Saturday, December 31, 2011

hopefully there will be some kind of sum-up post.

with pictures and all that. someone should get on that!

but in the mean time...

in 2011, K. and I worked really friggin' hard.

BUT!

We did NOT

-move
-have a baby
- buy a house/building
- start a business
-any combination there of

which makes it completely unique in our marriage.

Instead, we worked.

And worked.

And worked.

But! The store had its best week ever last week. K's got two new tenants who have signed leases and written checks, which brings our total rent-paying legitimate tenants to 4 (not including the store), which means there is only one space left, and he JUST finished that one. Which in turn means the building is "cash-positive."

AND we took the kids out for dinner on an impromptu family adventure to Greenwood last night. And no one cried. No one got hauled out and spanked on a sidewalk. No one pooped in their pants.

I'm counting 2011 as a win.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

the great advantage

of a five pm cup of coffee can be seen in my house tonight: website rough draft action plan, check. three loads of laundry, sorted and all, check. dishes, counters, bottom of the refrigerator, check. sit-ups and leg-lifts, check. christmas cards written and sealed, check.

I'll be paying for it in another hour but by then maybe I'll have the kitchen floor mopped.

Friday, December 16, 2011

don't know how it happens

I get to the end of my rope and then i wake up and i'm all like "bring it! BRING IT!"

hence the plot to feed rich southern people everywhere with a new online ordering/shipping business. i mean, we're cooking. so why not? We have the best pimento cheese ever made.

family picnic in the randomly 70 degree day, Wednesday:




Kids good. Husband better. Store only moderately in the hole. 2 new renters for K's building, leases signed and all. Strawberry plants grown new leaves.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Last Tuesday

Last Tuesday, it rained. We had no shoppers. I had a few that managed to lacerate me to the bone. Struggled home with the kids and walked into a house full of garbage spread across the floor. Went to my bed to cry and found the bed also filled with garbage-- Dido the damn dog had lain in it and chewed stuff.

In short, it was a pretty shitty day.

And it made me realize something: no matter what happens with the store, no matter what happens with the dogs or the weather or whatever, I need my family-- K and the kids-- to be at the center of my life.

Sounds odd but that's how it happened.

So that attitude has informed the week since and thigns have happened. Annaliese is not going to daycare, for one thing; she used to love it, but she's bored now, almost 3 years later, and wants to be with me. So she has been, all week. And we're both happier.

Caspian-- who was the one I was worried about-- ALSO seems happier. He has been getting solo Daddy-time in the morning after Annaliese and I trundle off to work at 7:30am and he is chipper as a little bumblebee when we pick him up in the afternoons. He likes his teacher. Likes his friends. Likes school. And that's a good thing, because he is too toddler-y to accompany me to the store for an hour, let alone day after day.

Of course, we were all home today for Mommy-day, and that was at times awesome and at times wretched like most days in this house.

But overall, our lives are felling more integrated, which is a good thing. And K has TWO new renters slotted to move in in January, which means the finished part (one last unit pending) will be fully occupied. So damn proud of him.

Imagine how much extra time we'll have if the building gets done! WHOA! He's been working Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and Saturdays on this project since before Annaliese was born.

Almost 5 years, one house, 2 kids, and a store later....



Tuesday, December 06, 2011