building...

where does one start to build a new company? i know how to work for a small company. i know how to run a small company. but building a new company? that i am not entirely positive on how to accomplish. i've done a lot of research and they all say there are three key components:

1. Momentum
2. Dedication/Perseverance
3. Luck

gee. those might be the most vague things ever. ever.

momentum - so the very act of momentum means that you have some sort of idea as to what you are doing. well i've got direction and drive, so does that count as momentum? people like our stuff. is that momentum?

dedication and perseverance - well those clearly i've got. we've most decidedly proved that we can persevere through the roughest of times. and i guess that rolls into dedication. so number two, i think i am well versed in. now it's a matter of keeping that up, which shouldn't be too hard. i've weathered some tough storms with mississippi wood trader, so this new venture shouldn't be too tough, yea? yea? maybe? maybe?

luck - oh luck. man that is the million dollar award there. everyone wants luck. i mean that's not something you can actually go out and buy. you either have luck or you don't. so this one could get tricky.

but apparently those are the 3 things you need to make a business. go figure. well those aren't the only three. that would be me telling you a lie. there are lots of other things, but those mainly fixate on keeping the company alive once you've got it rolling. those i am well versed in. they mainly still revolve around those 3 key concepts though.

so now i am in this cycle. i don't like cycles. this could be entertaining....

check us out:  urbangreenfurniture.goodsie.com - urbangreen.me - urbangreenfurniture.blogspot.com - facebook. the whole nine yards. ----so like us on facebook (UrbanGreen and Mississippi Wood Trader) and bookmark our blog (mine as well).

ciao.

learning curve...

some days, i just want to lay down and take a nap and wake up when everything is over. is there a button in life to make that happen?

when we moved out to this new shop, the whole point was to be able to slow down and breathe for about 2.5 seconds. well we have successfully moved out to the new shop and managed to speed up. i'm not entirely positive how we managed to accomplish that, but we have.

my poor little brain is at max capacity and it's beginning to show. small things that i am usually really good at remembering have been immediately pushed out of my brain for the next task. i like to make sure everything is accomplished before i move onto a new task, but lately i have been just adding new tasks on and hoping that everything comes together.

it's been a struggle. a really fun struggle i might add, but a struggle.

so this solar kiln....

i got to use powertools. the inherent problem with darwin and i being the only two people is that i am no where near as strong as darwin. therefore he has to do all the heavy lifting (well most of it) and i have to catch. quite literally. the solar kiln beginning was a rocky one. dual forklift driving, trailer driving, stabilizing, and so forth. we got the sides up, but man i did not like having that pressure of making sure to drive the nail in the exact spot and the exact moment. if you miss, well i guess it would be kiss your boss goodbye instead of your ass.

so once we got the sides up, we decided that we actually wanted to move the kiln. goody. so that meant taking it apart to put it back together again. well the apart side has gone smoothly, the putting back together side has not. it is still laying in a heap in the field. tomorrow i think is it's day of rebuilding. so fingers crossed.

ciao.

so it's been a month...literally.

wow, firstly i apologize. it's been a month. eek.

have you ever felt like you are being pulled in so many directions you feel as if you may actually come apart? yes? good, i am glad to know that i am not the only one.

we've moved the shop (hence the delay). that meant two things: heavy lifting and planning. guess which one excited me more? if you guessed planning you would be correct. however, the heavy lifting wasn't far off. now knowing what i know about darwin, this planning wasn't going to be easy. i planned and planned and then replanned. still wasn't enough planning. i should have known, right? well luckily i did, and planned accordingly. that involved letting darwin dilly dally until he freaked out. then, i picked up the pieces, took over, made a checklist, and replanned. we made it. just barely, but we are alive and the proud new owners (renters) of a wood shed. well it is nicer than a shed, but not quite, say, a warehouse. so...shedhouse? wareshed? whatever you call it, it's ours and it's quiet and it's in the middle of NOWHERE.

with that middle of nowhereness, i get to build things. what is second on my list of awesome things after planning? making stuff. right now we are building a solar kiln --- forklifts, nail guns, staplers, trucks --- mmm powertools. whilst building the solar kiln, i have built a bookshelf, a bunch of triangular shelf supports, and learned the fundamentals of trailer driving and parking...

i really like the hands on approach. yea you may screw it up and get a little dirty, but whatever, you're learning. learning means growing, so i've go that going for me.

aside from all that awesomeness, darwin and i have started a furniture line (second delay). it's a urban reclaimed natural edge furniture line. i've come up with a name and i am pretty sure we are in agreement with it: UrbanGreen. follow us on Facebook, bookmark our BLOG (and mine too), spread the word, and most importantly...BUY SOMETHING!

