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Beggars at Wal-Mart
Wyoming is beyond rural. About the only reason people come here when they have nothing, is on their way through. We’ve lived here 13 years, and have never seen a summer like this one.
We spent 3 years driving monthly to Denver for cancer treatment for our son. As we came off the freeway, there were sometimes people with signs standing at the end of the on-ramp where the light required the cars to stop. We were never prepared with more than the day’s needs, but we talked about what we might do if we could, and prayed for their wellbeing. They were an unusual sight to us, such a thing was extraordinarily rare in Wyoming.
A few years ago we began seeing the first people standing outside Wal-Mart in Laramie, where the driveway meets the street. It was still unusual enough we didn’t think about it much. We never saw it more than one or two times a year. But we thought about what we could do. Money wasn’t an option, we didn’t have it. Usually groceries were enough for the next week or so, and that was all. We don’t buy snack foods, or other quick fix, so there was rarely anything we could share that would help – I mean, an uncooked potato isn’t going to help you if you don’t have a stove.
This summer, it seemed they were everywhere. In every major town in Wyoming, there was a good chance you’d see someone standing on the corner, somewhere, holding a sign, or just standing there, hoping. I don’t like calling them “beggars”. Sometimes there just isn’t another single word that defines someone standing on the corner asking for help though.
LDS Doctrine teaches us that we should give as much as we are able, without judging. No matter what got them there, we are supposed to help. After all, everybody does stupid things that get them somewhere they didn’t expect to end up, and most of us need some help to pull ourselves out so we can change for the better.
We’ve always tried to be generous, but I don’t think we ever took it into the “give till it hurts” realm. We didn’t sacrifice to help. Sometime over the last year, we decided that we’d give EVERY time, if there was any way to do so. Most of the time, this summer, it has been easy. Squeezing out a bit more for someone else hasn’t even taken thought.
The last few weeks have been lean. We finally got a small paycheck today, with just enough money to pay a couple of obligations and get groceries for a few more days. We had the money budgeted and there was not room to add one more thing – in fact, we’d already scratched off some things we really could use. We have plenty of food in the house, we were just missing key items that we really needed.
As we neared Wal-Mart, we saw a figure on the corner. We didn’t bother to read the sign, that he was there was enough. I knew there was no money to do anything. Then I just said to the kids, “If we help him, we have to do without something. What are we going to scratch off our list?” We decided to eliminate the noodles – the kids were perfectly willing to do so, which was cool. We can do without noodles, since we have plenty of rice and potatoes, and we can make noodles if we really want them. That gave us just enough to get some crackers and cheese, and some hot chocolate mix. They went into a separate bag, and our daughter handed them out the window as we pulled up to the stop sign before leaving the parking lot.
I think this, more than anything, tells me we’ve entered a new era. One where we must not take certain things for granted. That people are on the corner begging in Wyoming is an alarming thing. That they are here in numbers high enough for us to notice, and feel that if we want to help each time we have the opportunity that we must always be prepared to do so, is significant.
And that is exactly what we’ve decided. We’ve decided that we want to be prepared to help, in whatever small way we can. That we never be unwilling to do SOMETHING, even if it is a tiny thing like cheese and crackers and hot chocolate mix. It has changed something in me. It has changed how I think about what I have, and what I need. It has made me want to be something more than I am.
The changing times hold much uncertainty. But I also think they hold many opportunities for us to better ourselves, and to help make our own corner of the world a little less selfish one.
Living Life in a Blur
The last few weeks have passed in a blur. Some good things, some hard ones, some absolutely unmanageable ones. I can blame it on my broken glasses – one of the absolutely unmanageable things. Everything is a blur, regardless of the speed at which it passes!
They are old glasses, ones I’ve been trying to get a few more months out of. No insurance, so they have to be budgeted for. Cleaning them one morning, the lens fell out. One minute I was circling the cloth on the lens, the next moment the lens lay in my hand. No pop, no resistance, it just lay there. I immediately thought to pop it back in (the logical impulse). The frame was broken, and no impulse was going to make that lens stick. It broke where the top of the frame connects to the nosepiece – it was not the nosepiece that broke, it was the top of the frame. Unrepairable.
