All Or Nothing

My Parents: A Glimpse

Mom (to me):  So anyway, that's why I didn't have a profile picture on Facebook for a while, I just...

Dad (coming home from work and interrupting the conversation):  Hey!  I sent you, like, 10 text messages today and you never responded to any of them!

Mom:  I did too, I responded to one of them and said that I was busy and didn't have time to text message.

Dad:  Yeah, but what about after that when I kept sending them?  You just ignored all those.

Mom:  What I wanted to text back was 'Clearly you aren't working hard enough if you're text stalking me all day'.

Dad:  I was waiting on a message like that, that's why I kept sending 'em.

:)

If All Vampires Are Seducers, And I Am A Vampire, Then Resistance Would Be Futile

However, I am NOT a vampire.  So that takes care of one aspect of the dilemma.  The other aspect is whether or not you believe that all vampires really ARE seducers, and I think all you have to do is look at the wild success of vampire books and movies to see that I'm right about the seduction aspect. 

I'm not sure how they did it, but somehow vampires have made pale skin, gaunt cheekbones, blood-dripping fangs, and immortality sexy.  Congratulations, O' Undead Ones.  That's quite a feat.

Now that we've got all that straightened out, the next order of business is to say I'm sorry for going completely AWOL for the past couple of weeks.  I mean, I'd love to tell you it's because I was swept away (maybe by a vampire?) to a secret island, where I was served hand and foot and engaged in all sorts of glamorous activities.  Or maybe even that I just decided to take some time off from all my responsibilities, read some good books, take some naps...

But no. 

The truth is (and this sums it up quickly for those of you who think brevity is a virtue), bad economy = Elise The Retail Business Owner working her tail off, trying everything she can think of to get things back on track. 

Not very interesting, eh?  I told you.

It's just disconcerting, is all, to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under you like this.  I don't mean you, the reader - I doubt that my posting frequency (or lack thereof) has the ability to leave anyone feeling unsettled.  I mean that as a business owner, especially in the retail sector of things, this "economic crisis" is hitting pretty close to home.

I'm sure many of you have seen the front page stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal today -  but if you haven't, they are telling the same tale I've been telling all summer.  Retail sales are down.  Down more than they have been in a long while.  No one is happy about it.  No one knows exactly what the problem is (other than the ridiculous sub-prime lending/credit crunch situation we all know about).  Everyone thinks things will get better.  In fact, things are getting better!  Yay!

And on we go.

Except really, what I just said up there is the truth of the matter but I fear that the media, with its insatiable thirst for blood, will only focus on the "doom" and will totally ignore the "light at the end of the tunnel" aspect of things.  And that, my dear friends, only makes everything WORSE.  The more the average American THINKS things are bad, the more tight-fisted they'll be with their money, and that means they aren't spending it with me or anyone else.  So stores go out of business and put more employees out of work, who in turn have to be even stingier with their cash, because they really don't know when they'll get more.  And the cycle continues.  However!  Much of the current cycle, especially in high-end areas like the one in which my store does business, is based on somewhat REACTIONARY principles, otherwise known as FREAKING OUT FOR NO GOOD REASON.

So. Stop freaking out, America!  Yes, we got ourselves into a bit of a situation with the sub-prime lending and the massive credit crisis and yes, some of us overextended ourselves and are now paying the price.  And yes, some of us DIDN'T overextend ourselves, we did everything by the book and we STILL feel like we're paying the price.  Well, we are.  But it's going to be okay.  Things will equalize, and whether that means when we come out on the other end of the tunnel things look like our current version of "normal" or if they are a totally new "normal", we can adjust.   Okay?  Okay.

Now!  Guess who I met.

That's right, I got to eat dinner (well, I was the only one eating) and get drinks (was NOT the only one drinking) with none other than Julie!  And even though she texted me, wondering if there were ANY crosswalks or pedestrian-friendly areas near where she was staying (no, there were not) and even though she had to WALK to where we met up (aah! still feel bad about that, Julie!), we had a great time nonetheless.  And I feel pretty confident in saying that Julie got a real solid taste of Texas boys trying to hit on her.

