Smoking Guns...Everywhere

Evening all,

Last week was one of those cash flow weeks that was really trying. The good cop/bad cop routine of one particular accounts dept was especially stressful. Good cop promised that I'd have my money on time this month. When it didn't come, day after promised day, he blamed bad cop....the one who makes the payments....

he, being the good guy would call them sort it out.

A week later still no money & I discover bad cop was on holidays all the while, and good cop hadn't authorized payment , so it was never on it's way to me as promised at the beginning of the month, but guess who ended up in trouble  feeling like they'd been shot.

 ME !

I was trying to explain the intricacies of cash flow  to my 13 year old daughter, when she was the one who pulled the trigger....

."Mom, I have no idea what you are talking about...

"I am NOT your  therapist "

Ouch !

Shirley 

Post 2013 Calm.....Breathe in ...breathe out......

Evening all,

I haven't been blogging much of late. I mentioned before I thought I had lost my voice, but it's not just that, to blog every week you need to keep at it, punching it out every week getting into a stride. So bear with me, I'm a bit rusty, a bit sensitive after an innocent comment that I reveal too much about myself & business, from my biggest fan & critic...so I need to get back in my groove.

The themes over the past year have been, cash flow, the van, the brand. I have to be honest a year ago when I told you my stories my head was in a completely different space. I tried to tell that story from the prospective of a small business owner & it worked because it was honest. If you were in that head space you would have understood immediately and many did & told me so.

I am currently on a mission to file every scrap of paper/ receipt/ recipe before the end of this week.I am always writing stuff down on envelopes, notebooks, pieces of paper. Each one a true snippet into my life...the most personal stuff with the most benign

"have a knot in the pit of my stomach..gotta get x sorted... 

.....Ploughman's x 10,Classic Club x 10...Med BLT x 5.....

Platter x 25 Med Council Thurs....noon
breathe in...., breathe out...stay calm..

Peter gym 086 056....Ballyturk ...great reviews... book....

My scribbles, reflect my head perfectly, my anxieties, my stresses,my highs, my control, my focus on the business whilst catching sight of something on a hoarding poster that grabs my attention as I deliver my gorgeous salads & sandwiches in my van around the city.

So my story will still be that of a small business owner, currently wondering if invoice discounting is manna from heaven or the breath of Satan on a business. But hopefully the story will be more upbeat, sales are rocketing, but so are costs, nights are still sleepless but not so anxiously so.I'm trying to get a retail outlet & have my eye in somewhere. But unlike last year, I'm  chilled...if we get it great & if not if just not meant to be

.....not this time anyway.....

Everybody join in

"ce sera, sera, what ever will be will be...

Shirley xx

Life...A Triumph ..(no greater achievement)

Evening All,

It's been an awful week.

 Two friends died this week, Richie who died  suddenly last Sunday & Fiona on Wednesday evening after a long & awful battle with cancer.Two deaths followed by two funerals; Richie's a beautiful eloquent humanist farewell in Glasnevin and Fiona's a wonderful traditional religious mass in Sandymount. The untimely death of friends taken from us way before their time, should make us challenge the way we live our lives. Carpe Diem and all that, or should it?

Today I listened to an RTE radio documentary  about the fabulous Plurabelle Paddlers,which Fiona set up in 2010. A dragon boating club for women who had been affected by breast cancer. The idea being to enhance the well being of women affected by cancer by offering a sporting activity that had proven links to improving the health of women sufferers. At the beginning of the documentary, Fiona spoke about when cancer first struck. She, like most people,  was under the impression that such a diagnosis would be, for some reason, a  defining moment, where one re evaluates their own life. She said quite simply with her signature giggle..".I didn't feel a need to evaluate my life.. I was happy with how my life was going"  

And so it is with mine. I have been   happy of late as how my life is going, but some things need to change. I hadn't seen Richie or his wife Sandra who was my flat mate at college for ages, busy with work, kids, life..I called Sandra immediately I heard the news of Richie's death. She told me how she had already called the house earlier, but my mailbox was full, I didn't even know I had a landline, never mind a mailbox to be filled.

I had been in touch with Fiona almost daily up until last Tuesday, she had been ill for so long, yet her death was shocking in it's finality. But most poignant of all was the eulogies at both funerals.  Richie's male friends spoke of their  friend with such love, Sandra spoke so beautifully of a man who we all know adored her. And then it was Eamonn, Fiona's husbands turn. He spoke so beautifully about how amazing Fiona was & how much she amazed him. He finished his eulogy with the wonderful truth, that whilst much, much too short, Fiona's  life had been a triumph.

So yes, the deaths of my friends may well have challenged my life in a subtle way. 

 We will aim to turn The Delicious Food Co logo pink  for October  and we will see what we can do with that for breast cancer awareness month....friends I have been meaning to get in touch with have been contacted.I ask you dear reader to do likewise, because the ultimate truth is that life is short & precious.

www.plurabellepaddlers.com

Shirley x