Second Saturday Market is another bust before it was even a go

Okay, here it is, Saturday, the day before Mother's Day, the day when I should have had my best sale of the year on quilts and I am sitting at home with dad rather than being able to get up to the Saturday Market that I had planned to be able to be in my second week of selling quilts at.

To say that I am annoyed would be an understatement, since it is pure family politics crap that has curtailed things. It has also given me and dad a renewed determination to prove people wrong in their estimation of my goals. I want to make quilts to help me in paying off the mortgage on my parents house, a effort that I have been told is nothing but a fanciful daydream that is doomed to leave me disappointed in the form of my losing the house one day (soon according to those saying I can't save it).

My mom taught me that you don't give up when you see something that you really want, however, and I am not about to give up on this house.

Mom encouraged my writing over the years, and she was immensely proud of the ability I had developed to earn money by writing online. She taught me that anything worth doing is worth doing right, and that any dream was within reach if only I wanted to reach for it. I'm going to reach for this house, and I intend to grasp it with both hands and hold fast. The naysayers be damned.

So, since with nothing more than an ATV as transportation I can not haul dad up to the park in Houston at 8am every Saturday, and keep him there until after 9pm, I have decided that I am going to bypass the local Saturday Market angle and sort out other avenues for selling my quilts. I'm not sure what all I am going to do, yet, but I have the determination and drive to make this happen. Let's see if that is enough.

First Saturday Market looms

Tomorrow is my first Saturday Market and I am so far from being ready it is not even funny. To make matters worse, the water heater won't work, I'm going to have to sort that out in addition to getting everything else ready tonight. ::pounds head on desk::

The past couple of days were messed up and I lost at least one full day because of that chaotic disaster, but I won't say anything about it all here. This is about my business, so I'll keep to the topic. One SNAFU is that night before last I busted my glasses riding back home on my ATV after delivering medications for my dad to my sister's place. Dark trail, fogged 12 year old glasses, loose lens... and a rock. I found 2 small pieces of the lens. Be a while before I'll be able to afford new glasses.

Tomorrow should be interesting without glasses to see what I'm doing. At least I can see things that are close up, if I squint a lot.

Tonight I need to get together samples of my quilting (having fun finding that without being able to see), my quilting books so people can have idea sources, print up some contracts and quilt design pages, print some business cards, print "Display only, not for sale" cards for the things I take as samples... and I am not sure what all else. Thankfully the stuff is mostly made up on computer and just needs printed. Don't wanna squint at computer screen making things.

Might, if I have time, make some trifolds that people can take, dunno yet.

My plan for tomorrow is basically show what I have (but won't sell cause they're already spoken for) and see if anyone's interested in ordering things. I have a few things to sell, but am mainly on a mission to see if my plan for a "You design it, I'll build it" quilting business would work or not, so all I really need is things to show what my craftsmanship is like and some stuff for folks to use for enlisting my services to make them a quilt.

Might take some of my handbound books and stuff I've made from Polymer clay along, dunno yet though. I'll have to take it all on my ATV, since car I had been gonna use ain't here no more (long story).

Need to get back to work now, will post info on what happened when I get home tomorrow.

Almost forgot.... I can't get ahold of my sister - I have no idea if I have anyone to take care of dad while I'm at the Saturday Market or not. Her husband made it sound last night like they weren't going to be able to take him, even though she'd said a week and a half ago it was a given they take him all Saturdays this summer. :::pounds head on desk:::

Follow Along in My New Business Startup

Have you ever considered starting your own home based business but had no idea what might be involved in such a venture? I am going to be starting a new business in May, and I would like to invite everyone to come along for the ride as I weed my way through how to do it.

Some of the things I need to leap through will not apply to you, of course, and there are some that will apply to any new business venture. My goal with this business is to figure out how I can work from home in order to earn an income that will allow me to be fully self sufficient, and still let me provide the full-time in-home caregiver support that my father needs.

As a full-time caregiver I can not work outside the home, but I want to be able to be fully self sufficient and eventually be able to buy my parents home out from the mortgage company that currently holds it so I will be able to one day own the home as my mother had wanted. (That is a long story and better suited to another blog, so just know that is my goal: self sufficiency and home ownership.)

The business that I have decided to start is a Quilt and Crafts business, to allow me to tap into my passion for quilting and crafting. I have a plan to take exploratory steps in the first two weeks of May, researching market options and participating in the first Saturday Market of the year near where I live.

I have signed up to participate in a small business seminar provided by the Alaska Small Business Development Center and will be attending that on May 13th, with a start date for my business on May 14th (In honor of my mother's 75th birthday).

So, this is a formal invitation for everyone to follow along, and participate in commenting on, my new business venture as a home based quilter and crafter. Wish me luck!

Porn industry asking for $5 billion bailout

Okay, if the porn industry is getting a bailout, how about the home based business owners of America? I mean, come on! The porn industry? Larry Flynt (Hustler Magazine) and Joe Francis (Girls Gone Wild).

Don Lemon at CNN did some looking and he says that Flynt has had sales this past year in excess of $300 million, Francis had sales in excess of $100 million. He also cornered Francis on if the guy or Flynt had laid off anyone and got mostly stammers and a few "no"s in answer.

I think a case could be made for small home based businesses needing to have a bailout - particularly those who are at risk of losing their homes in the mortgage crisis. There would go not only a place to live, but a business. Double blow to the small business owner and home buyer.

So come on, Congress, bail out the people that really need it. Forget giving a $5 billion dollar bailout to the Porn industry, instead give say $100,000 to 50,000 home based business owners. I suggest that they have to be ones that have filed business taxes for at least a year to prevent a sudden flare of home based businesses, but I think if we gave a bailout to 50,000 home based business owners we would see a significant boost to the American economy. Don't you?

The cost of not working at home

As though we needed any more reason to work at home, think about the rising gas prices. Last month Fox News 5 in Las Vegas did some calculations and that they determined is that it costs a lot to drive to work. In fact, according to their website entry How Much Does It Cost To Drive To Work? workers across America pay anywhere from $14.13 to $55.33 to commute from the suburbs into the city of sampled metropolitan areas. Note that I said from the suburbs to the city, that is for a one way ride. If you want to get back home at the end of your work day you need to double that amount. $28.26 to $110.66 to drive to work and back home for a single day.

And that was when the gas prices averaged $3.76 per gallon, now they are over $4.00 a gallon and rising.

This means that before the gas price increase it was costing people who lived in the suburbs and worked 5 days a week in the city anywhere from $141.30 to $553.30 every week to drive to work and back. That's a serious chunk of the paycheck just to get to work and back home at night. And it does not include car maintenance, oil, transmission fluid, windshield washer fluid, brake fluid, gas additives, tires... the list goes on and gets quite expensive by the time you sit back and look at what it is you are paying to commute to work each year.

No wonder more and more people are looking for ways that they can make money from home.

Getting organized for tax season

It is almost time to get taxes started. I got another 1099 the other day, so I have began getting things organized in my antique secretarial cabinet for my taxes so that it will be easier. This is a plan that I really wish I had schemed up last year, so that I would have all of my receipts tucked away in there this year, as it is I need to dig out the folders, envelopes and boxes that I have tucked them into over the past year. Not to mention rummage into my purse and desk drawer and briefcase for anything that was not yet accounted for. Next year I will be ready. I want to create a perfectly organized accounting center in my secretarial and will share tips and information on that here as I work on it. Maybe next year we can all be a little more organized and ready for tax season.