After six weeks of being at home I am really starting to settle into this lifestyle. I stopped setting an alarm in the morning because there is no real reason to get out of bed early. And I do not make myself go to bed at a certain time for the same reason. This new normal is still really odd, but I am getting used to it. If you want to catch up on my first two blogs visit www.borsellinocarpentry.com/nicksblog
On to business. So, after another week I have still heard absolutely nothing from UI or PUA. Crickets. I sent out another message to the Unemployment office yesterday. I sent an email to my contact for the PPP and EIDL loans this morning and got this response. “Good morning, Your application is ready to submit to SBA. We are currently in the process of submitting all loans that are ready to SBA as efficiently as we are able. Please watch your email in the coming days for next steps from our team.”
I will be doing some math this week to see how long I can feasibly continue this path before going into the red. The good news is it seems like I might be able to get back to some work soon. The guidelines are so unclear that it is hard to know anything for sure. I’m using my best judgement for now and staying home.
I have had a few offers for work over the last few weeks. As I described in my first blog post, I have an exceptionally long wait list and cannot just let people cut in line. The weather has not been conducive for exterior work. I understand that the snow melts and we have one nice day, and everyone starts thinking about their outdoor projects. But last week we had more days with snow than days without. This week the forecast is calling for more rain than not. This is not typically when I start exterior work due to fighting the weather in the spring. Just as the old saying states “April showers bring May flowers”. Although I have long thought it is the other way around “April flowers bring May showers” We tend to get a warmup and things start to bloom giving a false sense of reality. Then May hits and it’s like HEY MORE RAIN!
I generally start exterior work in June as I wrap up interior jobs during the rainy season. This year, I’m not exactly sure how things will play out. At the start of the shutdown I was in the middle of two separate bathroom remodels as I discussed in the previous blogs. When I can safely go back into people’s homes, they are my first priority. As the weather shifts if I can’t go to interior jobs, I may start to work on some exterior projects. It feels like treading water… in shark infested water… The reopening will happen eventually, but it must be done carefully and slowly. If we all go back to life as normal, the virus could just spread again like it did the first time. It started with one person and spread to Millions throughout the world. Even with massive shutdowns.
I am not a scientist, nor am I an economist or a doctor. These professionals will determine when it is time and how to start our new normal. Everyone I know is in some sort of hardship. This is taking a toll on people’s mental states as well. People are starting to take drastic measures and putting others lives in danger. I will not put others at risk simply to do a construction job that is not truly essential, no matter how much bribery and guilt I get.
During, the last few weeks as I have been settling into this new lifestyle, at a more relaxed pace I have been doing a lot of personal reflecting. The weather here has been just awful during this whole shutdown. The first two weeks I was grateful of that, so that it didn’t feel like we were missing out. But now it is just downright depressing. It has been snowing, raining and cold. With the occasional halfway decent day that gives a glimmer of hope. But this little glimmer hasn’t shed enough light on Central New York for me.
I grew up here and moved to Massachusetts when I was 20. The weather seemed a little more reliable there, less gloomy. When I moved back to Cazenovia in 2009, the next few winters were some of the most intense I have ever remembered. Snow upon snow upon snow. So, to cope with this I started snow blowing driveways. It was a business move that just kind of happened out of necessity and opportunity. I worked my butt off, charging something like 10 or 15 dollars to snow blow a driveway. I would even clear the snow off people’s cars. I remember feeling so good about helping people and providing a service. I also remember the soaking wet, cold gloves. Covered in snow. Goggles fogging up. Smelling like gasoline and exhaust from the snow blower. Five hours of straight snow blowing during every storm is very tiring, but I found it rewarding for a few years. Eventually the novelty wore off. I realized that I could not keep up with the demand I had created and a few years ago I decided to buy a plow truck. That was a game changer. I could now do 5 times as many driveways and it was much less of a toll on my body. I’ll get back to this thought in a little while…
As the old saying goes, “work smarter, not harder”. As I get older, that saying makes more sense to me every year. When you’re young it is much easier to work harder than smarter. You feel invincible. But as time catches up with you, it’s harder to keep the pace.
So, what am I doing now to work smarter? Well over the years I’ve gotten a lot pickier about the type of jobs I take. I cannot keep up with the demand for my services, so it has allowed me to be selective and for that I am extremely grateful. I have stopped doing any roofing, I turn down large jobs including building houses, additions, replacing all the windows in a house, building decks, etc. Although occasionally I have been known to do a deck, every time I finish one, I swear it’s the last. Especially now that I work alone. Those projects are just so hard to do when you’re only one person.
As I said earlier, this time off has given me a lot of time to reflect on what is important to me. Just as I have realized over the years that killing myself on a job isn’t worth the reward, I’m realizing a lot of my priorities in life have shifted. I am enjoying time at home just living with my girlfriend, her son and my dog. I am enjoying spending more time producing YouTube content, cooking, not waking up to an alarm, having Zoom family reunions, reading books, blogging, and listening to music. The list goes on and on and it feels like a dream. A dream that is making me not want to go back to the way things were.
