Interesting turn of events

It’s gone from the bizarre to the totally unexpected today! Where do I start! I’ve not talked much about my business mainly because I can’t give away what I do for a living as it would make it very obvious who I am. I’m fairly well known online for what I do. What I WILL say is that I manufacture (make by hand) things that would be considered “lifestyle luxuries” and definitely not essentials, so my business relies on people wanting to spend money on luxuries.

Eeek I mean most people I talk to can barely pay the bills and put food on the tables, let alone luxuries! It’s hardly surprising that my business suffered. I kept one part time employee on for as long as I could, but about 18 months ago I had to let her go and I’ve been doing everything myself. Needless to say with the breakdown of my marriage and the problems I was having “emotionally” – well that combined with the recession meant that my business never really did have a chance – not while I was so stressed and strung out becauseI couldn’t focus.

I WAS offered a way out a while ago … AP – my ex affair partner offered to buy into my business. He was talking a serious potential investment that would pay off a portion of the business debt. In fact AP was a huge help in cutting costs anyway regardless of his “interest” in the business. His interest was always from a business point of view too … he recognised that I have a terrific product, just that I am a completely useless “business woman” and need someone to kick me up the ass! I am also just ONE person and one person’s ideas are never going to be as good as collaborative ideas and bouncing off of other people.

Well anyway – this was before the “divorce” was definitely DEFINITELY happening (pre this blog but in the middle of my OLD blog – now deleted) and there was always a possibility of saving my marriage at that point. I knew damned well that if I took AP’s offer then my marriage truly was over … even though it was over anyway there was always that slim chance. Even though AP and I hadn’t (and haven’t) slept together in ummm around 18 months (although we’ve kissed and flirted) – there was (is) always that sexual chemistry between us too, and to go into business with him at that point would have been the WRONG thing to do. It would have been a short term fix to get me out of a financial hole with the business …but not a long term solution.

I turned him down. I remember that day. It was the day that Ness Stopped Procrastinating And Finally Made The Decision. I told AP I couldn’t take his offer and I told my husband that I knew it was well and truly over. I had done my research and told my husband I was applying for the tax credits, that I’d worked out a budget and as soon as the money came through, I would be moving out with the children.

Phew what a day that was! Anyway …. moving on with the story and the events from today!!!

I have no choice but to close down the premises I am currently “working” from. I have a workshop where the products are made and where the mail order / website is operated from – but I can’t afford it anymore as the website isn’t generating enough income to cover the running costs … and with the divorce and everything else … my head just hasn’t been in trying to make it work *right now*. With the rent, maintenance, utilities and rates, it costs £11.5K per year just for that! That number doesn’t include the website hosting, telephone, broadband, advertising, or the “other insignificant overheads” that all mount up… let alone the cost of basic supplies before I can fill any orders.

I’d had the possibility of moving “modus operandus” to a friend’s garage but that all fell through late last night. I didn’t know what to think or what to do and had a very sleepless night. Without somewhere to work from, I have no business and for SO many reasons I can’t go into, it’s not something I can run from home. 

My business has been my life for the last decade and although it hasn’t always earned me heaps of money, it’s covered costs (till the last couple of years or so) and it has made me happy to do what I love for a living! Anyway, I was in a very depressed mood about having to close completely and “get a job” to still qualify for the working tax credits … well until AP called me this morning. I’d sent him a text letting him know that the business had to close and that I have no choice if I have no premises, and he called to remind me that I DID have a choice and it was all ABOUT making choices.

Needless to say I went straight over there to find out what he was talking about! I can’t do conversations like that over the phone! Basically his offer is still on the table. I THOUGHT I had burned my bridges there – from the business point of view anyway, but he still very much wants in.

