October 30. Sunday Night.

Hi Journey.

I feel I've never enough time in this crazy mix of work and play I'm attempting.

OK, Journey, I'll be honest—yes, it's mostly work. The play part is surprisingly little, especially the past couple of months. Put in ten hours in the shop yesterday; only realized it was 7PM when the light outside shifted toward shadow. Yes, I know, work is play for me. At least it used to be. I do love working with my clients. That's stayed stable these past three years since I started CD. There's something about seeing the light switch on when that ‘aha' gleam spreads across their face. Their eyes open a smidge wider, and they often smile inwardly with an ever-so-slight lifting of the corners of the mouth as if to tell themselves that yes, they knew this little secret the designer had all along.

Because of course, they did. Women clients always—always—know what they love in their own home. Since they were old enough to tuck their first doll into bed they've been internally processing their perfect vision of surroundspace. Men always think a woman's sense of design comes out of a makeover magazine or TV show. Not at all. Those aid our comparing our inner dream to somebody else's possibility. But the real vision always comes from within. One of my clients had carried around in her mind the exact shade of blue she wanted on the walls of her Great Room from the time she was six until she could afford it at fifty six. It was the color of the Atlantic Ocean as it bisected the sun at sunset, reflecting from the chrome fender of a rented Raleigh bicycle as she and her family rode along a South Carolina beach on the last evening of their vacation.

We just coax out their inner sense of design. Some of them are color-crippled, like me. That's why the Shelly's of the world exist.

And some of them are gracious, like Mrs. Grufsen. Jubles and White delivered her paint first thing Friday, as promised. The paint crew worked her back into their schedule by mid-afternoon, and tonight those walls in her family room are drying nicely.

And I won't have to look bad anymore. Guess that's what eating at me, bottom-line. It's not just that we disappoint a customer; not even that profits might dip. And it's really not that I might lose one of those better-than-gold referrals that've built my little shop these past three years.

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