Truckin'...

Last week was hell, but here's the odd thing--I rather enjoyed it. I may have to talk to my priest about this...

The situation: I was laid off from my job, and the next day my wife and son came down with a nasty cold. It was harder on her because my son, Joseph, didn't get the memo that colds justify long, lazy days in bed being served hot soup and tea. That was Grace's plan. Joseph, however, had other plans. He pretty much kept up the normal Official Baby Business of crawling, pooping, eating (but not much, resulting in thousands of dollars of wasted formula), getting into cabinets, trying out some crazy new climbing skills, bonking his head which is magnetically attracted to the hardwood floors, and incessantly trying to stick his fingers into light sockets, the dishwasher, and the poky parts of my moving equipment. The only thing that really changed in his routine is the added activity of smearing the snot flow from his nose all over his face. This usually made him very, very mad. Given that he's the fastest crawler I've ever seen and the mucus membrane covering his entire upper body, I've been calling him "the Snot Rocket."

So, in addition to hunting down new business, I was chief executive officer in charge of TLC. I think they're out of the woods now, but last night my body simply shut down. The Snot Rocket went down at 7:30, and Grace came into the living room and said "I'm not too proud to go to bed at 7:30." Since my head was rolling around on my shoulders like a bowling ball tethered to the top of an ant hill, I concurred and we hit the sack.

We all slept for 11 1/2 hours.

Now it's Monday morning, one week since my unceremonious booting, and it's back to work.

And business is good! I've got a good amount of cash to deposit today, and I've got a few jobs lined up this week. I need to get about three more $100 moves to meet the weekly goal, but I'm confident it can happen. If not, well, we'll just have to figure something out.

Still, there have been a number of miracles, or at least signs that things are going to be alright. For one, a generous anonymous donor at my other blog offered $100 to help. My pride stings at that, but since I'm in charge of two other people's well-being, it's time to get humble.

Another "sign:" Last night I delivered a table to someone referred by a friend. The buyer is a commercial lender and we talked a little bit of business. He may be able to help me out if/when I seek some start-up money.

Overall business has increased independent of the desperate e-mails I sent friends. I'll try to blog on this later, but curiously, my Craigslist TEXT ads bring in more business than my graphic ads. It could be a statement about my failings as a graphic designer, or a statement about my writing skills. I don't know. But whatever the case, people respond to long text ads more. Go fig.

A well-plugged-in woman at our church sent me the e-mail of a guy looking for "solid Catholic guys" to fill some positions at his company. I checked out the company and get this--it's all about helping business owners find e-commerce solutions. That has been one of my biggest problems--where do you go to find off-the-shelf or custom-made software? Well, now I know. (We'll see about the job--I think it's a sales position, and I've already been laid off from a tech sales position before. Call me superstitious, but, well, just call me superstitious).

Oh, and Barbara over at www.mommylife.net wrote a fantastic post about the business. Do thou check it out. (And tell your friends!) ;-)

Finally, on an note unrelated to business, our priest and the above-mentioned woman's husband have been in cahoots about getting us some help. They've quietly approached some people in the parish about us, without using our names, and we have to pick up "something" this Wednesday. I don't know what it is, but I hope it's baby formula. The Snot Rocket is fueled by this stuff, but what he doesn't finish seems to go right through him. A $25 can is about four days' worth of fuel. So, I hope it's that...or an S.U.V. Lol. I guess I'm not THAT proud. It's kind of tough to be proud when your decade-old Nissan is about to blow the power-steering apparatus through the hood. Yeah, we've got that problem too.

There's a lot more. The blessings keep stacking up. It's so obvious that we're being cared for...from above...that even I can't chalk it up to coincidence. I don't know what's about to happen in our lives, but I know it's going to be different, it's going to be big, and it's going to be for the best. It may even be AWESOME. ;-)

I'm overwhelmed by all the friends and even strangers who've come to our aid or even pledged help. I was beginning to despair, long before our current trials, that the Catholic community was just bad at community. It turns out it's not, at least around here. There are saints among us.