Small Businesses and Government Contracts

On Monday the Wall Street Journal published an article on small businesses and the government's stimulus contracts that caught my attention. It is about the owner of a small publishing-services company that is pursuing government contracts. Titled Small Businesses Chase Big Stimulus Money the article explains what is to be expected when pursuing government contracts and what the outlook is for small businesses looking for those contracts.

Something that caught my eye, as a woman who owns a small business, is that the federal government has a goal each year to award 23% of its procurement dollars to small businesses. And one of their targets is for women-owned businesses. To find out more about this check out the article at the Wall Street Journal linked to above.

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.