My mother helpfully suggested tape… I love my mother, but I still can’t believe she seriously suggested this, even if the break HAD been in a place where the tape would conceivably hold the pieces together.
Ok, so I have no pride where some things are concerned, I’ll drive an old car and not feel bad about it. But taped glasses on a 40+ year old woman are completely incompatible with any SEMBLANCE of a professional image! She suggested this the day I was invited to present at the Idea Expo. Yeah, that’s just what I want… Show up with tape on my glasses, right between my eyes where it is sure to attract the maximum attention.
I wonder, which sort should I use?
- The classic surgical tape has a pristine white tackiness about it. It might be considered the all season look. It frays nicely also, and strings hang off the edges, adding to the overall pathetic-ness of the look.
- Perhaps I should go redneck and use duct tape. It would not only lend a festive silver gleam, it would be sure to be bulky and lumpy – so no one could miss it. The perfect touch to my segment on creative solutions for Shoestring Startups!
- Or maybe a contemporary look would be better – I could try red electrical tape. This is my 12 year old son’s favorite tape for repairing books, toys, or anything else that it will stand out nicely on. I’m sure it would also stand out nicely beside the bridge of my nose. Red is one of our company colors, so I’d then coordinate with our branding.
- How about pop-glitz? We have some faceted mylar tape – in silver or gold. Of course, someone might then mistake the sparkle for an inappropriate twinkle in my eye. Besides, I’m not sure I want to feel THAT young.
Maybe I can create an entire look around it. Worn vinyl velcro tennis shoes, a muu-muu style housedress, and a balaclava.
Think it will catch on?
If You’re Thinking 80/20, You’re Wasting Effort
Our company uses the “90/10 rule” instead of the “80/20 rule”. Because we have discovered that if you choose the right 10%, it really does get 90% of the results.
If you are expecting only 80% of the results for 20% of the labor, then you are expending too much effort for too little result. You are doing things that don’t really matter, or doing them inefficiently, or you aren’t really paying attention to what IS getting the results.
We can create a “substantially equivalent” performance in a website, when creating a $5000 site that has to compete with a $50,000 site. You just gotta pick the right stuff, approach it with creativity, and not waste one bit of time, effort, or application. That’s 90% of the results, for just 10% of the cost, time, and effort.
I’ve found this to be true in other areas of life also. There just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything. You have to hit the most important stuff and let the rest go.
It ain’t slacking – and it isn’t doing a sloppy job. In fact, it means giving all you got to that 10%. But the results are so amazing that it really fires you up when you get it working right. Because you can produce so much, and just run circles around the competition.
It works in the home, it works in the office, and it works online.
If you really want to excel and be original, 80/20 just isn’t good enough.
I Wonder if My Son is Trying To Tell Me Something?
“Get your apple” I tell my 12 year old son, as he is heading out the door to a 4-H shooting activity.
“I’m getting it!” he says, “But I don’t want to bleed all over it!”
I look. He has a knife in one hand, and a bandaid in the other. He is opening the bandaid, but does not want to put down the knife. He is supposed to be taking an apple and some wholegrain chips with him to eat in the car – apparently he wants the apple cored and put in a zip baggie first.
Just what is he trying to say?
“I still have a little trouble with knives…”
“I cut myself, but I’m a Boy Scout, and know just what to do…”
“Sheesh, Mom, give a guy a little space!”
“I know I’m late, and I have my reasons!”
“I’m a guy… It’s a knife… You’re a woman and you’d never understand!”
He’s 12, so you never quite know. That age between no longer being a child, and not quite being a teen, and only just beginning to suspect there is such a thing as adulthood in his future.
He’s out shooting a 22 now. Bonding with a gun… and maybe with his Dad. With guys, you are never quite sure which is the stronger bond.
THIS STORY and many more can be found on Amazon, for Kindle, in Laura’s storybook: A Little Romp Through Laura’s Storyland
A Jungle in My Window
My view of the back yard is obstructed by green. This is a good thing! I have plants over a foot tall in my hydroponics system. Currently have about 70 plants in it, and we will add about another 20 sometime over the next few days. Working on building another system to hold about another 80 also. That oughta be enough to keep us in lettuce and broccoli at least.