Thing is … my mother has offered to pay off my business debts!! I know … I am amazed too! We’re not talking small change either – it’s a fairly significant number. She has recently helped out another family member and is basically offering me the same deal. It’s a little morbid, but when my dad passed away 5 years ago he left her very well set up and totally mortgage free and debt free. He died from a terminal illness and had time to get “his affairs in order” before he passed away. This also in turn means that when my mother passes – my close family members and I will inherit a fair amount. We encourage our mother to spend it and enjoy her life because that is what it is about … but there is plenty “in the kitty” to play with. She has basically offered me a “loan from my inheritance” because it’s one way of her helping us while she is still around (and I PRAY she has MANY MANY years spending our inheritance left yet!!!!) but from a practical point of view (and mother is capable of being practical when prompted and pointed in the right direction!) it also means less inheritance tax payable on any capital when she does topple off this mortal coil!

The point of explaining that is that if my debts are CLEAR for an investor, then instead of a 50/50 buy in with money just to pay off debt … it would be 60/40 (to me of course) with money to actually INVEST into getting the business back up and running instead of paying off some debt and STILL not being at zero! He would also then be paying 40% of the costs of new premises too… and 40% of all overheads.

AP even said today that he has no realistic expectation of a wage from it … to begin with anyway … his cash injection would cover a deposit and rent up front on new smaller premises (my current workshop is WAY bigger than I need) plus a nice sized advertising budget and buying in replacement supplies that have been run down where I’ve not been able to afford to stay on top of it.

See AP is an ideas sort of person (like I am) and he likes to ACT on his ideas (like I do!) What is the point of having an absolutely blinding and wicked idea … if you do nothing with it? (sorry, reference to STBX there who would agree it’s a great idea then do nothing about it!) AP would be a business partner … another head to bounce ideas off, and two heads are always better than one!! AP is a also very VERY logical and business minded person (Aquarian – go figure LOL!) where as I tend to get sidetracked by the pretty glittery stuff and go off on a fluffy floaty tangent!! AP brings me back down to earth without disregarding WHY I floated up there in the beginning (i.e. acknowledges me when I do have a good idea) and without making me feel bad about the lack of “fluffy bits” to the eventual idea!!

He also knows that there is a huge market for men with my products that I haven’t really tapped into yet and he has some terrific ideas for going forward with that. He’s had some awesome ideas for advertising, about local letterbox drops and re-establishing the company as a more up-market scale and promoting wholesale rather than have me standing out there all day at events and exhibitions!!

Other than giving away 40% of my business – and 40% my children’s futures … I really struggle with the downside of bringing AP on board as a business partner.  Oooooooooookay I need to think about this logically. I have to think about the negative aspects - which - as this is ME - will naturally involve bullet points!

• If I go into business with AP then I am tying myself financially to a man I once had a very intense sexual relationship with, who I am still sexually attracted to. The sexual relationship started 2 years ago and lasted for 4 months. We’ve not had *full* sex since then although there has been kissing and definite touching and a whole pile of flirting!!
• I am still sexually VERY attracted to him.
• It would make dating other guys almost impossible in the future
• It ties me to him and gives us a reason to stay in touch (this is a bad thing as well as a good thing!)

But the positives FAR outweigh the negatives… and that is all I can think about. AP also knows that I plan on taking the next couple of months completely off – to relax and chill out with my kids… and that any investment has to WAIT until after the new year. I talk about the kids a LOT when I am around him – he is aware of my son’s ADHD & Aspergers and my daughter’s fragile emotional state … it doesn’t scare him.

I don’t even want to THINK about him from a “relationship” point of view because it can’t happen for so many reasons I can’t go into here, but irrespective of that – our lifestyles are so different. I hate getting up early but HAVE to get up at 7am for the kids – he works from home and rarely rises before 11am and works late through the night. I’m a night owl at heart – but because of my lifestyle I can’t stay up later than midnight or I am impossible in the morning!!

It just wouldn’t work … but a business partner and a fuckbuddy? LOL that could work …

A freak and a hypocrite

Woah what a day. A day that started at 5.30am too because on a Sunday morning I work on a market stall as part of my busines. It’s a regular market and it is held every Sunday. It is an early start and a very physical start with loading & unloading, building the stall and setting everything out. I’m also right next to one of the many mobile food vans and as a vegetarian for the past 21 years, the smell of bacon cooking will do it for me every time. It’s almost a relief not being “allowed” to eat it!! I do live vicariously through the smell of it though!!