ciao.


stay tuned for a funny story in solar kiln building. i promise it won't take a month....

alpha.beta.charley.

have you ever been so tired, that you aren't sure you should be driving a motor vehicle? because i have. today. right now to be precise.

the past few days/weeks have been a tiring bunch. we are officially ALL moved! wooooo. but man it has been an intense round.

for starters. remember when my car got stolen? oh say, 3 months ago. well as of today it has been found. to be more exact. as of 4:22 sunday morning, beta has been found. i know this because that is what time the APD decided to call me. FOUR TWENTY TWO IN THE FREAKING MORNING. like i am going to jump out of bed and go retrieve her? seriously? i call them sunday at a more reasonable hour. ya know, like 8 or so. get the run around for a while because turns out they weren't entirely positive where beta was. she was somewhere in cumming, ga. i was informed i would need to talk to the forsyth county police department (cumming's police), but i would have to wait until monday, because they were closed on sundays. OH REALLLLLLLLLLLY. no crime is committed on sundays? geewhiz.

so here we are monday. i finally get through to someone who then has to call me back because he isn't entirely sure where beta is....fantastic. well. turns out. once beta was stolen from me, my stuff was apparently ditched and then beta was sold. the guy however wouldn't give the title over the buyer until he finished making payments. well. i guess the buyer got mad and ipso facto beta was found. ya know, because there was no title, because she was STOLEN! i am also beginning to think that buyer had beta longer than i did, which if we all remember was 2 weeks. i also find it entertaining that the APD thought i was really waiting for them to find beta. it has been 3 months. i did wait 2 months before charley was purchased...

but moving on past beta, i then sunday went to my cousin's first horse show. absolutely precious. but took all day. so needless to say, i was exhausted. and come this morning., i got up at 5 to make sure my cousins got to school and that everything went according to plan. which is where the too tired to drive a vehicle comes into play...

i picked darwin up this morning for our final run through at the metro. sad, bittersweet, and really really exciting all at the same time. we hightailed it out of there. i stopped at the bank and then drove to meet darwin at the new shop and help unpack - daunting. driving there was fine because i had a mission. get food, get to new shop, go home. we get to the go home part, and we are driving and darwin tells me. - i normally trust you with everything, but right now i don't really want to be riding in your car...all i could think, was thank god, i so don't want to be driving right now. we stopped by home depot for some supplies and switched places. totally for the better.

it's funny and sad when someone says exactly what you are thinking. especially when it comes to operating a motor vehicle. i apologize if this post is jumbled, but clearly i am in overdrive. or as darwin so lovingly put it today, you are operating on about 6 out 8 cylinders. i told him that was being generous.


ciao.

the smoking gun. err, dashboard...

so, i am back from the beach. i came back kicking and screaming. well mainly just screaming. it's hard to kick and drive at the same time. the week went by too fast. it was absolutely glorious though. GLORIOUS!

my sister-in-law, Rachel, went paddle boarding with me. i wouldn't say she went willingly; i mainly bullied her into it because i didn't want to go alone. i will say, she was a trooper and did quite well. she did ask me to go shopping with her on many occasion, but i just couldn't bear to leave the beach.

i realized that i am a person who is going 90 mph at all times. no stopping, no slowing down, no sleeping. just going, going, going. but when i get to the beach (and this may be true of all water, but i am going to say the beach) i stop. everything slows down. granted, i am still doing about 45 mph, but i'll take it. something about the ocean calms me. that is not an easy task folks. i have been trying unsuccessfully for the past 25 (yes, 25) years to figure that one out, and apparently all i need is the ocean.

now that i am back to reality, i am back to cramming as much in the day as possible. this move may be the death of darwin and i. we realized on monday that we have until next friday to finish everything. EVERYTHING. the inside is mainly done. just a few things that can't be packed up until darwin is finished milling, but most everything has been cleared. the yard. well the yard is a slow process that is going to require most of our weekend to tackle.

i was driving keisha to the new shop with a load of miscellaneous crap on tuesday and there i was jumping onto 285 from 20 and i look down and she is smoking out the dashboard. well hello, this is a problem. i pull over on 285 and try not to get hit by any semis, and call darwin. thankfully this time he actually answered his phone. i told him calmly (rather panically) that keisha's dashboard was smoking. he told me to turn her off (way ahead of you there) and turn off all the switches (propane and veggie oil) - also way ahead there- and wait a minute to see if it stops. so it stopped. he told me it was probably fine, but if it started again to call him back because i was going to have to perform keisha emergency surgery.

