Down with the Crud, Putting the Business Together Little by Little…

Well, the last couple of weeks have been such an unproductive time. This is not to say that progress in any area hasn’t been made, it just has felt like there was so much more I could have done, though I am unsure exactly what that would have looked like. Perhaps I am just a bit anxious over the recent financial changes and dueling with my inner demons.

I have spent the past two weeks with the nasty crud that has been going around. I have a day or two where I feel pretty good, followed by days of wondering if my stomach is ever going to stop feeling horrible, along with being tired. I’m so sick of being sick.

One positive to being down is that it has given me some time to read some books about starting a dog industry business, work on the business website, come up with a name for the business, and get a better grasp on the direction I am pointing myself in. Better finances would make this a bit easier to do, but I am doing what I can as I can and that is better than nothing.

The name of the pet sitting, house sitting, and dog walking business I am starting is called Dog & Den. There will be a LLC at the end of that, hopefully in the near future, but it’s a start and won’t cause huge problems to add later. I’ve looked into insurance and the cost isn’t that bad (about $200-ish), but is also on the back burner waiting for its own funding.

As I said before, I want to have dog training be a part of this business, but I have not been able to move forward with that part, as of yet. I have reached out to the trainer that my friend referred me to, but I have not heard back from her, as of yet. I’m so anxious to get going with it that not hearing back is giving the doubters on The Committee more fuel to throw in their two cents even louder. God, I wish I knew how to shut them up. I am ignoring the feelings of defeat that want to try to take over because of it. I will move forward one way or another, whether with this trainer, another trainer, or finding/coming up with the funding for school. This is happening and is something I now realize should have happened many years ago.

We had almost a full week of frozen pipes here. Running water is such a wonderful thing, and something I have come to take for granted. Frozen pipes meant no showers. Unfortunately, as the pipes thawed, one of the pipes in the 5th wheel burst, so there is still not running water in there to take a shower. Right now, even if the pipe hadn’t burst, I still wouldn’t be able to shower since we are out of propane. Thankfully, Lance has found work and we should be able to start taking care of all that needs to be taken care of in the ‘keep moving forward’ category, like propane and such.

I wish some cleans would come along, though I get the feeling that run is over with for whatever reason. I could be wrong. Either way, I am still going to need to find an income to either go along with the cleans as I build the business or replace the cleans altogether.

I’ve been trying to come up with some fundraising ideas, but this has never really been one of my strong areas.  Ok. That may not be completely accurate. I’m not familiar with how fundraising works, what types of things work for raising funds, and how to actually promote the fundraising in a manner that makes it do what it is supposed to do – raise funds. There are about a gajillion things online about it but so many of the stuffs I have found that way either require funding to start fundraising (??) or sound completely like scams. The others that don’t fall into these two categories seem unrealistic and/or I just don’t understand how to make them work. I could be over thinking it a bit since it is something I am unsure of, something new, but I don’t know. Maybe it sounds overwhelming to me. New stuff usually does.

Well, I should head over to my business site and work on that for a bit. If anyone wants to give me some suggestions about fundraising, please leave me a comment – I’d love to have someone, or a number of someones, to brainstorm with.

Have a great day, Everyone!!