We ended up telling everyone we were on our first date, which, technically, was true.  And, if you'll reference the picture above, I CLEARLY made it up to the hotel room and if that doesn't give you any indication of how things went, well.... Maybe you haven't had very good first dates.

I also did this:

 By myself.  Which shows how much I really love this band, because I wasn't quite sure how I felt about going to a concert by myself.  I mean, is that awesome, or total loserville?  It's a tough call.  Luckily, I got to meet up with these two (getting married in two weeks!) before the show:

We laughed, we drank wine, we discussed politics....and then we tried our hand at governing an errant bee situation.  We roundtabled about what might be the best angle to take with the bees - were they friend or foe?  It was hard to tell.  They were definitely after our bread, so Adam decided that perhaps some peace treaties should be attempted, and he put a piece of Peace (I know, I know) Bread down at one end of the table for the bees to have.  See, they can have their stuff, we have our stuff, and we all live in harmony.  It's a great concept.  Unfortunately (and similarly to how these things go in real life), the bee was discontent with his small slice of bread, kept angling for the whole loaf, and eventually - he had to die. 

I know, it's harsh.  But you may as well know the truth.

Let's see, what else....I've gotta tell you, I've spent the vast majority of the past month or so in near-constant state of feeling flustered.  And that makes it hard to do anything, much less think coherently for long enough to bang out a post.  But I'm nothing if not resourceful, and I'm dealing with it, so you can expect posting to resume as originally scheduled.  Meaning that after the Project Runway season finale tonight (which I WILL recap on Friday), I will go back to my once or twice-weekly posting schedule, and (more importantly) I promise that I cannot wait to read and comment on everything that I've missed while I've been on this strange hiatus.  I can't promise that I won't hit the "mark all read" button in my feeder, because right now it's hovering near the 2000 mark, but after that, I'm back on track.

And after my first real life date with a previously Internet-only friend went SO well, I can't wait to meet more of you guys.  I know I'm all the way down here in Texas (and don't ask Julie how the rest of her visit went) but if you're EVER sent down here for any reason, I promise to make the whole experience just a little more fun.  And I'll even pick you up, so you don't have to search in vain for crosswalks.  I also won't force feed you tequila, ESPECIALLY if you claim to be allergic.

The Weirder The Better

Earlier this week I was sitting on a rainbow rug on the floor of an elementary classroom, pinning pieces of fabric together to make curtains.  Not because I have suddenly decided on a career change (what a disaster of a teacher I would make - I can see it now: "WHY don't you understand what I'm demonstrating?  Are you STUPID?") but because one of my best friends has.  And she is going through the somewhat monumental task of getting her room ready for school.  There's an awful lot that goes in to that process, and most of it has to do with things like "sensory stimulation" and "appropriate learning patterns" i.e., "things Elise knows nothing about".  But SOME of it has to do with sewing and hanging curtains, and I can do that just fine.

Anyway, as I was pinning away, another friend of my friend came up to the school to see the room in progress, and we all started chatting.  Okay, I can probably get away with this example, since I've been blogging about Project Runway this season and a decent percentage of you have seen the show - you know how when the designers are in the design room for the main part of their workday, the camera always grabs all these great little sound bytes?  Meaning, all the designers are sitting there, sewing and panicking about time-restraints and still have the time for snarky commentary about one another and funny dialog.  And to the uninitiated, this might seem weird, like wow, they have something ridiculous like 8 hours to make an entire three-piece suit, and yet they have somehow found the leisure time to do sarcastic impressions of one other...I smell creative editing.  But no!  I am here to tell you, it's not only possible, but actually very accurate that even in the midst of a sewing time-crunch, you still have ample opportunities for conversation.  And it's better conversation that normal - much like if you were stuck in an elevator with someone for 5 hours straight - you have to get pretty creative to keep things rolling.  It's because sewing utilizes one part of your brain, and it's not the same part that is used for communication.  So what you end up with is the type of dialog that you normally only find when hanging out with your friends for long, uninterrupted stretches of time.  Interesting, huh?

