Ash, congratulations on your sales. Yes, there are upsides to being without our computers. Mine has been out for a couple of days (hard-drive replacement), but I missed it. Best wishes for Natalie.
Happy to hear about the surge in sales Ash. Continuing best wishes for you and yours.
A few weeks ago the studio/garage (They're connected) needed reorganization, so we put out a bunch of paintings in the driveway. In the past, I only set paintings out to accelerate drying. Within a couple of hours on a Wednesday afternoon two paintings were sold. Sellingl out of the studio direct to the public is frowned on as undercutting gallery prices and undervaluing the work. Since I'm not represented by any local gallaries and would rather have half the value in pocket, what the hey.
I made up a crude sign "Art Sale" and set it out along the road the following Saturday and sold another painting. I spent the day working at the easel so that no one could snatch and run with a painting. Small price for the painting, but I moved a couple of old works much closer to finish. That same Saturday my computer died. I got back into the house late, and found Natalie incoherent on the bedroom floor; I thought she had had a stroke. The odds of her dying that night were 60:40. She went into a coma that lasted several days, during which time they figured out she had bacterial spinal Meningitis. The boys flew in and managed things for a week. Obviously, I didn't open the studio for sales, or do any painting for a couple of weeks.
Last Wednesday, still without a computer and with Natalie on the slow mend, I put paintings out again and managed to sell a few more. I was open Friday and pocketed $560, for an older painting that I had reworked a couple of weeks earlier. Today and tomorrow, I'll be out trying to attract the weekend garage sailors. Hard cash to complete the kitchen/powder room rennovations; new ceiling fixtures in the entry hall and dinning room; a handyman go get the English Garden ready for planting; a few new trees and shrubs for the landscape, and; maybe an upgrade to a 19" flat panel monitor that would make working with computer images easier!
Corazon de la Osa is on the corner of Osuna and and Moon. Osuna Road is a fairly busy street, and traffic has to stop at the intersectioni. Stopped traffic have a great view of my "display area" and I can easily display over 20 paintings at a time. More people have seen the work here in a makeshift manner than in exhibitions, and as I've said before the sales are gratifying.
Well, I need to go open up the shop.
Ash
All the best, Ash! Best wishes for Natalie.
Hi Ashman, Seems your strategy of selling your paintings from Corazon is working out well; hope you continued success. Also good to know of the improvements Natalie have been showing. You and Natalie have my best wishes and thoughts. c.i.
Asherman--
Hold your dominion.
Asherman, was the case of spinal meningitis the original issue, or a secondary one for your wife?
They removed her spleen back in October, and that left her vulnerable to all sorts of nasty infections. Apparently she came in contact somewhere with a Menigitis carrier, and the germs proliferated in double quick time. Between the contact and death's door was probably only a few days at most. Once the antibiotics took hold without her body rejecting them, improvement was pretty fast. She was in a comma for a few days, but after that probabilty of survival went way up. It now appears that she'll make substantially a full recovery ... sometime. Next week we hope to have a conference with the hospital staff to get a better idea of how long they think she'll be in the skilled nursing facility.
The illness last year went close to a quarter million dollars, but the hospital reduced their portion to around 77K. No surgery this time, and we hope she isn't going to spend two months hsopitalized this time. My guess is that this will end up costing us another $30K, or so. A nice round $100K. To have a good income and yet be without medical insurance, is a very, very bad thing. For the poverty stricken there are a lot of support programs, and for many the medical debt is automatically written off here. For folks like ourselves virtually no support programs exist, and we are expected to pay no matter how much it hurts. If we're going to have a socialist state, at least the benefits should cover us "Imperialistic Captialist Warmonger Republican conspirators" just like the downtrodden. Oh well ............
Why don't you have health insurance?
Long story. My PERS medical coverage is worthless outside California, and Natalie's coverage turned out to be minimal at very high rates. Natalie let it lapse, and then found she couldn't find any other coverage for us. We're in our mid-sixties with diabetes, and so no one is willing to cover us. I'm now covered by Medicare, but Natalie won't be eligible until November of '08.
With two major incidents in under a year, you can easily guess how much chance we now have of finding coverage for her. Our income and assets put us far out of eligibility for Medicade. So we carry a medical debt burden so large that we can never pay it off. Our disposable income has gone to zero, and we'll have to juggle accounts to pay all. We have probably around $300K in home equity, so we could sell Corazon and pay off the lot. The downside of that is we'd be homeless and with no further financial reserves. Given our expected life expectancy of around 85, we have 20 years left with an ever rising probability of further catastrophic illness.
Our best bet is to hold on, stay the course, even though it will be tough. In the next 4-5 years we can, by biting the bullet, pay off a significant portion of the debts. In the meantime, our equity will almost certainly continue to rise. The best estimates of local friends in the real estate business believe that in 4-5 years we might realize as much as $1 million on Corazon. We could clear as much as 700K, with a medical debt reduced to something like $60K. If we go into our 80's with cash reserves of half a million, we should be able to spend the last 15 years with some dignity and comfort. The initial problem is the risk that Natalie will continue to have these major events and that the medical debts will grow faster than equity and payoff. The greatest danger lies in the coming two years before Natalie can go on Medicare. These next two years will also be the most difficult in which to balance the budget, and keep Corazon in "prize" condition ... that will be tough, when there is no money to even complete the rennovations already underway. Places like Corazan are really wonderful places to live in, but they aren't for everyone. Everytime a tradesman comes here, his job estimate jumps several zeros from the curb to our front door.
Natalie is much improved, and is scheduled for release from the hospital this Saturday afternoon. The doctors seem to think that in time she'll make a full recovery. She still has trouble moving about, so I got her a walker yesterday. Getting in and out of the van will probably be a problem, and she won't be able to negotiate stairs very well.
It'll be good to have her home, though I suspect that it will take a lot more of my time and effort for a long time.
Best wishes to you both, Asherman.
Yeh but its time you will gladly give. Good news .
Good news indeed. Best of luck to you both!
Oh, I'm so happy to hear she's doing so well!
Going home...what great news!
(((HUGS)))
Good news ... glad to hear it!
Asherman--
Glad to hear the good news. Hold your dominion.
Good to hear this. I wish the best for her.