Speaking on my YouTube channel… I have been watching the views on my channel grow exponentially and I’m realizing that I can provide a very useful service to people without having to necessarily go to their house. I can teach people. I have skills that are valuable to everyone. I really love making these videos. I really enjoy the editing process and knowing that I am providing a service to people. My video on replacing the glass in a Jeld-Wen window https://youtu.be/NuES9ULvvyU has been viewed over 1,000 times!!! That number increases every day! I was skeptical that any of my videos would ever have that many views and this was one of my first ones! This has given me so much hope that I can help many more people than I ever have before. I don’t think I’ve worked for 1,000 clients total in my whole 19 years of construction combined. This is just mind blowing to me to have that much reach in just a few months. Thank you to everyone who has watched ANY of my videos. I appreciate all your support.
This last week I have spent a lot of time working on my online presence. I have completely overhauled my website www.borsellinocarpentry.com. I have plans to keep it evolving with a lot of ideas in the future. I released this blog, unsure of the direction it was going to go, and still unsure of that. But if you are enjoying this please consider subscribing to the blog at the bottom of this page. I hope to keep you up to date on all the inside scoops of my business in the future. If you have any ideas or suggestions or comments for how I can improve, or want to give me words of encouragement, please drop me a line through any of my available lines on my contact page.
I also started a little merch page with TeeSpring.com this week at https://teespring.com/stores/borsellino-carpentry. I’m not expecting to make a living selling t-shirts off my website or anything, but it doesn’t hurt to open up the possibility of some extra income, especially during this time. For years people have asked me for a Borsellino Carpentry shirt, and I haven’t been financially able to just go print a hundred shirts and give them out to everyone who wants one. But this way if people really want one and want to show me some support, they can purchase a shirt or a mug and I make a couple dollars on each item. I listed all my items lower than their suggested prices to give you the best value possible. I hope to have someone with some art skills make a killer design that I can feature on some products, so if you have that kind of talent shoot me a message and let’s chat!
One last thing I’ve recently been looking into is affiliate marketing. Considering I use a lot of tools and have plans to do tool reviews, I thought I would investigate this. This is just another possible source of a small passive income. If I am recommending certain products, I can have special links that I can then receive a small commission for recommending people to certain sites if they make a purchase. This isn’t exactly a retirement plan or anything, but it goes back to the work smarter not harder theory.
Alright so back to the whole winter/plowing thing I was getting into earlier… Before I bought the plow truck, I was growing tired of the winter. Snow blowing was painful. The only solace I had in the winter was snowboarding, and in recent years the winters have been so unpredictable that I have bought a season’s pass and not even used them to their potential. So what is really keeping me here in CNY when we only have decent weather for maybe ¼ of the year? Good question!
Sometime around 6 years ago, I had the idea to be a snowbird. I would buy a place in Florida and work there all winter for the other snowbirds. Doing all sorts of home renovation type work. Then when it gets too hot, I would just come back to CNY and work here in the summer. Sounds too good to be true! But is it really? Why do people wait their whole lives to retire and start doing stuff like this when they are too old to enjoy it? Why not live every day like retirement or vacation? I am not saying don’t work. What I am saying, is why not just enjoy where you live and not feel like you have to be stuck inside all the time. Now for this week’s big revelation…………
Hawaii. I know, I know. It sounds crazy right?! And maybe it is. But maybe not. It could just be the cabin fever talking, but a boy can dream right?! I’ve been doing some research and Hawaii has basically perfect weather year-round. Not too hot and not too cold. Each island has a different vibe and microclimates within each island. But generally speaking, it is beautiful paradise just about every day. There’s no snow to deal with. The people as a whole from what I hear are much happier. If CNY went to a psychotherapist, it would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The weather here has incredible swings that makes it nearly impossible to plan any outdoor activities. No wonder people here are depressed! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not shutting down my business for good and moving to Hawaii. But it sure sounds intriguing. Tricia’s son, Gavin is in 6th grade, so we have a few years before he graduates. We have already determined that we would wait until he is out of high school before making any major life changes like moving away, whether it be Florida, Hawaii or California. And he has voiced no interest in moving to Hawaii. One thing is for certain, we need a change of scenery.
Every year by the end of winter, the winter blues have consumed me. Spring just feel like a teaser to summer. And summer goes so fast that it’s hard to enjoy. Because while it is so nice out, it’s also the best time to do exterior work. So I’m often torn between work and the guilty pleasure of riding my motorcycle or other outdoor activities that I enjoy. Do I just want to work my life away? No. Do I have a better plan? Not yet. But again, this whole quarantine thing has helped me put a few things in perspective. One of them is that while we only have a small amount of pleasant weather here, if I’m going to stay here in NY, I need to shift my work to do less exterior work so I can enjoy the small enjoyable season that we have. Of course, these are all just wild dreams and off the cuff typing. Time will tell what happens.
If you made it to the end of this, thanks for your time and patience. I wasn’t sure what I was going to write, I just let my fingers do the work and these posts just kind of formulate on the spot. I think my blogs are a mix of an inside look into my personal life as well as my business life. Because let’s be honest, if you are self-employed, your business is your life. So, until next time. Stay Safe.
Aloha,
Nick