Swings and Roundabouts

What is it about life and timing? Since I started the biz, I always imagined it taking place in it's own space - a little shop front which I could decorate in the very un-emzee but very pro-cake 'shabby chic' style. A place where I could have cakes on display, where I could invite people into my happy little sweet cake world. Finance and circumstance led me to start the business in a place which is nothing like that at all, and in the past 3 years I've just retained that little fantasy cake space in my head. Mind you, the place the biz is in now has served me very well and has a number of positive attributes... but it's not the space.

I have not been actively seeking to move the business, much in the same way people go off birth control and then tell you they are not trying to get pregnant. You know, secretly hoping it will happen by not trying to make it not happen. In various neighbourhoods around me, I've kept my eye on a couple of different shops which I just happen to like the look of. One of them came up for rent about a year ago...and they wanted $50,000 a year rental (plus outgoings, plus GST). Hmm. That's a LOT of cake. So I let that one go. The second one I had my eye on, they wanted $55,000 and my right arm plus GST plus outgoings. That's even MORE cake, so I let that one go as well. Last week I happened to be driving down a road which I don't often drive down (too much traffic)...and yet another of my 'wouldn't it be nice' shops was sporting a shiny new 'for lease' sign. Just because I like to torture myself, I drove by it two more times before noting down the name of the leasing agent.

This past Friday I went to see the inside of it.

It's almost perfect (needs a bit of a spit and polish). And it's almost affordable (more than I pay now but not unreasonably so). And I don't need to sell too much more cake (okay, maybe a wee bit more) in order to make it workable - because the space has potential to give my business the profile it deserves and hence will open up some new income streams.

Oh my.

And of course, this happens while DH is still looking for work, while I am seriously contemplating sending my kid(s) to another school (that's a whole 'nother post), while we are so broke as to be too scared to look at the bank balance too often, while I am planning on going to my brother's wedding in a few months, while I'm still working on what I want out of this biz, while, while, while....while life gets in the way.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

It's the first space I've seen that I've thought, "YES! I can make this work." It's the first space which falls into my finances in a much more realistic way. It's the first time I drove away from a property and in my head was designing the interior in such a way as to make it work well for me. It's the first time I've had two real, serious offers of financial help to get this thing off the ground. It's the first time I've thought, "Holy crapzoly. I can make this work. I totally can."

And it's just about the worst timing that ever was, but by now I know that humans plan while god laughs. So laugh away, big guy, because I am totally going to make this happen.

This is it. As they say in the old country, I can feel it in my waters.

...and for the record, even if it doesn't work out for whatever reason (and there are myriad reasons why it may not, some practical and some not...) for now all I really need is the HOPE of it. In recent months, so little has brought me joy...that this little bit of joy potential will keep me going for a bit. If for some reason I have to abandon this opportunity - well, you know, there is nothing wrong with the biz as it is now. So I will have lost nothing, and maybe gained some insight into this mad, mad world of small business ownership.

Watch this space.