Most of the plants are in early stages of growth. The lettuce is big enough that I can rob it of a few leaves for a salad each evening – somewhere around 15 lettuce plants are big enough to do that with. The broccoli raab is almost ready to sprout some buds – about eight plants growing like fury! Half the plants are still very small though, barely started, many still in the two-leaf stage, some finally sprouting a second tier of leaves. The chard has half-sized leaves, about 5 per plant, but is not ready to be able to use – the few leaves I could gather would not be enough to be of value yet.
The big stuff is finally big enough that it is now difficult to distinguish individual plants. And some experimental bush beans are turning out to be more like pole beans without the tendrils, weaving their way up through the other plants, finally forming buds that look like they may be blossoms.
After working so hard for it, and waiting weeks and weeks to get this far, it is satisfying to be able to selectively harvest once a day. But I am impatient for more of it to bear, because I need SO much more than once a day! And the kids need it too.
So right now, I look at this as a beginning, but know it is not the whole thing. Still much work to do to get it to do what we really need it to do. Overuse at the moment could postpone that day, so I reluctantly restrain myself from grabbing salads whenever I need.
Logistically, is it possible to provide for all of our veggie needs this way? I still don’t know. Because I don’t yet know how long growth takes in this system, or how much each is capable of bearing, between those plants that bear repeatedly, and those that bear once and need replaced, and all of those that fall somewhere between.
I am already planting once a week, a new round of about 20 more plants. Eventually we may need to step that up. There is the garden for the summer also, which will take the burden off the system temporarily, though I am CERTAIN my daughter will want the indoor bug-free ones instead of the outdoor grown ones!
No point to make, really, just a ramble to give you an idea of what is happening with it, and what our results were.
A Gift of Radicchio
I think a lot about vegetables lately – because I need quite a bit, and they are expensive in Wyoming. I am often surprised at how the Lord answers prayers, and try to make the most of it even when the answer isn’t what I really wanted.
I went out this morning to check to see if the strawberries we planted last summer were greening up yet – a friend said theirs were, and I was surprised because it is early for Wyoming. We had a mild winter though, even finding spinach plants that had managed to winter over – quite a few, in fact, and discovering more every day. The grass and dandelions are already making a comeback in the garden – the weeds grow long after the edible greens die, and they come back sooner in the spring too. So weeding starts before the ground is even fully thawed it seems.
Today, in last summer’s lettuce beds, I found some red heads poking up from the dirt. A plant that had grown leafy last summer was forming small tight heads – distinctly red with white veins. Close inspection and a nibble on a leaf proved it to be Radicchio.
I hate Radicchio. But I had prayed for vegetables, and here was Radicchio – something I had not intentionally planted, would have pulled if I had seen it last summer, and certainly did not ask for now. Our mesclun mix has 6 things I like, and three that I do not like. I do not like curly endive either, but it is distinctive enough to yank out the minute the leaves start to frill, and the arugula that makes me gag is also easily recognizable early on, and therefore erradicated without hesitation. The Radicchio had been green and red last summer, and had disguised itself as red lettuce, thereby escaping extermination.
Now I knew it for what it was. It is early spring. It will be many months before we have vegetables in the garden. It will be weeks before the plants in my indoor hydroponic system bear anything worth mention. Here was this vegetable, volunteering to grow NOW. Pickable and eatable, NOW. It demanded respect… and it plead for me to acknowledge that I had asked, and had been given.
I do not like Broccoli Raab really either. But it grows fast, and produces well out here. I find I can tolerate it, even come to enjoy it, if it is steamed, rinsed, and then sauteed in garlic butter. It has a similar flavor to Radicchio – sharp, bitter. If Broccoli Raab, then why not Radicchio?
So I searched out recipes – many of which made me want to cook more! One of which I have the ingredients for (important when many call for items I’ve never even seen in the local grocery stores), and which I can actually eat (many call for cured meats or cheeses that I cannot have), and which I think I can whip up and enjoy with dinner.
So I am heading to the garden to harvest some of the unexpected Radicchio, hoping I can like the gift I have been given. Trying my best to make lemonade of lemons.
