Thanksgiving

I swear to God, we haven’t abandoned this blog. We’ve just both been extremely busy, juggling a variety of dramas (both client-centric and otherwise) and have shifted a lot of our day-to-day news updating to our Facebook pages. But R&K is still on the air.

My brother comes into town for Thanksgiving tomorrow! It’s been almost a year since we’ve seen him last. Though we talk at least once or twice a week on the phone (and spend quality time playing Bioshock 2 and Red Dead Redemption online), it’s just not the same as being there in person. So if I were to sketch up a list of things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving 2010, topping the list would be seeing my brother again.

A list of other updates and thanksfulnesses after the jump.

A lot has been happening lately, so I can’t absolutely guarantee I’m covering everything here. But here goes:

Da Bidness. We’re ending 2010 much, much stronger than we started it. Debt down, bills cut, income up. Better paying, more reliable clients. Some crises averted, others confronted and managed, others minimized and survived. Today we signed a big retainer deal with a major corporation that could make us in 2011, just this account, as much as I made total as a freelancer in 2006. Other big deals are developing and could soon come into play. Load Bearing Creative is growing and both of us feel more professionally and creatively fulfilled than at any time in our respective careers.

Each Other. For our first two years of marriage, we weathered a hell of a storm and celebrated our second anniversary in July. I can honestly say that I’m more in love with my wife than ever. We’ve grown closer as friends, lovers, business partners, buddies. When people find out that we work together at home, sitting two feet apart from each other in a 10×10 room, and in fact are rarely physically apart at any time during the day or night, they ask in bewilderment: don’t you get on each other’s nerves? And you don’t fight? How do you do that? And we answer that it helps that we like each other a lot. We also both strongly believe in our marriage and in what we can accomplish together. That makes all the freakin’ difference in the universe.

The Animals. As we’ve mentioned here before, Tuck died in August. But not until he’d fought an impossible battle with cancer for over five years. Sam and Veruca are fine as always, and recently our zoo has expanded to formally adopt Monkey on a full time basis; she has very much adapted to a preferred indoor lifestyle and has the weight gain to prove it. And now we’re gradually kidnapping another one (yes, this would make three): a female sealpoint Siamese Hemingway (six toes per paw) named Zion. Will tell that story in more detail later.

Family and Friends. We’re ending 2010 with most of our friends and family intact. Both sets of parents are alive and well. My father came through cataract surgery; my grandmother survived a stroke. Kristi’s father had a successful back operation that freed him from immobility and pain that had debilitated him for years. There were multiple family weddings, no family divorces. One great vacation in Ventura that introduced me to a rewarding bunch of new family relationships. Our friends the Duartes are expecting their second child basically at any moment. One sad death of a family friend. But for the most part, everyone’s doing okay. And new friendships have grown strong and enriching in 2010.

The House. What can I say? We now have staff. I was utterly sick of doing the damned lawn. Kristi was equally fed up with having to constantly stay on top of a house horribly abused by the passage of four animals and a husband who leaves messes in his wake. As we traversed the financial chaos that buffeted our lives in 2009, we talked often about What We’ll Do When It’s Over. Near the top of the list was hiring lawn and house help. Well, we recently did it! Our lawn attendant Kristin keeps a sharp eye on the Jurassic cascade that surrounds the house (and even takes out the trash!). Today our new housekeeper Eunice hit the house like a tornado, setting a massive clean bomb off and promising to return in two weeks to do it again. Combined, they cost the equivalent of about two hours of time billed monthly to our clients. Happy to find that money somewhere – just pass the savings along to the customer!

Things Working Out. We started 2010 in crisis, just like we spent all of 2009. We were barely holding things together with a couple less-than-ideal clients and squeaking through month to month. When we lost one of them spectacularly in February, I was at the end of my rope and just couldn’t march it forward anymore – we’d been in a running firefight since the January before, and I just didn’t have anything left. Kristi and I sat down one evening and she talked me off the ledge. Then we worked out a plan to create a business that came to be called Load Bearing Creative. We took a number of calculated risks, made some hard decisions, and hoped and prayed like crazy that somehow it would work out. And gradually it has.

Plans. Today we’re able to breathe a little easier. Not easy, just easier. We still have some big bills, still have a lot of things left to figure out. But having some room to work with and not having to obsess over the daily crisis has given us the freedom to be thinking ahead to the things we’d really like to do. One such plan: a 2012 trip to Rome, with the church choir, a sojourn which among other things would offer me the opportunity to watch my wife sing in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Yes, that Vatican. It’s going to take some financial doing to pull off, but we have the time and the business is growing. It can be done, and it’s worth doing, so we’re going to give it our best shot.

I guess what I’m saying is, life’s good. Plenty to be thankful for. We sincerely wish the same for you, and the best of the upcoming holiday. Happy Thanksgiving.