Anyway!  I was sewing, and I asked my friend how she and her friend met, and they told me that they met while student teaching at the same school.  Okay, so that's the basic answer, right?  That's the small-talk answer.  But then, as good conversations often do, things got a little more in-depth.  We started discussing HOW they actually became friends, as there were lots of people student teaching at that school, and how come THEY connected with each other, rather than with someone else.  This is always fascinating to me, how people come to be friends with one another, and as the conversation progressed, we began telling stories of how we met our good friends; specifically about the MOMENT in which we knew we would totally be able to be friends - that moment where you see something in a fellow human and you're like "I totally get that".

The "small-talk" answer to how me and my new-teacher friend connected is "she shopped in my store, and we ended up finding out our husbands went to school together when we saw each other at their 10-year reunion".  But that's totally NOT how we actually BECAME friends, that's just a physical description of the circumstances that allowed us to meet.  The reason we BECAME friends is because one day, while she was just a customer shopping in my store, I complimented her on something - her hair, probably (she's got some seriously awesome, wild hair) - and she laughed, telling me, quite bluntly, that she had gotten in pretty late the night before, and was proudly sporting last night's hair AND makeup.  I knew, right that minute, that this was the type of poorly-hygiened girl I could be friends with.
And for her, that moment was when Cody and I saw her and her husband out after the aforementioned reunion, and a catty, inebriated girl said something rude to her.  I caught the tail end of the interaction, asked what had happened, and when I heard the story repeated, and had the rude girl in question pointed out to me (as she was ascending a set of stairs) I said "Oh HER?  I wouldn't worry about her - I saw her panties on the stairs and they are (earmuffs, guys) ugly period panties. Who wears panties like that if you're wearing a short dress and going up and down stairs?"  She knew right then that my judgey-undergarment ways would be a perfect friendship fit.

I connected with another one of my best friends when, only a short while after we had been introduced, we realized we had something major in common.  We both saw a crooked shelf and tried, valiantly, to continue our conversation and NOT fixate on the Horrible Crookedness of the shelf, but then, almost simultaneously, rushed over to fix the shelf, apologizing to one another and saying "it just drives me insane!"  "No, I know - it drives ME insane, too!"  "Oh my gosh, can you not stand for things to be even a tiny bit off"?  "No!  It makes my head go crazy!"  "Oh. My. Gosh."  And with that, a deep and abiding love was born, compliments of OCD.

And, back to the classroom where we were making curtains, my friend's friend (we'll call her M, for the sake of the story) told us one of the best stories I have ever heard about meeting a fellow soul-mate.  M was starting her teacher certification classes, and, as she entered her very first class of the whole program and sat down, started to feel nauseous.  She hoped, as many of us do, that the nausea would pass, and settled in to bravely try and tough it out.  As the class began, a girl came in and sat right beside her, giving M yet another reason to worry about whether or not her nausea was going to cause any...noticeable problems, and after about 10 minutes, M said she got that unmistakable "I'm gonna puke" feeling.  You know, your mouth starts watering, you get all clammy - it's not good.  So she leaned over to the girl next to her, and asked if she had any idea where the bathrooms were.  The girl said no, sorry, she didn't...and as she started to offer another suggestion, the moment was upon M and she had to jump up and run out of the classroom. Not knowing where the bathrooms were, M, in desperation, spotted a trash can about 10 feet down the hall from her classroom.  She sprinted to the trash can and threw up for about three full minutes into it.  And, as if to add insult to injury, it wasn't even a full-sized trash can.  It was a little guy, so M was actually on her knees in the hallway, holding this tiny trash can and puking her guts out, definitely in listening-range of her brand new classmates.  As she returned, humiliated, to the classroom and sat down at her desk, the girl next to her leaned over, said "I'm so sorry....do you want a piece of gum?"  And M knew they would be friends forever.

