I'm in the midst of my crazy busy season, so free time is in short supply, but that means that I've got around 16 people on payroll for the next couple of weeks, and then it drops down to around 10-12 people on payroll until the end of October. This means one of my "Did you pay the rent goals" which is to not just keep myself employed and fed, but also to be keeping other people involved in the arts in Los Angeles employed as often as I can.

We seem to be having a successful start to our Halloween Horror Nights install, so that's good. There are a number of overlapping projects this month so that will be a challenge for staffing, coordination, and design work.

Um, that's the short version.

bonny - gonna be tomorrow evening instead of morning. I've started but don't trust my low blood sugar brain to get it all right now. Hope that's okay!

Thanks smonster, insent with a new version in a few minutes.

Fabulous. I'm going to set an alarm on my phone so I don't forget.

Okay, here goes.

what successes did you have this month?

Well, I felt like the month just evaporated, but I took an actual look at it and: finished camp, bunch of donor maintenance (raised $2000 when we thought we were just cooking), got caught up through May with data entry, established school year sched, got former student registered for discipleship program, worked w/ graphic designer on marketing materials rework, additions to web, mailing list maintenance, electronics recycling.

Sorry to list all that out, but I think it's important for me to recognize that I haven't been just faffing around. Lots more to do, of course, but that's not as shabby as I thought.

what do you have an eye on for the next month?

This is the big one. We start school back up, I (hopefully) escort my former student to Chicago, hopefully replacement board meeting, finish getting current.

any brags, frustrations, brilliant ideas, inspirations?

Not really, the theme for this month seems to be despite. Despite my procrastination, I got my student in the program. Despite my mess-ups, we got our financial house back in reasonable order. Despite my best efforts, I have not gone under.

My big frustration right at this moment is that I threw my hands up and turned all the old laptops over to the recycler without clearing them out. Had I done so, I would have realized I couldn't throw out my last one yet, because I still only had a working version of Adobe CS on that one. I have a call in right now to their support center, but if they can't help me, I'm screwed, because I thought I would just buy the lastest version, but it's out of stock at the non-profit discount tech store and I can't afford it full price.

didja at least pay the rent? (or whatever your personal bottom line is for "is my business doing okay?")

Yes. Thank goodness. Still have to assess what the rest of the year will look like, but we have at least one major donor being courted and the annual campaign is about to start.

how are your psychic wages doing?

Excellent. We have one former student in town right now who just went through two years of rehab, is now working with the drug rehab center, and is studying to become a pastor. We have one student who was homeless, jobless, and an emotional wreck who is getting ready to enter a 10 month program. We have one former student we didn't think was going to graduate, whose family rejected her, now married, expecting, and in town hoping to record, while on break from their touring.

Lots of tough stuff too, but I'll take what I can get at the beginning of the school year.

I guess the next thing to do is to look at my calendar and portion out the large tasks I know I can't get done before the school year starts next week. Realism here.

what successes did you have this month?

I spent August insanely busy - I had a subcontracting gig for a bigger design firm that ended up being pretty much full time for the month, with my existing clients squeezed into the evenings and weekends. I'm fried. Plus side, it was a month with lots of hours and not a lot of worries about finding work. (In web and other graphics-related fields, work tends to be either sub work for some agency or services directly for clients. Both have pros and cons. The hell if I can figure out my ideal balance of the two.)

what do you have an eye on for the next month?

A couple of leads on new projects plus one to wrap up this month. Not as much solidly planned as I'd like, but enough to keep flying. With more flex back in my schedule, I can also get back to tending the business itself more than I did in the last month.

didja at least pay the rent?

Eep. In the long term, yes -- I have more than my monthly target coming in. But short term, a big chunk of it doesn't get here until after the bills are due, and we're living tight until then. My major freak at the moment is getting my reserves in good enough shape that I can ride the ups and downs a lot easier.

Yeah, that's a biggie. When I launched the company, we had about seven grand in reserves, which was enough (we're a small budget) to keep me comfortable. That amount stayed more or less the same until year before last, when a convergence of activities (unbudgeted work teams who came out and cost us more than they gained us, blargh) plus a lot of long-term projects falling due pretty much depleted it. Since then, the numbers coming in haven't changed, I've just lost the elasticity to be able to absorb it. My finances are very seriously cyclical, and I really need that buffer. The donor I'm courting right now is thinking about supplying the buffer, but I need to get everything else in good enough shape that we don't just whiz right through it if they do.

Okay, so I bought half the individual elements of the suite at twice the price, but at least it was possible. Now I gotta get into town and download the massive files.

what successes did you have this month? In the midst of the worst financial month I’ve seen in years, I was hired to do something I love that will raise the profile of my own business. It was a surprise that shouldn’t have been a surprise. We should have done it a long time ago.

I spent significant energy on getting my redesigned doggy lama website reatdy and I like the results. All my sessions went well and I did some pro bono work that I feel good about.

what do you have an eye on for the next month? I’m releasing the website, along with some event announcements, basically a ‘grand reopening.’ A major priority will be leveraging the partnership and doing a lot of commenting on other people’s sites to drive traffic to mine.

any brags, frustrations, brilliant ideas, inspirations? I procrastinated as much as I worked this month. Next month, that ratio has to change. My people business needs more attention. More than anything, I need to love writing every day.

In frustration-land, I had several people who sought treatment but did not follow through. I don’t mind when people change their minds, not at all, but just leaving me hanging is just plain rude. Even worse, a woman actually came to a session and then stiffed me. I can’t force people to be honorable and I wish I didn’t even have to think about doing so.

In inspiration-land, spending time dreaming with my employer/partner really sparked my enthusiasm for forward movement and helped me to overcome my terror of giving up my lone wolf status. It’s about time, everyone says!

didja at least pay the rent? (or whatever your personal bottom line is for "is my business doing okay?") Nope. My salary (just saying that gives me a boost) will help when I actually get a full month of it. Of course, the two-week check helped, but it really was just a terrible month financially. Thank god for student loan deferment.

how are your psychic wages doing? My psychic wage FAR outstripped my accounts receivable. What few clients I had did excellent work and made great changes.