Why are You Really in Business?
I find that most business owners have not really put a lot of thought into WHY they are in business, beyond “I like doing this.” or “I want to make money.” They haven’t thought about their own driving motivations.
It is really valuable to figure out what your real purpose in business is. Much like the true product in marketing, the real purpose is often abstract, or seemingly unrelated to the day to day tasks.
My purpose is to strengthen families. Most of my clients are parents, many are stay at home moms. Of course, I serve single people too. But underneath all my goals for helping businesses succeed, is the purpose of making life more affordable and manageable for families. By offering success services, I help them afford to care for their families.
So what is your REAL purpose? Beyond making money or creating or selling a product or service, what is the goal that gets you out of bed each morning?
If you identify that, and work toward making that more evident, then your business takes you places in interesting ways. It becomes something unexpected. Our business grant is a result of that. Bad Behavior Stand Alone came from that. We are working on other software tools development to further that purpose. I train webmasters for that reason. I constantly work to produce more, for less, and profit more, because of that. Because my success leads to the success of others, and that helps families survive.
Because this is my goal, it changes HOW I teach, and it changes what I do. It makes ethics paramount. It makes the methods I teach ultra clean, it means I must be able to do things differently because my goal is not just to be another web designer. It is to create something different and better, that makes the world, and families, better.
Take some time to brainstorm, and figure out why you are really in business, and what your long term goal is at a deeply personal level. It may surprise you. And it may be the key to unlocking potentials you never anticipated.
Green Tomato Relish – Another Garden Metaphor
Yesterday, I enjoyed a nice chicken salad on crackers, made especially tasty by stirring in a healthy amount of green tomato relish. The day before, I savored nachos, topped with zingy green tomato salsa. Tonight, I’ll slice and fry the last green tomato to serve beside dinner.
Sometime about the end of August, our abundant tomato crop was hit with the first freeze. We weren’t sure then whether we’d get any mature tomatoes or not. In the best Frugal Yankee tradition, I began looking for recipes for green tomatoes.
Relish, Salsa, Fried Green Tomatoes, Pickles, Casseroles, etc. Who knew there were so many uses for unripe garden fruits?
Every single one required two things from me:
1. Additional ingredients. Sometimes they were things I did not have on hand – I had to get them specifically if I wanted to utillize the abundant crop of green tomatoes.
2. Effort and specific types of work. What I did with them made all the difference.
You can see where I’m going with this…
We didn’t plant the garden and say, “Oh! I hope we get a LOT of green tomatoes, I’m just so looking forward to having to make-do!” We had big dreams when we planted 40 tomato plants. We wanted sauced, diced, and ketchuped tomatoes!
That first freeze didn’t kill our hopes. In fact, after that first freeze, which only killed the tops of the tomatoes, we gathered a small amount of red tomatoes – enough to make a weeny batch of ketchup. A few more tomatoes ripened indoors after a hard killing frost in September.
But we had more greens than reds, and we had to do something with them. In order to use them, we had to add the right ingredients, and if we didn’t have them, we had to go buy them. One or two were things I’d not need for anything else – I had to get them specifically to make use of those green tomatoes. And I had to do the right things with them, to make them into something good, otherwise they’d just be yucky green tomatoes.
Life, family, and business all do that to us. We plan our plans, and start to carry them out, and along comes a disaster that blights our hopes and kills the plans. What do we do then?
Do we cry that we didn’t get our juicy red tomatoes? Do we look at the distruction of our plants and at all those sad green tomatoes and see nothing but disaster? Or do we go seek out recipes for green tomatoes, and then add the necessary additional elements to turn them into something unexpected, but every bit as tasty and useful as what we had originally planned?
Sure, I still wish I had been able to harvest a bounty of red, ripe tomatoes. But since life handed me green tomatoes, I’m just thankful that there was something good I could do with them to turn it into a blessing of a different kind.
Business and Friendship
A friend and client was talking to me on the phone today. She said, “All of my business seems to be coming from friends. That isn’t how I wanted it. It seems so much more difficult!” She said that it was harder to bill them, and to keep the business side of things businesslike, because her desire to give to her friends was interfering.