I've got a story like that (although none quite THAT great) about almost every friend I have.  Tell me your favorite "I just knew" moments.  Don't you find it fascinating?

Vimeo: Will This Be Love, Or Just A One Night Stand?

Clark Learning About Chanel from Elise Carter on Vimeo.

This is my precious nephew, Clark, on the Sunday after the 4th of July weekend.  I was delirious-tired, and Clark wanted my Chanel lipgloss.  I figured why not, and chalked it up to one of the (many) reasons I should be glad that I'm an aunt rather than a mom.

At the 0:48 mark you'll see Cody give me his signature "WHY are you doing this?" look.  I get this look all too often.

Oh, and my brother says I should edit out the sound, but it has taken me an embarrassing amount of time just to figure out how to get the footage from my camcorder to my computer with the audio and video intact, and then into an extension that ANY internet video program will read.  I am so far from knowing how to edit ANYTHING that if the sound bothers you, my suggestion would be to just turn the volume off.

I have a lot of video that I want to post in the next few days, and maybe somewhere in there I'll get the hang of editing.  One can only hope.  Well, YOU can only hope; you'll be the one suffering through unedited video otherwise.  Come to think of it, can any of you help me?  Suggestions in the box below!

Either That Montage Just Takes Forever Or I'm An Internet Idiot

So I feel like I have a good friend who I haven't talked to in a while, and all these things have happened since the last time we talked, and every time something new and/or crazy happens I think "oh my goodness, I NEED to tell Friend this!" but then I think that I cant tell Friend right now, because I don't have time for a conversation of that length.  I'll call tomorrow.

And then tomorrow comes, and more crazy events transpire, and somewhere around two weeks later I resurface from the insanity and think "AHHH, I still haven't talked to Friend!"  Now the conversation is going to take hours.

Well, you are that friend, Internet.  I have so many things to tell you that I honestly don't even know where to begin.  First of all let me say that this summer has, bar none, been the weirdest time of my entire life.  Secondly, I have absolutely no idea how to fit this into one post so I was thinking maybe I would do bullet points (the lazy person's listmaker) and you can weigh in on subjects you want to hear more about/seem the most interesting.  How 'bout it?  Because otherwise I can guarantee you that this will degenerate into a ridiculously long, rambling, disjointed mess of a post, and I honestly can't even say that I would read that.  

So let's all play along and here are the bullet points of things that have gone on since May that I need to tell you about and haven't (ETA: Now a numbered list with pictures!  Everyone has been doing that Flickr montage and while I wanted to do it too [and still may] at least you now get a numbered list with visual interest!):