It is always so very easy not to eat anything on a Sunday because I am usually always busy so I don’t even need to think about food, but I had my 10 year old daughter with me and she has her own body issues that I really REALLY don’t want to make worse. I actually caught her sitting on the sofa the other day prodding her belly and I can’t help but wonder how much of that has been influenced by me and I hate myself for it.

She is a perfect and healthy 10 year old with nothing but a bare whisper of perfectly normal puppy fat on her that is hardly there anyway and shrinking as she grows taller as nature intended! I want her to grow up healthy and confident but I can already see the start of ED behaviours in her (obsession with healthy diet, but love of sweets & candy, ritual staring at herself in the mirror etc) and that scares the crap out of me. I hide what I go through as much as possible and never EVER talk about being fat or overweight or anything like that in front of her. I do NOT want my daughter to go through this. She is already such a fragile and emotional thing and I do my utmost to encourage her positively and to build her self confidence. Shame I can’t do the same for myself eh!

So anyway, when the bacon smells hit her little nostrills and her eyes lit up this morning …. I bought her a bacon bap and I bought myself a cheese & onion toasted sandwich too (NOTE ONION … THAT’S A VEGETABLE – THAT’S A WHOLE FOOD GROUP!) and I made sure that she saw me eating it and I was making all kinds of noises about how hungry I’d felt and how it was SO good to have something to eat, and how tasty it was … all a pile of crap and nonsense of course … it felt rough and dry going down my throat. I was full and bloated after a couple of bites and even an entire bottle of water didn’t help wash it down.

BUT my daughter saw me eating.

I had to eat in front of her at dinner as well … although my husband and I are in the process of separating it is still amicable and knowing I work out on the market all day with our daughter, he had cooked dinner. I usually feed the children early on a week night and then tell them I have my dinner when they are in bed. Anyway, he’d made spaghetti bolognaise for the family and he’d made me a huge portion of penne pasta with some mushrooms, grated parmesan cheese and a few slices of garlic bread.

My husband doesn’t understand my eating disorder. He does know I blame him for a lot of it but he just tells me I look fine and rolls his eyes when I barely eat a mouthful. Did I ever mention I HATE to eat in front of people??? I ate the mushrooms that were mixed with the pasta and I tried to count how many pieces of the penne I ate but with conversation over the meal (a great way to hide the fact you aren’t eating much – talk LOTS) … well I lost count.

I feel like such a hypocrite. How do I carry on my quest to be thin without screwing up my daughter?!?! My husband and I currently agree that after we separate, they will live with me … but if I go too far, how can I argue that I am the best for my kids? How do you know when too far is too far when you have been fat, ugly and overweight for so long?

Trade on the market wasn’t so good today and I wondered how much of it was me? See, when you are out there all day in the public eye – you get to see all sorts of people from all walks of life. You see the uber skinny and the hugely fat. You see weird shaped people and people who look okay from the back until they turn around and you see that it’s actually a woman not a bloke and her tits are drooping down to her knees.

Men notice me – a lot more. I’ve definitely picked up on that. I don’t wear half as much make-up as I used to either, so it must be from the weight loss. I used to hide behind a lot of eye make-up and rarely ventured out without lipstick. Since I’ve lost weight, I barely slap on a little mascara and some lip gloss! I had so many more men than usual come up to my stall, and I swear it was just to engage me in conversation. It didn’t make me feel good because I knew they weren’t going to buy anything.

I sell mainly to women. My “target” customer is 18-55 FEMALE. I sell around 10% to men. I noticed today a lot more “skinny” women come up to my stall now … and the more overweight ones walk past. Do the fat ones see me as a threat because I have lost weight? Do the skinny ones potentially see me as not just another fat person anymore?