When you have a business, and choose to grow that business through networking, virtually every client will be a friend. They do business with you BECAUSE you are a friend. I don’t mean your existing friends or family will come to you for business, they rarely do. But people who have known you always as a business person, will come to trust you because of friendship, and wish to do business with you.
It is OK to charge your friends for work! They come to you usually expecting to pay. If you hum and haw around, you just keep things uncomfortable for them. You can say outright, to friends, or even family, “I can do this much free. After that, the cost to you will be this.”
That is a good thing for both of you. Most of them want to know! If it is something you cannot give, you MUST say so. If it is something you WANT to give, say that too. “I’d be happy to do that for you without charge, because you are a friend, and I can afford to do that this time.”
They didn’t come to you because they wanted a freebie – well once in a while, but usually they needed to do business with someone, they expected to pay, and they chose YOU. They want to pay a fair price. They trust you to give them that. Do so, and you have given them something they were having a hard time finding elsewhere.
Give them the same consideration that you’d give any client – use a contract, spell out the terms, be firm and detailed about costs and limitations. Never think that since it is a friend that you don’t need a contract, or that you can do business more casually. That isn’t why they came to you! And leaving out the details will cause a breach that a good contract won’t risk.
The desire to give is great. In business, we choose when we can afford to, and when we cannot. When we can’t we say so, and confine the giving to giving great service and value for what we charge for. That’s how you grow a business with the best of everything.
It is only when we DON’T say, and when we DON’T put things in writing, or observe professionalism with friends, that we get into trouble.
Friendship and business can co-exist very well together!
It Wasn’t Just a Haircut
I intended to have a hairdresser friend help me cut my hair. I intended to have her help me to create a little more stylish look. I mean, I know my usual cut looks good and flatters me, but it isn’t really a STYLE, it is more just THERE.
I have a photo session coming up for business photos. I wanted to look good. I played around with my hair, looked at samples of hairstyles, and finally settled on a possibility.
Then the email came…
Could I come in on Monday for filming a short interview for a promo film for one of the statewide Women’s Business organizations? My hair was getting bushy, I’d not want to have it permanently recorded that way! I’d have to fit in a haircut on Saturday. No choice if I wanted to not be itchy on Monday.
I decided to see if I could get the look I wanted by cutting the front myself. It was partially successful, but still needed some trimming where I could not reach. Time was tight on Saturday. So I decided to have my daughter help me, after I cut all of it that I could reach. She had been learning to cut hair, and practicing on her sister’s bangs. It was time she learned to do layered anyway.
I cut around except the center of the back. She watched, as I explained how to use the parts already cut to measure where to cut the other parts, how to hold the hair, etc. I handed her the scissors, and she went to it.
It isn’t bad. It is ok. But it is much shorter than I wanted. It looks good, but it isn’t the look I wanted. I’m not at all upset about it, after all, too short never bothers me, because hair grows. Mine grows fast, and I dislike getting haircuts, so I like it a bit too short to begin with anyway – two weeks later it will be perfect even if it is too short when it is cut. I’ll look professional and good for the filming on Monday, and for the photos in two weeks, so I can live with the results and like it.
I let her try because it isn’t just a haircut. It is training, and capability for her. It is trust, and it is a lesson in learning. Even when you don’t do it perfectly on the first try, that is ok. Better that you tried, and learned, so that you CAN achieve perfection some day.
Hair that is too short for two weeks is a small price to pay for that, even when it is an important haircut.
Optimism, Pessimism, and Realism in Economic Change
Hints of change bring them all out. First the pessimists who want to see it as all bad. Then the optimists who want to ignore all negativity. And last, the realists who balance the facts and determine what is best to do no matter what.
Pessimists come in two types:
- Those who delight in the bad. They rub their hands in glee, exaggerate the negative, and find delight in the misery and hardship of others. These are the ambulance chasers, and the gossips.
- Those who want to wallow in despair. They believe themselves incapable of happiness, and each negative thing around them serves to increase their conviction that life sucks. Good things are ignored, or not even recognized. Every hope is an illusion, every light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, and if events prove otherwise, they are certain there is some trick to it, or that it will not last.