1. Lost my appetite completely and with no warning; lost about 14 pounds in two months*
2. Spent a week and a half on vacation in Los Angeles - the first half by myself completely, and the second half surrounded by a whole host of interesting characters doing interesting things at interesting places
3. Quit eating fast food completely
4. Got the Death Flu but it only lasted two days, one of which was handily the date of the biggest event of the summer for my boutique, so that was fun
5. Went back to Los Angeles for work and ended up doing about two weeks worth of social stuff in three days time
6. Quit eating sugar almost completely
7. Met a girl while in LA who is from a tiny East Texas town about 35 miles from where I live - we knew many of the same people and remarked on how strangely small the world can be
8. Cody's dad started having major neck/spine issues, which quickly deteriorated to the point where he was partially paralyzed on the right side, leading everyone to completely freak out and him to get scheduled for emergency spinal surgery, which he had yesterday (7/1/08)
9. Cody's grandpa (his dad's dad) went into the SAME hospital on the SAME night as Cody's dad, because Grandpa BROKE HIS NECK - the neurologist got confused and saw the wrong patient because there were two Mr. Carters in the same hospital on the same night in for largely the same reason - felt like I was living in the Twilight Zone
10. Have become somewhat the main go-to person for Cody's grandpa because obviously Cody's mom and dad have been SOMEWHAT DISTRACTED, what with the partial paralysis and emergency spinal surgery and all
11. Quit eating most processed foods completely
12. Saw Alison Sweeney (Sami from Days of Our Lives, for the non-soap opera crowd) walking to her car and made fun of her because she was all dressed up and from a distance she looked like a teenager going to prom. At 4 in the afternoon on a Friday.  Then I saw who it actually was and thought "oh good, she isn't a skinny little stick!" She looks normal
13. Went to a Death Cab for Cutie concert randomly; it was weird
14. Went on several hikes
15. Missed my friends at home while I was gone; wished that I could intermingle my worlds - move my house and friends out to a big city or move the city here
16. Became hopelessly and totally re-addicted to chips and salsa.  Weight loss of past two months is being reversed almost solely by the power of corn and tomatoes
17. Went out to a whole host of places in and around Los Angeles; some uber trendy, some kind of underground, some in between
18. Have learned an awful lot about neck braces, how they work, and how they DON'T work
19. Have consumed my weight x3 in green tea
20. Celebrated Cody's birthday with a really fun night of live music outside IN MY HOMETOWN, can you believe it?  Because I can't
21. Hosted three (THREE) baby showers
22. Have done yoga almost every day
23. Went to a "recycled" clothing store in Studio City with my sister-in-law and came away with three pairs of high-end shoes, two shirts, a pair of linen trousers, and a pair of straight-leg designer jeans and spent less than $150.  Wow
24. Figured out that my dog ate half a square of Baker's Chocolate, had a mild freak out and then realized it would be yet another item to add to my Vet Bills Spreadsheet - watch out, OPH! (And RA - are you proud of me for having a spreadsheet?)
25. Watched helplessly as my house (both outside and now in) has become inundated with tiny ants - have been plotting and will wage Ant War Strike I this evening
26. Have been doing about 18 loads of laundry and (#27) cleaning house to get ready for our annual 4th of July lake extravaganza where any and everyone we know comes to town to hang out, float in the lake, (#28) drink adult beverages, play volleyball, mess around on boats and jetskis, and have an all around awesome (#29) Texas lake celebration. Come!
27. (Actually #30 - THANKS FOR NOTHING, AUTOFORMAT) Got to see my best friend and her brand new baby girl on the day she gave birth.  So sweet

Want to know details about any of the above?  Let me know in the comments!  I'll be happy to spin a long, rambling tale about any of those events.  Had your fill?  That's fine too - just enjoy the pictures because that montage took FOREVER.  What is with people "not subscribing" to the Flickr mosaic maker?  DON'T THEY KNOW HOW LONG I SEARCHED FOR THAT PICTURE?

*I wish I could take credit for some incredible measure of self-control I used to quit the sugar, fast food, etc.  Unfortunately for me, I have no such self-control and the only reason I was able to get out of those bad eating habits was because I had already lost my appetite and therefore felt no desire to eat ANYTHING, including my beloved fast food.  Once you get out of the habit it's not so hard, and so thanks to extreme amounts of stress, I have become a healthier eater.  I should write a dieting book.  It could be alternately titled "How To Develop An Eating Disorder".

Oh, I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Every once in a while, the clouds part, the sun shines down on you, and you open the cabinet doors in your bathroom to find that you have almost an entire 18 pack of toilet paper just waiting to be used.

Even better, you find that you've got someone waiting on you outside the bathroom doors, someone who is going to be at least as excited as you are to have reams of the white stuff at your disposal.

Double bonus if the "someone" is actually "several someones".  And triple bonus if the someones, after hearing your retelling of the infamous Neighbor Letter incident, decide that the ONLY appropriate rebuttal is to wrap the offending neighbors' house.  At 4am.