This isn’t good for trade when the majority of the public is overweight!! I wrote a post just a couple of days ago about how I suddenly felt more judgemental about the way I looked at people … and I spotted then how people were looking at ME differently. Today being out there in the public all day, I REALLY noticed it.

I wore my new jeans today … the first time in a scary number of years that I have been as small as a size 12… a “perfect” size 12 too apparently even though I NEED to be a size 8. Funny, I always feel the need to quantify that as a UK size 12 – I believe that is actually a USA 8. I love how US sizes are smaller … I also now feel a need to book a flight and go shopping for size 8 clothes! hehee!

It was actually a beautiful day today and the sun was shining. I had a vest style top on under my zip up sweater, and it was actually WARM and when I walked the length of the market up to the toilet block, I took my sweater OFF. Okay that may sound weird, but when you are wearing new “tight” jeans that fit you perfectly, and a slim fitting top with no wrap or cover-up … you feel VERY VERY exposed!!

I had a smile on my face (it was a nice day!!) and almost felt confident as I felt the warmth of the sun on my back and the cute guys looking at me and smiling back.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Why can’t I be happy with that? Why can’t I be happy with being technically textbook perfect weight for my height? Why is it the more positive feedback I get the more I want to lose. Ugh it works the other way too when my friends say that I look great but probably shouldn’t lose more … WHY not? What’s wrong with not wanting to be average? What’s so wrong about enjoying the fact that although I have lost weight … I’m still fat (yeah ok in my eyes, but size 12 isn’t exactly skinny either) I want to lose more. I have a goal in mind and that’s where I’m heading.

On the upside … I posted yesterday that my weight hadn’t changed in 3 days. I did NOT weigh myself at 5.30am … fuck ok that’s a lie … I weighed myself at 5.30am when I got up, and was horrified by the gain of a pound, but quickly justified I’d drank a fair amount of alcohol before going to bed and hadn’t been to the toilet since I’d woken up. I weighed myself tonight and I was the same tonight as I was in the morning before … so that should mean a LOSS of at least one little tiny pound by tomorrow morning. Phew … I worried that I had hit a wall there!

Stress bubbles

I woke up feeling VERY panicked and anxious this morning and I don’t want to go into work. I don’t have huge amounts to do, but I do have enough to be getting on with, plus I need to make a start on packing it all up ready to move it to my mother’s. I just feel like I can’t face it right now. I’ve been back on my “happy pills” (anti depressant) for about a week, so hopefully they will kick in soon.

Stress for me involves very physical and very real symptoms. The best way to describe it is like those butterflies you get in the pit of your stomach when you are apprehensive about something. I call them my stress bubbles as that is just what it feels like. I feel them inside my stomach rising up from the bottom all the way up to the top, and I physically shake as well. Emotionally it is almost like a feeling of impending doom. It isn’t good. When it happens I just want to shut the world out – I don’t want to answer the phone or the doorbell

I am just full of apprehension and anxiety about the future and how I will cope and where I will get the emotional strength from. I KNOW I will cope because I will have to and I won’t have any choice, but the longer this is dragging out and we are having to live here in this house together … it is just getting worse. We are pretty much avoiding each other as best as we can.

On the upside, we did have a discussion about furniture etc and he apologised for being bitter and said I should take what I needed as long as I didn’t strip the house bare! I said I never intended to … I already have a sofa, cupboards, shelves & storage in my office at work that I’ll take … so all I really want from the house is the double bed, the dining table & chairs, the TV from upstairs and the stuff from the kids’ rooms plus my own personal posessions! The rest is just stuff.

As long as I have everything the kids will need, plus somewhere for me to sit and somewhere to lay my head – I’ll be fine.

Okay with that positive thought in mind, I AM going to go into work and start packing it up. At least if I do a couple of hours of clearing out and boxing up, then it will boost my mood later on as I will have achieved something.

Ohhh and another positive thought is that I am 9 stone 12lbs (138) today so that’s another pound gone. The scales were waivering between 137 and 138, but I picked the top number because tomorrow it may be flat on the bottom number :-) There we go … closing on a positive thought.