Monday, July 2nd, 0645 hours. Yesterday was our best day ever, and a good start to the week and month.  Breakfast started pretty slow but picked up well, and there was enough stragglers throughout the day and enough dinner and after folks to pick up the slack.  Could have been better, but a great day still. It is certainly much nicer at the end of the day to know that you have thrown more dirt out of the hole than was thrown in that day.  That means we are able to throw a little dirt, no matter how little, out of the hole, that was thrown in on one of those many days we never made it to the bare bones keep the doors open break even, and there have been lots of those in the last two months.  :-0 Now let's see how today goes.  I have lots to do.  Back to work.  Time to play. Peace
		Prep is all done and we're ready to go, off on another day's adventures.  Now all we need is customers. We got our "can you tell Ed I need the day care money" phone call this morning at about 0700.  Staff answered the phone, that's all that was said and the phone hung up.  Ed went and put the money in her car.  Ed is petrified of the mother of my daughter and is doing everything he can to stay away from her as he doesn't want me to go to jail or for him to get a false restraining order. She told the police she was moving out very soon.  We are all waiting.  Everyone else, so that things can get some semblance of normal around here, especially if we make it and stay.  Me, so I am not tortured by the glimpses of my beautiful daughter and the thoughts of her suffering the terrible loss of her da-da to another power and control hungry mad mom with serious issues. Peace
		1045 hours. So-so breakfast so far.  Not that bad, and a good start towards the bare bones keep the doors open break even, but better than what has been week-day breakfast, so we'll see.  The day still has a chance, lots of hours left.  :-) Fed some very nice folks today.  Families are still our business.  The base grows with every plate.  All you can hope is they tell just one person, and can't thank those who tell more, enough.  They are too kind.  With folks counting on you, why wouldn't you try to be your best?  Why would you want just one person they recommended to eat at your house to return and tell them you sucked?  Makes no sense. I had a discussion with a staff member yesterday.  I had noticed that as long as they thought someone was watching them, they paid more attention to what they were doing and also did a better job at it and did it faster than I had seen them do it before, when I was watching and they didn't know it.  I have long said that you can learn a lot about folks by watching them when they think nobody is watching them. Anyway, I told the employee how I had learned at a very early age that there was actually someone watching me every second, every moment, to see if I was doing my best, and who always knew when I wasn't.  I told them how I was that someone.  :-)  I told them how I try to never let that someone down.  :-) I don't think they understood.  :-0   After that they just seemed to try and check to see if I was watching them work, and only worked their best when they thought Ed or I might see them, not other employees though.  Hmmmmm...   :-) That darn free will.  We can be our awesome and wonderful self or our fragile bag of shit self, either one, any moment we choose. Too bad most folks don't know that every moment they let themselves down by being their fragile bag of shit self instead of their awesome and wonderful self, especially the moments they make a conscious choice to do so, those can get really ugly, does great harm to them internally as well as externally.  They are only hurting themselves, and usually those around them as well.  Again, makes no sense except that silly darn free will, and everything being as it should be right now; the none above, none below, none ahead, none behind, none better, none worse.  Certainly evidence that the journey of any personified gatherings of consciousness within any container are individualistic.  You can't help anyone or prevent anyone from hurting themselves or others.  Each at their own pace, and they choose to be where they are, internally, and reflectively, externally.  The land of I'll pretend and you pretend may be the easiest, but it is certainly far more costly and painful internally as well as externally, and makes no sense without looking at the big picture.  It's a mad house of confusion and distraction.   Thanks, but no thanks.  :-) Peace
		2100 hours. Tired and wore, we are closed for the day.  Staff had to be somewhere and Ed had to be somewhere, so here home all alone with no way to stay awake to stay open.  I've been running around the kitchen by myself like a madman.  Folks keep seeming to want to eat in spurts of busyness for me. Made the number today, barely, although the trend does seem to be moving upward though.  We might be pushing off from the bones bare keep the doors open break even.  We will need quite a few more days at this pace to get caught up.  We'll see how tomorrow is.  All these days in a row making the number to survive and then plus a little are just teasing us.  Throwing the dirt out of our hole by the spoonful is not really helping us with so many folks screaming for money, but as I said, at least we are throwing more dirt out of the hole than was thrown in that day, which is way better than not.  We can only try our best.  All we can do is keep at it.  Another day, we will be open tomorrow and try again. I am backed up horrendously on my emails.  I think I have been avoiding them while I think and figure when I'm not cooking or somehow playing restaurant or survival.   Peace
			Click here as I start over 9/23/07