Either type of pessimist poisons the world around them, drip by drip of acid from their negativity.
Optimists also come in two types:
- The unrealistic people who state over and over that if you just believe that nothing bad will happen, then nothing bad will happen. Problem is, bad things DO happen whether you think they will or not.
- Those who tell themselves over and over that nothing bad is going to happen, because deep down inside, they fear that if it did, they could not handle it. Blocking out potential negatives is the only way they can cope, because they do not have the self confidence to believe they can succeed in spite of challenge.
Optimism can be just another form of pessimism. It just wears a different mask, but it is really just hiding the same face of low self confidence.
Realism is the balance between the extremes. Yet realists are accused of pessimism by those who call themselves optimists. Rather silly, because realists are, at heart, optimists – the difference is, they DO have the self esteem to believe that they can succeed in spite of opposition. If the worst happens, they know they can handle it.
The realist looks at the facts. They consider whether there is validity in all the circumstances. When faced with potential challenges, they do not stand around wringing their hands about it, and they do not gossip and blow things up to be worse than they are. Nor do they minimize or dismiss legitimate concerns.
Rather, they weigh the evidence, and act accordingly. If it is likely that challenges are coming, they develop a plan of what they will do if it happens. They don’t lose a lot of sleep over it, and they are not scared of negative things, because they have considered the potentials and they have prepared.
Realists are willing to face potential negative situations, because they know they are capable of surviving, and thriving, no matter what. They see both the good and the bad. The good is acknowledged with gratitude, the bad is faced and dealt with heat on.
Change IS happening. Much of it is not good. It is not likely to get better any time soon. But that is ok, because I am prepared, and I am confident that I can succeed even in the face of economic hardship. I have a plan for my business that will allow it to go forward regardless. I have a plan for my life that will make me better situated to cope with it. I am not afraid to face challenge head on, because I know I can cope, even if bad things do happen.
I can be happy even if I don’t get what I want.
Trying for Three Days
I’ve been trying to come up with a topic for three days now, but I’ve been so busy that it has been difficult to even think outside of what I have had to do. In that time, I’ve come to some conclusions, because of events around me.
First, I’ll never willingly choose to work with X-Cart if there is any other option. It goes onto our “do not touch” list, along with OSCommerce, CubeCart, and several others. It rates for it’s complexity, and lack of flexibility. The templating is a nightmare, outdated, clunky, and inflexible. I managed to carry off a site design to be proud of, but it still isn’t what it should have been. I will not pay for a cart that is not even close to the quality of free Open Source options, and whose support is extremely inconvenient to access – no better than that available for Open Source, and in many ways worse.
Second, there is a line that I will not cross. As one of our clients flirts with it, it reiterates my reasons for not wanting to ever promote sites that exceed the limits of my moral principles. There is always a consequence for it. One that I am not willing to court.
Third, I cannot do everything. We’ve consolidated our business again, preferring to give up the less profitable aspects rather than trying to grow in a clumsy way. By refining our services, we can do more, in less time, and profit more. Static HTML sites are not the only thing we’ve given up. We have three other businesses that we are now referring several types of work to. It keeps us focused.
Fourth, the reputation you inspire in others is of more value than anything you say. When other people say it, it has more credibility. Of course, I know this. It has just really been apparent the power this has, in the last several weeks, as we have received calls and contacts that we have not had to hunt, from people who come to us pre-sold. What a blessing!
Fifth… Faith can be tested in ways we do not expect. We never know what the true gifts are in our life until it is. I finally feel like the last bits of healing are taking place since Sidney died. My spirit feels whole again, though not terribly strong yet. It seems to be healing along with my body, which is getting better month by month as Crohn’s Disease has less and less influence on me.
One of those busy times, full of lessons, full of happenings, but much of it not fit for sharing. Too personal, too mundane, but not at all worthless.
Gardening doesn't have to be that hard! No matter where you live, no matter how difficult your circumstances, you CAN grow a successful garden.
Life from the Garden: Grow Your Own Food Anywhere Practical and low cost options for container gardening, sprouting, small yards, edible landscaping, winter gardening, shady yards, and help for people who are getting started too late. Plenty of tips to simplify, save on work and expense.