And this, my friends, is how you find yourself sprinting frantically down your street, giggling manically, trailing toilet paper, and leaving a decidedly UN-subtle trail of footprints in the flour you accidentally dumped all over the sidewalk.

It's how you find yourself hosting spontaneous dance competitions, recorded for all of posterity on video camera and set to an all-80's music theme.

It's how you find yourself one of three girls, sitting shoulder to shoulder in an empty bathtub, talking about (EARMUFFS, family members) sex after marriage.  And forgetting that the whole reason you went into the bathroom in the first place was to try and remove an errant thorn, stuck in the foot of one of these girls when she dashed across the street to ring the doorbell of your (fun, not evil) neighbors eight or nine times.  Just to see what would happen.

It's how you find yourself bundled up in blankets on a pallet on the floor, watching a string of bad movies on a Friday-night lay-in.  And then covering your faces with a blanket and screaming that the last and worst of the spectacularly bad movies (Mysterious Skin, by the way - HOW IS THIS MOVIE NOT BREAKING EVERY CHILD PORNOGRAPHY LAW OUT THERE? have any of you seen this??) be turned off immediately before the images broke our brains forever.  And then laughing hysterically at the horribleless of all three movies whilst retreating to the back porch to sit, still bundled in our blankets, and talk about whatever happens to cross our minds.

It's how a catch phrase of "don't judge me, but..." can become both a joke and an avenue to talk about any and everything.

And it all started with a common dislike of personal hygiene.  If that isn't a recipe for friendship success, then I don't want to know what is.

Tell me, what crazy things brought you together with your friends?

Yet Another Reason Why A Baby Is Nowhere In The Foreseeable Future

Meet the newest member of the family:

Six-week old German Shepherd puppy, name is Lydah, and she is like the Queen Eminent of Barking and Yipping Really Loud All Night Long.

So, I'm kind of a zombie right now.  In fact, every time I type "now", I end up typing "nit", which, while it seems like a great word and everything, and is fun to say (NIT!  Try it!) isn't really what I mean at all.

I need puppy training tips.  Especially on getting them to sleep through the night and not like, ruining-them-forever kind of tips.  There are, umm, I don't know - MILLIONS of tips for doing these things, all over the Internet and in books.  Hundreds, and hundreds of books.  Did you know that?  "Don't ruin your puppy," they all proclaim, "it's harder than you think!"   "You're stupid," they shout, "and likely not to handle this well!"

But she's just so dadgum cute. 

Still, help?  Seriously.

Also, All I Had For A Blanket Was My Discarded Bridesmaid Dress

No more giant fuzzy bangs picture.  Enough of you!

Ahh.  That's better.  Now I've just got to think of something to say.  Actually, I've got plenty to say.  My little brother-in-law, who might as well be my real brother given the sheer amount of time I've spent with him over the past 10 years, got married a little over a month ago.  And then my actual brother got married the following weekend.  And then there was Mardi Gras in Lafayette, and then we went to Galveston and came back home where I painted the chairs a horrible army green and then a darker brown and then a creamy eggnog.  And then I went to Los Angeles for market.  And now I'm back home and I haven't really written about any of that, except for Galveston which, although it was certainly the most relaxing event out of the list, wasn't really the most blogworthy.

Or was it?  (Apparently, yes.  Yes, it was.)

I have been waiting to do my wedding recap posts until I've seen all the pictures from both weddings.  I think we can all agree that weddings aren't nearly as interesting sans-illustration, unless they were disasters and someone left someone at the altar, or someone passed out in the middle of the ceremony,  or a drunk uncle went around groping all the bridesmaids - all things, I would imagine, that you wouldn't really want recorded for all of posterity.  But since nothing like that happened and both weddings were gorgeous and fun, I figured pictures would be the way to go.  Besides, all of the sister-in-laws I've been busily collecting over the past few years are so dadgum cute, it would be a shame not to plaster their cuteness all over the Internet.  Also, I haven't asked permission.  So that's out.

