Nemo’s…

Last year our sales took a dive towards the end of October, worsened around Thanksgiving, continued to decline through Christmas, stayed soft in January 2008, and finally began to rebound in February. This year, October was our best month of sales ever, breaking the $15,000 for the first time! November 08 has continued to show strong sales compared to last year. We are consistently showing $650 to $775 days, with an occasional $500 - $600 weak day thrown into the mix. Considering the horrible economic outlook and dreary financial news we are being inundated with daily, we are especially happy with Nemo’s performance. However, we are taking things one day at a time, knowing that the sour economic news could impact us at anytime. All we know to do is continue to provide top notch quality product, excellent customer service, and to continue strongly in our faith that God knows best. God continues to provide, and we are very content with that, even though we are not paying ourselves. Tracy works incredibly hard without reward, other than her own satisfaction in a job done better than expected. We have our hopes that the economic crisis will eventually pass, and that our sales will climb as a result. For now, we are patient, diligent, humble, grateful, thankful, and trusting…

As for my recovery, I get better every day. I no longer take Motrin, and I do OK throughout the day. In my past, I typically ignored pain and continued with my life, regardless of my injuries/condition. I can’t count the number of times I ripped stitches out playing sports (when I was NOT supposed to be active following knee/ankle surgeries, etc)… I’m not nearly as tough as I used to be, but I think I have weathered this injury pretty well. Going back to work just 10 days after re-breaking my clavicle was a real challenge, but I survived it. Today is four weeks of healing. I have loosened my sling, and I’ve started supporting the weight of my arm with my muscles/collar bone. It is painful, but I’m very much in tune with how much stress and strain I can put on it without causing any damage. I tried to open a new jar of grape jelly yesterday, but I couldn’t do it. I felt the strain on my broken clavicle and gave up prior to hurting it. I am still injured and severely limited in what I can do, but I’m getting there!

As I mentioned before, I was forced to watch a great deal of TV while I was immobilized. That goes against the grain for me, and most of it was poor quality content. I enjoyed watching various shows with Gordon Ramsey. He is rough around the edges, but he is absolutely brilliant! He knows how to get people to perform at his level of expectations, and he does so in a very short period of time. If I were to make a list of 10 people I would like to meet, he would certainly be on the list. Some others would be Glenn Beck, Norm Abrams, ummmm… that’s all I can think of. I don’t care too much about celebrities, but there are a few who I think are quite remarkable. Well, three anyway.

Gotta run.
JD