It's Still Winter, But We Can Smell Spring

How utterly relaxing this winter was. After we shut down for the season, David went to Miami and played golf for a couple of months, Joel got engaged to Danielle and laid on the beach in Costa Rica, and I drank schnapps in Alsace and faithfully attended even my most appallingly boring micro-economics classes.

How distant that time now seems. Ever since the clock ticked 2011, we’ve been caught in a whirlwind of master planning. We’ve had a brainstorming session on “risk minimization,” plotting courses of action to navigate through the most debilitating catastrophes our nightmares could produce. We’re looking around for a bank to replace god-awful Chase, who I’m embarrassed after last year’s shit fit to admit we passively stuck with, like abused dogs who keep expecting doggie treats instead of pistol-whipping. We’ve had several exciting conversations about real estate with some potential landlords around town.

The awesome John Goodwin magicked us up an online stock-taking system that lives in the cloud, and we got all of our suppliers on one spreadsheet. We’ve started testing recipes for a book we’re working on. We bought a new van that does not have rust holes in the floorboards. We’re discussing the pros and cons of buying our first cash register and maybe some accounting software (whoo, look at us gettin’ all “modern!”). We are looking into the possibilities of offering ourselves and our full-time employees health care, and for the first time in the history of our lives, we turned our tax paperwork in early.

A lot of the backbone stuff we’re doing is more corporate than we’re used to—setting up structures, building systems, creating strategy and dreaming up super-ordinate goals. But it feels good to get organized, and the way we’re doing it feels right. We’re thinking critically, spending thriftily and making decisions by consensus, like we’ve always done.

And yet—how far we still have to go. We still don’t have a new bank, or real estate, or a cash register, or health care. But we’ve come a long way, and things are trucking forward smoothly. Stay tuned for new developments soon.