Mardi Gras, well, that was just a big whirlwind of tiredness, since we had just spent the last 4 days in Los Angeles getting ready for, participating in, and somewhat directing the reception of my brother's wedding, and the weekend prior we had spent in Arkansas (yes, Arkansas) participating in my brother-in-law's wedding.  We left the Los Angeles wedding at about 10:30pm on a Saturday night, drove straight to LAX, hopped on a red-eye flight to Lafayette via Houston, and proceeded to Mardi Gras like rockstars.  Except that I am SO not a rockstar, because really, the cross-country party circuit is, well, tiring, and I think it sounds better on paper. 

"Yeah, we partied in Arkansas (replace with cooler state for more impact), and then went straight to Los Angeles for like a week-long party and then took an overnight flight to Lafayette for Mardi Gras and partied there all weekend.  It was wicked, dude."

Instead of:

"Ugh.  This carpet is freaking uncomfortable and it's FREEZING in here.  Do they not know it is 35 degrees out?  Oh, is that the heater going on?  I smell that heater smell.....ahhhh....oh.
(Heat from heater sets off some sort of airport emergency alarm)
Oh no. 
(Ear-splitting noise) 
Make it stop.  I have had no sleep for approximately two weeks, it is 6am, I am lying on the FLOOR of the airport in Houston, and there is an ALARM going off that is rattling the inside of my already hung-over skull.  Do we really have to do Mardi Gras?  Look, if you pull the backpack over your head like this, you can hardly hear the alarm anymore. I think we should just stay here and sleep."

Yeah.  You never hear Paris Hilton saying that.

Back In the Saddle Again

It's kind of hard to spit out the witty and intelligent prose you people are used to getting from me (ha!) while my new kitten* crawls all over me and I have the Back In the Saddle chorus going through my head incessantly. 
Also: the not-so-new-kitten, now more of a mildly obese cat, keeps hissing evilly.  Not at me, but at the new kitten and then when that doesn't work, inanimate objects as she sees fit.

I am, however, back in the proverbial saddle.  I am writing again (can't argue with that, eh?), I am taking more interest in taking care of myself (going to get my hair cut and something done with it after...6...8...12? months of doing absolutely nothing), and I have not so much crawled as been YANKED out of my black hole of semi-depression and unhappiness.  This all happened last week, as I traveled to Los Angeles for the Last Hurrah of the store.

There's not much I can say to concisely explain the Store Situation, but in an attempt to sum it up, I will say that it has been an Experience to out-experience all others.  It has been awful, it has been wonderful, and above all, it has been DIFFICULT.  Difficult to the point of being basically impossible; an uphill battle that we could never win; a web of deception from which we are STILL trying to extricate ourselves.  That's the wordy emotional short-descript, the logical numbers-based explanation is that the previous owners told us, our accountants, our attorneys, and the IRS that the store was grossing a certain amount per year in sales, and we bought THAT store.  You know, the one that was grossing A CERTAIN AMOUNT PER YEAR IN SALES.  Actually what we got though, was some other store completely, one that was NOT EVER grossing that certain amount per year in sales.  So we bought a dying business, one that the previous owners were trying desperately to get out from under, and when they discovered that no one wanted to BUY a dying business, decided that hey, I bet people might want to buy a thriving business!  Let's just lie! 

And it worked.

We are dumb.  But not really, that is one of the mindsets that got me OUT of the saddle in the first place.  That and truly believing that the store and all the misery it has caused was all MY fault, that somehow I could have known what two accountants and an attorney and the US government didn't know, that I convinced by so much arm-twisting my father and brother-in-law and his wife to participate in this business endeavor, and that now that the business is failing that it is ALL MY FAULT, EVERYTHING IS ALL MY FAULT, I HAVE CAUSED SO MUCH PAIN FOR EVERYONE AND I AM A TERRIBLE, STUPID PERSON.

