good decisions...

I get free postcards every Thurs from Avant Card and they usually give me a magazine or a post card or some free tea or something; today I got a CD and a Cleo magazine! The stand is at the back of the shop after having been moved around a few times and it gets people in and it's a funky stand... but I repeat I get magazines and CDS and other free things from them - I think I got a few balloons once!
I went to hear Juicy sing at a place called BBs last night and Caity stayed over! We went grocery shopping at 11pm and Caity made a yummy breakfast, orange juice, coffee, wraps with scrambled eggs and shallots...
We then drove to Bondi and walked along the sea and sand which was really surprising and pleasant exercise besides spotting quite a few blue bottles and two dead fish! Then we moved to better territory, shoe and clothes window shopping, followed by a coffee and random chats with people and then time to get to work for me! What a morning! A full and healthy brekky, over an hour of walking, two coffees...
I am in the shop now; after chatting with a construction man about the front display ( I know sis, but I am thinking of modern and getting people to see in, plus more light!) eating my frittata (sp?) and drinking water while checking out what pops got up to this morning; he rearranged the self help/pregnancy section and added humour to the mix and condensed the war books in the corner; it looks so good! :)
I am loving all these little changes prior to the more obvious space and moving shelves ones. Yesterday was a big day; I spent over two hours looking at buying options/companies/warehouse suppliers and potential things like fairs/sales/stock clearances - it's exhausting and really an expensive project no matter which way I look at it. I know I am attempting to follow a market trend inspired by bigwigs like Westfield who believe in change and making differences, altering the look of shops and having open displays/windows etc but they're a large large conglomerate and I'm a tiny shop trying to follow the current trends!
But I still think that if something looks the same from the outside and remains the same after a four year period; unless it's succeeding and needs to stay the same (like David Jones, Myer etc) people are going to walk by and go - been in there! Nothing new!
That's where the moving books around, condensing books, opening shelves, making a kids section and popping kids chairs in started! And people come in and go wow! It looks good, the sections have moved...
So whether it's a potentially good decision based on reason or something based on good intentions; I can feel the energy and positivity that I have put into the shop and although I cannot remember any famous quotes when I ACTUALLY need one - What wouldn't I do? What could I do better? Hold on...

Buddha: Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

Nelson Mandela: The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

and the most important one is the one I received from a friend when I was questioning what I wanted to do about the shop in the first place and prior to all the little changes we have been doing in the two months:

" You're not working for free; you're working to free yourself."
Gil Gonzalez