Enjoy.

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I know I�m long overdue for a proper entry, where I talk about myself and my life and what�s actually been happening around me, but I just haven�t wanted to. Mostly it was the no time/too tired/can�t be bothered factor, but partly there was the element of �there�s mostly been just one thing going on lately, and it consumes most of our time and conscious thought, so why on Earth would I want to then sit down and write about it?�

And no, I haven�t popped out a sprog.

Daniel and I � well, mostly Daniel � started a printing business a couple of months ago. He runs it and I work a �normal� job. We have been living on just one income (mine), and with that money we have to feed ourselves, pay bills, buy birthday and Christmas presents, pay the mortgage and do various other depressing-sounding grown-up words. Having a business is great of course, and we do have a few decent clients including one major chain of shopping centres, but there has been so much to do and so much money to outlay, and of course there is that very common problem of money not coming in from customers soon enough for us to be able to use it to pay bills. Yup, typical new-business cash flow issues. It�s settling down but it is still a bit rocky.

Interestingly, Daniel and I have discovered an underground organisation that has been all around us all this time but we never learnt of its existence until we started up our own business. We haved named it The Small Business Club, and membership requirements are as follows:

1) Must own/run a small business.
2) Must be prepared to discuss it with a total stranger who also runs a small business, because that�s just the warm and fuzzy nature of capitalism, isn�t it? Bringing people together, gathering them round and screaming, �GROUP HUG!�

An example of The Club in action is the bond I have formed with the guy who comes round in his (very swish) little van every day selling fancy coffee. To everyone else he�s just The Coffee Guy. To me he�s Hugo and he has had to refinance his home loan to set up this operation. He is concerned about the recent interest rate rises because it means an increase in his cost to repay the business�s setup expenses. His business actually has three branches, not just selling coffee, so that there are more ways of bringing in income � very important in a new business. He and his business partner set up a partnership and a company for this operation, and I was impressed with their planning in the way they have distributed their assets so that even if the company folds, their equipment cannot be seized. A friend of his owns a printing company that does the kind of printing we don�t do, so they could be a useful contact if ever we need to outsource a job, or vice versa.

I know all this because suddenly I am taking an active interest in other people�s businesses and how they run them. I never thought there would be a day when I would care what kind of business structure a complete stranger had, but I guess I really have become that boring. At his juncture I would normally make a not-funny joke about going off to rearrange my sock drawer (because that�s what boring people do, right?), but I don�t have a sock drawer so not only is that not funny, it isn�t even plausible.

I suck.

Anyway, I�m not going to list all the little problems that have popped up � from Daniel�s ex-boss trying to destroy his reputation (but not succeeding) to our hard-learned lesson in the difference between dye inks and pigment inks to the very real possibility that we are going to have to �sack� a good customer � because they�re inconvenient but minor. We�re surviving, the business is growing and neither of us regrets for a moment the decision to do it. Plus we have had an incredible amount of help from so many people, especially Daniel�s parents (who ran a successful business for years), and it�s really encouraging to know that so many people have faith in this business.

In other news, my car farted white smoke the other day and then overheated, and it turned out that this meant it had blown the head gasket. I pretty much knew this right away because this is not the first rustbucket I have driven so I am familiar with the standard rustbucket repertoire of quirks that cost money. Still, I called the roadside assistance people and the guy who came round took one look under the bonnet and immediately proclaimed it to be so. Thou hast blown the Head Gasket, said he, and art thou sure that thou deemst this Carre to be worth fyxinge?

(Yes, it�s true, John Donne himself came round to look at my car.)

So now I am sans car, a situation that is unlikely to change for a few days until this one gets its new freaking motor put in. For now I�m driving Daniel�s car, so look out world, I�m driving a manual!

Had a great weekend though. I spent almost all of it with Daniel, which is rare but pleasant. I spent half of Saturday tidying and cleaning (perversely satisfying, particularly since it had been put off for weeks because we�ve been so busy and tired lately) while he went in to work to get a couple of fancy new things set up, and then we went to this relatively secluded beach � one that only us snobby locals know about � for a swim and some sunshine, came home, talked for a while, had some grown-up fun, talked more, went out for dinner (because to my surprise we could actually afford to) and then watched half a movie before crashing. I can�t remember the last time I felt so relaxed.

We spent a few hours on Sunday just cooking � about two weeks� worth of dinners so that we could freeze them in single-serve portions and not have to worry about what to cook for a while. Our fridge and freezer are now full of pumpkin soup, pasta sauces, marinated chicken drumsticks, sausages, tiny bite-size pieces of baked potato (great to nuke up and eat as a snack, especially with chicken salt) and whatever else it was that we made. After that we did various other crap together, mostly related to The Business and Our Failing Home Plumbing (things are leaking everywhere at the moment), but fun because we did them together.

As if this entry wasn�t already long enough, I can�t remember whether I�ve already mentioned that I joined WIRES a couple of months ago. So far I have rescued a juvenile currawong, which we released the next day into the tree where its mother was, and picked up two young noisy miners from a vet before passing them on to someone who could look after them (they need to be hand-fed regularly, which is a bit awkward when you work full-time).

And now I have been typing for way too long and I am sick of it. More stuff has happened (a wedding in Kangaroo Valley, my birthday, a 60th birthday down near Nowra, probably some snowboarding, a long weekend at the farm at Taralga�) but I am just too damn lazy. So feel free to go and imagine what happened, or to write a little story about how you think things went and send it to me, or to just not care. I will be right here, staring at my screen at work and playing Solitaire.

OK. Three days later I still haven�t uploaded this thing onto Diaryland, so here�s more. On Tuesday (the day after I wrote that entry) I showed up at Daniel�s office to pick him up, since I am driving his car until mine�s fixed, and he said he�d be another half-hour. No worries; I started to help out.

By 10PM we were still there, stressed, tired and � stressed. This one stupid sign just didn�t want to work out right, and because we were tired, things just kept going wrong. We had already both had horrible days at work, plus four or so hours of extra awfulness with this ONE. STUPID. F@#*ING. SIGN.

Since then everything has improved again. I just felt the need to share the roller coaster ride that is Running A Business.