Now What?

SO, someone pointed out to me that the blog was easier to read when I was dealing more with why I was doing things, and less about the detailed descriptions of what was happening.

Truth be told, it's an ongoing issue for me. It's very easy to get wrapped up in the details and forget what I was working towards in the first place. And now that the shop setup is winding down, I'm having to take a step back... or many steps back... and evaluate where I am, and what comes next.

That's not to say that things haven't been happening in the shop, or that I'm hopelessly lost in what I thought I was doing. Things are still being put together, and I do have an idea or two of what happens next, but this is the real challenge of woodworking for me; I have to run a business. I'm not working for someone else anymore.

When Chris, Don, and I first got this thing going, I said my best estimate was that we'd be up and running around new year's. They said no way would it take that long. We're about a month early, and there's still a little bit let to do, but I think it's a good time of year for the setup to wind down. I've learned a lot, and managed to get a good handle on how to organize myself, and my work. And the new shop was conceived as a solution to many of the other problems I was having before. But knowing what didn't work before doesn't necessarily mean that I now know how to make something that will work in the future. I'm still trying to figure out where some of the other failures were in the last shop, and how to address them in the coming months and years.

There are three weeks and three days left in the year for me to sit down, contemplate where I am, where I'm headed, and how to get there from here.

If only I could dig up the map with my iPhone, this would all be so much easier.