of rancid bog water? It really is funny how a word can sound so much the opposite of its meaning.

I have the problem of the furniture weighing quite heavily on my shoulders. My original intention was to try to make a little money to get us through this transition. The furniture is good solid and quite collectible. I mean, it isn't trash you can find anywhere. It's furniture with amazing details and we didn't get it for free. At this point though I am considering giving it away for free. Friends and family are gasping about everything I have been giving away, feeling bad that I'm not trying harder to get some cash. But what can I do? I don't have the magic touch, or any time left.

I used to think that the great thing about real jewelry is its resale value. You can always get some money for diamonds and gold. I am now thinking that I could own the most coveted piece of bling in the world and should I find myself in need of money I would not be capable of unloading it. Where are these places you can unload fine jewelry anyway? Pawn shops? Not likely! E-bay?

Will I at least reap some good karmic points for giving my valuable furniture away for free if it comes to that? Will money find its way to us through other avenues? Will our future be paved with work and paychecks?

Or should I rent another storage unit big enough to house all the furniture and take my time to try to get someone to buy it for closer to what it's worth? But I'll have to pay at least a hundred dollars a month to store it, and what if I'm right and no one will ever buy my things for even half of what they're worth because I am a walking money repellent? Then I'm out more money and still have to unload my furniture for super cheap or free.

My shoulders and neck hurt with the worry.

I have been scheming to use my dining room deco set in my studio. I could use the dining table to sew and draft on if I got a leaf made for it. I could then have pretty things in my studio. But they aren't as practical as plain shelves and that huge 5,000 pound composite table I was planning on using. But then I wouldn't have to sell them and I could continue to enjoy them. But where will I store them while I work on getting the studio room ready? The garage is awfully full with the rest of the crap from the store.

I don't usually have difficulty making decisions. Decisions usually come fairly easily to me. It's annoying that I cannot solve this problem nor settle on any kind of compromise that feels right. What are the best choices here? I feel damned every way I turn. What choices would all of you make?

My compass (the gut I'm always trusting) is askew. It has not weathered well the 365 days of stress and circuit over-loading that having the store created for me. I will end up being just fine. But having my compass be out of order is seriously inconvenient at a time when so many crucial decisions need to be made.

On the other hand, in the big scope of life, how crucial are any of these decisions? None of them are life or death. None of them are going to change the fabric of my life. I already did that by deciding to close the store. A decision that I know was the right one, and I made it not a moment too soon. Right now, if we were still trying to run the store, I would be checking myself into some kind of facility with padded walls (if any still exist). I came that close to wearing myself down beyond a simple fix.

So, having written this all out, I see that I'm no closer to knowing the answers or having any solutions.