So Little Time...

Here we are, already more than a week into the new year. I SO have not been feeling like writing. I get an idea or two in my head, I turn on the computer, and I just sit and play solitaire. It seems like way too much trouble to think hard enough to write any kind of an engaging essay. Life is not too bad right now, either. I think I just have the mother of all cases of the winter blahs.

The weather has been absolutely miserable. When it’s not dark and rainy, it’s dark and icy. Either way, it’s dark. I know the days are supposed to be getting longer. It’s hard to tell if the sun is showing up earlier or sticking around later when the clouds are so heavy you have perpetual twilight. Ugh! I REALLY need a sunny day right now!

I have a stack of things a mile high (as usual) to accomplish at the café. We just got the last Christmas tree taken down this evening, took the wreaths off the doors and peeled off the rest of the decorations. All that’s left are the poinsettias I bought from one of the local school fundraisers. They’re still alive, still beautiful, in fact. I can’t throw them away, and I know if I bring them home they will become garbage almost immediately. And there is the added concern that we don’t want the cats eating them. Not good for them at all. And I clean up enough barf around the house…I don’t need poinsettia puke added to the mix.

At least de-Christmasing has been accomplished. The million and ten other thing I need to do are still weighing heavy. I have to re-do the menu. I did a rudimentary cost analysis last week and found that the price WE pay for provisions has increased over thirteen percent since last January. So if I don’t raise my menu prices, we’ll be going to the poorhouse fast. And I just hate to raise the prices. People are very price-conscious out here in the sticks. I’ll have them bitching and moaning for months; saying things like, "How come your prices are so high? This isn’t Portland, you know." No, it’s not Portland. But my damn food comes from Portland, and they don’t charge me any less just because I do business in the boonies. If anything, I pay more. Why don’t people get that? Duh!!!

AND I have to plan our Valentine’s special, create the menu, design the ad, figure out the decorations, try and guess how much of what to order, etc. etc. ad infinitum. This one has me kind of intimidated. Last Valentine’s Day, we didn’t do anything special, and we still had a pretty good turn out (overflow from the local restaurants that DID do something special, I imagine…) This year, I want to try to actually make the most of the day (it’s supposed to be one of the top two or three days of the year for dining out…that would make it an opportunity I can not afford to pass up!) So I’m feeling some pressure, here…shaking in my boots and cultivating my ulcer.

There are times when I’m concerned that I take this all too seriously. And times when I worry that I don’t take it seriously enough. Either way, I worry. And I hate worrying. It takes all the fun out of it…