After the fiasco that has been the past couple of weeks, I’m trying to get my body back in line. Hubby says he feels better (thank God!) than he has in eons. Meanwhile I feel a little like I’ve been in a fist fight with a grizzly bear.
Given the husband’s now-known medical condition we’ve turned our diet inside-out. I come home so wrung out we’d been ordering pizza or other types of fast food once or twice a week. That’s now off the menu for good. I made a humongous veggie tray last weekend – carrots, celery, olives, broccoli, all the yummy stuff, and we’ve been using that for lunches, augmented with low-salt crackers and cheese, the closest thing we’re coming to junk food. Meals have been heavy on the veggies, some brown rice, things like that.
Daughter made choco chip cookies yesterday and brought me one while they were fresh out of the oven. Tasted pretty good but holy smokes, did I pay for it. Made me sick as a dog – not because anything was tainted, but because I’d forgotten how much difference it makes when I get off the sugar and other junk that does me no favors. I’m not sure how much of the tummy troubles were the sugar and how much the gluten. Both will tear me apart when I’ve been away from them for a while. (Which is why I was more than okay going on this diet.)
One of my partners in crime proposed a new business plan, one that we can realistically begin on a shoestring budget. We’re going to begin a subscription box plan catering to a very specific niche. I’ll let you know if/when it launches, because if she follows through I think it has a real shot at success. She’s got a few little items that I agree are a good idea, just not sure we can do the numbers we really need to do to make it a go.
You can’t do this kind of business without making sure it’s scalable. Some of the things she wants to include are most assuredly NOT. We might get away with it as a starter – first one or two months of subscriptions, tops.
Part of the boxes, if they go, will be a monthly mini-book. My first entry is one on how to do crystal readings – similar to palm reading or tea leaves, but with stones. I found only one book out there on crystal reading, and it’s $22 on Amazon. The one on Amazon goes into things I wouldn’t do, like fortune telling, etc. I’m focusing on personality reads and some basic stone meanings. I’ve been learning all of the above for a while, picking up bits and pieces here and there. My book is meant to be short, sweet, and to the point. (And cheaper, probably around $3.99-$4.99 for the print version.)
I always take issue with trying to foretell futures, because I’m a firm believer in choice, for one thing. For another, when you get into trying to delve into the future you’re skirting some iffy things spiritually, morally, maybe even legally. I occasionally have flashes of future insight, for lack of a better term. I don’t seek them out and they tend to be uncomfortable at best. The thought of trying to crack through that barrier gives me the heebie-jeebies.
This little volume is mostly written already, and will be a small one, about fifty finished pages.
Part of the subscription project we did agree on is the stones that set you up for reading – a set of three stones per month. I’ve got sources for those and will be offering all of the above through my online store, too – which will be cross-promoted. Promotion and marketing is still key to a business. I’ve worked in advertising too long to dismiss its power. It’s all about effective advertising though, not just randomly tossing stuff to the winds.
This is all predicated on whether or not my partner can and does follow through. I’ve been burned too many times to count on anything. The wait-and-see approach is my mantra these days.
I do, however, think the concept is a good one, and this is a different partner than the person with the coupon plan. Coupon lady flaked out owing us about $150. Not going to be doing any kind of business with her any time soon.
I guess that’s the irony of all this: after years of butting my head against a proverbial wall (hence the blog name!), now people are coming to me asking me to partner with them in starting a business. I mean – a LOT of people. I’m not talking about the spam emails, I’m talking about actual flesh-and-blood people who believe I’m key to making things work. Some of the ideas are unworkable, some are workable only if my partner follows through. For the subscription boxes, however, if my partner flakes it’s something I can do on my own. Therefore I’m simultaneously cautious and paying close attention to the market.
After hubby’s foray into health crisis, he’s also had his own personal come-to-Jesus meeting of sorts, and is now determined to do what I’ve been trying to talk him into doing for the past several years. I just need to get him on board with how business actually works these days. He’s thinking of taking his woodworking hobby and turning it into something. I am fine with the concept, but you can’t scale that thing with a one-man workshop. If he can create a prototype so we can outsource production, I’m all for it. He still hasn’t quite wrapped his head around the concept.