August is not as hot as July

Fine, I said it. There may be DAYS that are hotter, but the breezes are more fall like, there is a hint of "fall's coming so I've gotta be hot while I can" to the air. Cools off faster at night, too.

Right now money is tight again, and I will be forced to look for assistance. Even though I've been working 6-7 days a week at my outdoor job (and yes, in this heat/rain/storms), it's not been enough. I really really need our own business to take off. I cannot be dependent on the kindness of family for the rest of my life. It's time for a second push this year to take us to where we want to be.

Again, this ties right into the yearly cycle. While a lot of places have a decided winter/spring/summer/fall pattern, we have overlapping growing seasons. If you count winter as being cold, yeah, we have the normal winter, but if you count winter as being the time when there are little or no things productively growing in the gardens, then our "winter" is July. It's so hot tomatoes, etc STOP producing.

Fortunately, as August/September arrives, there is still plenty of time to both harvest the things that did make it though, plant for a secondary harvest, and be thankful that this lush and long growing season allows plenty of room for error, but not for indecision.

Indecision. I think that's what truly holds us back. I was at one of my PC parties, and the host would make a great PC consultant. I was asked why I think so, and I said "because she is one of those people who instead of wondering will just pick up the phone and call and find out". Gah, isn't that the key to any success? I don't know why I'm not like that.... I mean you're going to have to go ahead and call at some point, the people aren't there to judge you and can't hurt you for asking a simple question, and the rewards are there for the taking. We know that. Or at least we should. What would happen if you called, worst case scenario? They may say no, or they may have hoops to jump through that you aren't prepared for. That's it.

Some call this time our Lammas season, the first harvest celebration. To me, it's both a harvest and a time of renewing and regearing to make sure the next harvest is even more fruitful. The harvest is there, you just have to make sure you plant everything, water and nurture everything, pick the bugs off when problems happen, and then actually go out there and harvest the reward.

We've for a long time been scared or something to plant (i.e. do the things like call around, talk to people, have a booth at a show, advertise, list our phone # in the book); to water and nurture by staying in touch with clients, by keeping in contact with our non-client contacts that might help us; to debug by confronting issues with taxes or worrying about possible complaints, updating our business materials/website/approach, etc; and then don't go out there and harvest our rewards by answering our phones, and doing those annoying business things like asking for referrals or for someone to sign up for PC, etc.

As a culture, we tend to worship the noble savage, think the ideals of the simple farmer best, and villianize any sort of business - especially retail! But yet we aren't convicted enough to simply drop out of the system. Can there be an ethical version of a retail business? Yes, I believe that is possible. Am I doing everything I can to be that? Mostly, I am. And I have plans to work on the other sticky issues (recycled papers, etc). So where's the shame coming from?

In other news, we really need to make our business more rhythmic. This amorphous version where we get up whenever and then work until we fall asleep isn't productive, rewarding, fun, or anything. It sucks, it's not working, and I'm not sure what to put into place to move us away from this point. I'm afraid that if I go full out Virgo on it, the hubby will be overcome by visions of his gestapo boot mother and her stupid charts. Yet if I don't do anything, we'll be living at the poverty level for the rest of our natural days.

Perhaps the yuckiest of all solutions is the answer. Leading by example. It's one thing she never did.

*sigh*