WHAT! oh, this is just what i want to hear....

so we pull back on to 285 and la la la la i look down and keisha starts smoking again. i pull off, get to a sketchy gas station (sketchy at best) and call darwin. HERE WE GO. pop the hood. see the wire coming off the battery on the driver side, clip that from the battery and the plug. the close the propane tank. if that doesn't work then leave the truck and run away and don't tell me about it, because that means there is a problem with the factory wiring and....(you get the idea)

so here i am. in the ghetto, scrounging around keisha for some form of useful tool to clip wire. i can find no shortage of screw drivers, an ipod shuffle (which darwin though he lost), a bungee chord, some headphones, a tape, and of course nothing to clip wire with. i am standing in the back of keisha basically inside the toolbox looking for something, anything. grasping at straws at this point. then i hear this rickety voice screaming at me, that i don't belong in a truck and i shouldn't be driving that big thing, and i need to get out the back of it before i hurt myself. i look up and see this man approaching the truck. now normally this would have made me nervous, but i was PISSED. i shot him the look of death and scream WHAT DO YOU WANT? he promptly pivoted and walked away. after scrounging and being yelled at, i remember: I PUT BANDING SHEARS IN ONE OF THESE BOXES! yes! problem solved. button keisha back up and we are on our merry little way to get the hell out the ghetto.

problem solving folks. problem solving.

ciao.

catching a drift...

it's thursday. which means tomorrow is friday. which in tandem means: no work and the beach! WOOOOOO!! i cannot wait to get away from atlanta. i love atlanta, well most of the time, but right now i want out. in quite possibly the worst way possible. i don't want to play anymore. i want to sit by the ocean, drink beer, eat copious amounts of seafood, and watch the world melt away. that seems fantastic...

whoever tells you that moving isn't stressful and will be pain free, should be shot in the face right then in there. no questions asked, no waiting to see if they are kidding, no nothing. they should be shot. granted our move hasn't been terrible (i think i just called myself out here). but seriously, i have organized the move within and inch of it's life. i mean come on, i am good at organizing. we have almost completed the warehouse. the yard, well the yard is a whole 'nother story completely. i knew that was going to be a bitch from day one. it always is. staring at me with that smug - there is nothing you can do about me - face. that is if it were a person of course instead of an inanimate object, but you catch my drift.

ahhh drift. to be adrift. tomorrow tomorrow. focus. focus.

well i'm shot now. all i can think about it sand, salt and sea. the three major food groups of the soul. well my soul anyhow.

but seriously. moving. it's sucks any way you plan it. it's daunting unless you can do it in stages. or when you realize that half the stuff (more like 3/4) you thought you had to move isn't yours. SCORE. we also got inspected by the fire marshal. because you know what is useful. getting inspected when you have a month left on your lease and you have been there over 3 years. seems like a good a time as any. oh, did i forget to mention that we have never had one before? yea that's right. NEVER.

so we weren't quite up to snuff on all of our codes, but the guy was nice and let it slide and said to fix it and told me when he would be back to make sure i had fixed it. then darwin opens his big mouth...i swear. he told me to handle the fire marshal and then he decides that he wants to butt in on things and talk with the dude. i could of kicked him. if we were all sitting at a table i would have, or maybe thrown my knife at him. i had it covered. the paperwork was signed and we were ready to go. JESUS PETE!

now, i should have clearly seen that coming from a mile away. you know. boys being boys. i've got to make sure that everything is in working order. i'm not an idiot, i got it covered. you do leave me in charge of your company and made me cfo....remember????????????????

silly boys. when will they ever learn?

ciao.


THE BEACH!!!

it's.my.birthday.

i am a toddler. i have known this for quite some time. that being said IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. woooooooooooooooooooooooooo

i really, really like birthdays. i also really, really like christmas. anything that comes with no strings attached presents i am usually a fan. i mean who isn't a fan of presents? they come wrapped with shiny bows on them and you get to rip them open and destroy the paper and on top of that you get a new fashion accessory by wearing the bow around. WHAT IS NOT AWESOME ABOUT THAT?

i may be a little overenthusiastic about my birthday, but whatever. it's MY birthday. i'm hoping that this 25th year of my life is going to be better than the 24th. i will chalk 25 up to a win if 1 of 2 things happens, or both. 1. my car doesn't get stolen 2. i obtain a new hobo wallet - BIG GOALS...ha

it's friday and it's my birthday. my attention span is shot at best. i was doing well this morning, but now i am just a ball of "it's my birthday" energy. should make for a great accomplishing friday.

BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

ciao.