Things are getting tough…

They say the first year of a new business start up is the hardest. I can’t imagine things being much harder than they are right now.
Tracy and I are both maxed out, and there are no more hours in the day to allow us to do more. We have some ideas about how to grow sales, but neither of us have any time to implement them. Tracy is up at 4:00am, works until 3:00pm at the shop, and picks up the boys from school just after 3:00. She then has the evening responsibilities of having the kids do their homework, getting dinner together for the boys, doing some laundry and dishes, and whatever other home tasks pop up on a day to day basis. She and the kids go to bed around 8:00 to 8:30pm.
I’ve posted my schedule and it is pretty crazy, starting at about 6:00am and ending 21 hours later at 3:00am. We are both really strong people and we are willing to put in the hard work necessary, but we would like see the light at the end of the tunnel. Right now, it is still dark! On top of everything we have going on, we need to empty out our 1200 sq ft ‘storage’ for the shop, as well as do some things at the rental house. The property manager gave us an unoccupied 1200 sq ft unit to use for storage during construction and start up. It is still full of left over construction materials, bar stools, equipment that we demo’d that is good stuff, but not needed for the shop (about 20 commercial light fixtures, extra construction wood/lumber, extra Maple and Padauk woodwork stock, extra slate floor tile, extra wood flooring, etc, etc, etc… Intellitec is going to move into and utilize several unused units for additional classrooms, so I have to get all of that out of there by February 29th. As for the rental house, I have a 625 sq ft wood working shop stuffed full of equipment and wood stock. It is all too expensive to get rid of, so I am going to have to put it in storage for now. The immediate need is for me to spend some time to get all of my tools and equipment out of the house and attached garage and move it to the shop (detached). Once the house is sold, I will need to move all of that to storage.
We also have taxes looming, Jonah’s birthday party coming up, we are working in the church nursery this weekend, we have sick kids, etc, etc, etc…

I’m not listing all of these things to whine or complain. I’m just listing these things to document how hard it is right now. If you are starting a business or thinking about doing so, you can plan on some rough times for sure…
When I look back on my life, the memories of the hard times are never as difficult as the actual experience. Difficult times make you stronger in the end. Your memories are buffered by the strength and confidence you built through those difficult experiences. We remember hard times, but I don’t think we continue to ‘feel’ how hard things were when you were actually going through those experiences. OK, I just read the last paragraph and it is not easy to follow. I’m having a hard time putting this into words.

Anyway, Tracy and I are going to keep at it. There will come a time when we will appreciate what we have gone through. We will gain strength, confidence, and pride from this, regardless of how things turn out. Right now, though, it is hard. Very hard. Please keep us in your prayers.

The bible says we are to rejoice in our tribulations and difficulties, because that is where we build perseverance, and that is where character comes from, and eventually hope. OK, I paraphrased that and probably botched it, but I don’t have the time to look it up right now. I think it is in Romans 5???

OK, I looked it up anyway, and I was correct. It is Romans 5.
Here are the verses:
3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

So anyway, I hope this post makes sense to someone out there… It probably sounds like the ramblings of a madman. Overall summary… things are hard, keep us in our prayers, but we still have positive attitudes and we are optimistic, and we have the determination to keep going…

Take care and God bless…
JD