Peace?

Peace at last.

For any of us in any form of retail, we feel a certain wryness when we sing about peace during the holidays.

We also wonder how the concept of peace applies to our everyday lives. I recently gave a mortal business enemy a Christmas Card with the word "Peace" engraved in gilded script across the front of it, thinking "...if only!" I wonder if he got the message: I can only hope it works subliminally.

And now that it's the first day of the year, it's eerily quiet. All emails have stopped. All Ebay transactions and last minute running about is over.

In many ways, however, peace is our enemy. This year ushers in an economic recession at best, which may turn into a depression at worst. My primary business is being heavily affected, and many other businesses are suffering, too.

By nature, I am not a peaceful person. Oh, I believe in peace with my fellow man! But to sit about quietly? I need to be busy and I am frightened that this January will be a little too peaceful for my taste.

One interruption I don't welcome is the lawsuit I must enact against my former friend and tenant, who owes me a little over $4,000. But I am at peace knowing that the home she and her drugged-out son destroyed is completely fixed up and beautiful inside: It looks like a model home of what mobile homes should look like.

The home is completely drywalled, clean, neat, and has a new tenant who can't believe her good fortune. She has fixed up the home so beautifully that not only does it feel warm and cozy, but even *I* would happily move in immediately - no questions asked.

And unlike my former and ungrateful friend, this new tenant delights in the fact that she has a new hot water heater, two new airconditioners, and a washer and dryer. In fact, she has become rather entrepreneurial and is charging her fellow neighbors $5 a load if they wish to use her laundry facilities!

My little ebay business sped up drastically around Christmas time, but I fear it will be flatlining for the next couple of weeks. And my primary business is limping along fitfully.

However, this is the time to get back to writing my book, exercising, designing a belated Christmas gift for my mother, projects for my house, and perhaps polishing up my resume. A friend and I are currently working on creating a surprise for my son: A massive re-haul of his bedroom while he's away for a week.

What will you be doing to start out the New Year? And what are your feelings about it? Will 2008 be better or worse than 2007?

Happy New Year to every one of you (as long as you're one of the good guys). May this year surprise us with success and startle us with a profitable workload!