Isn't that an impressive amount of self-confidence?

But the facts of the matter (when I choose to recognize them and step out of my world of self-depreciating guilt) are that I never convinced anyone to participate in the business, they all saw the same numbers I did and WANTED to do it.  The fact is, I didn't go to school to be a CPA, our accountants did, and I, although I had plans to go, have not been to law school either.  But our attorneys have!  And they all believed in the business as well.  We all saw the same balance sheets, all saw the same financial statements, and all researched and believed the made-up statistics. It was a good trick.  And we all equally bought into the business, AKA the Lie-To-End-All-Lies.

Another fact is that we have now had the store for over a year, and our sales have been excellent.  We have done better this past year than the previous owners had done in quite a few years.  Everyone told us to expect our first year to be the hardest; to expect lower sales; to give ourselves a learning curve.  But we went ahead and blew all of that out of the water, bringing in new merchandise, giving the store a major and much-needed face lift, and adding an entire GENERATION to our demographic.  We have kicked proverbial ass.

But it isn't enough.  We started in such a hole behind such a boulder up against such a wall (of cliches, apparently) that we would have had to do better than the previous owners EVER did, by quite a large margin, to even BREAK EVEN.  What a great deal, right?

So back to the Last Hurrah, the one I had last week in Los Angeles.  Basically, unless something miraculous happens (i.e., the legal system actually WORKING), the store is going down.  And I have been in quite a funk about it.  I have had a really hard time understanding how to be happy about a situation that has been nothing but bad, worse, and even worse.  How can I not live a life of stress and misery when nearly every day I get MORE bad news?  How am I supposed to smile and gracefully accept no paycheck, no respite, no justice for over a year now?

Well, the answer is that I was seeking the wrong answers.  There are no answers to those questions.  Or maybe those answers exist, somewhere, but they aren't known to me or anyone else on this earth.  The questions I should have been asking are not WHY or HOW or WHAT DO I DO.  Who cares why this happened to me, or to my brother-in-law, or to his wife, or to my dad?  Who cares how I am supposed to be happy in these circumstances?  Who cares about what I'm supposed to do with no paycheck or any of the financial security that it might bring?

I drove myself into a very dark place by asking those questions, and the only way I have FINALLY begun to see the light again is by my brother and his girlfriend telling me to get over myself.

What's the big deal? they asked.  Why are you letting yourself be so miserable?  So you bought a business, and it's not going so great.  Well, you must be the first person who's had that happen, right?  Oh, well, then, you MUST be the only person who has ever had financial struggles.  No?  The only person ever who has wondered why God placed them smack in the middle of a mess?  Hmmm.  Then maybe, just MAYBE, it's not that big of a deal.

So what, if the store goes down?  Have you tried your best?  Have you done everything you could possibly do?  So what if you have to face your worst-case-scenario: filing bankruptcy, corporately?  That will almost certainly NOT happen, but even if it does?  So what!  Are you dead?  Are you going to ever be able to recover?  Are you, at the ripe old age of 25, going to ever be able to build your financial history back up again?

I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful house that we built ourselves, a great and supportive family, a God who loves me and promises to take care of me, and a business experience gone bad.

So I spent last week in Los Angeles, buying what might very well be my last round of inventory for the store, and getting great and much needed guidance from the Lord, through my brother and his girlfriend.

I am going down with the ship, people.  I have tried my best at the store, and I will continue trying my best as it either thrives or fails in these next few months.  Because it might thrive, it really might.  We have a great shop, great merchandise, and a year of really good sales to build upon.  But if it fails, I will be the last one on the helm of that ship, standing proud, knowing that there was absolutely nothing I did wrong, and nothing I could have done differently to prevent the sinking.

*2 year anniversary present from my husband, who HATES cats passionately.  I guess he likes me after all.