In my daily conversation with my mom today, she reminded me that I should not put all my eggs in one basket. Yes, we were talking about money and banks and bank accounts and banking. But then she flipped it on me. My mom, if anyone knows my mom or knows of my mom – will flip anything at any moment. She has been known to turn a quiet evening into a rousing evening of laughter, sore abs and fatigued cheeks. That is just what she does and I love her for it.

So back to the eggs; Momma said…Eggs, money or men – make sure you keep an extra basket or two around. Because if one basket is stolen, or gets dropped you won’t lose all your eggs. wait a minute – did she say men? I asked, then, I hollered,then I belly laughed. And through it all, her voice remained as serious as if she had just broken down the secret to life. (Well, maybe she had)

Now, I know many of us have our loyalties and affinities to certain brands, foods, cities, cars, platforms, political parties, teams, etc; but sometimes you have to diversify. I’m almost done with the first book in a trilogy that is meant to clear the path to entrepreneurship to those who are willing to put in the work. And this “system” has already presented me with more baskets than I currently have eggs. So, my plan is to gather as many baskets as I (and my team) can right now; put at least 3 eggs in each basket until they hatch and move forward from there.

This post has very little to do with my design life; well, maybe a little. Since I spend time designing in my domicile.  Well, a few weeks ago, I came home to find that my AC unit was not blowing cold air. In my mind, I though it was low on freon. That’s what’s the commercials say, at least the ones I’ve heard on the radio. So, I called what I thought to be a reputable company (after taking an unofficial poll on my Facebook timeline). They came in about 3 days time – seemed like an eternity on some of the early hot days of summer. So the tech took some things apart and had a definitive look of despair on his face.  He said there was a crack in the furnace that was 30 years old, and that the AC was “dead”. He went on to explain how a newer unit would help me save on my bills and some other things that sounded more like Charlie Brown’s teacher than anything else.

I took a few quotes from some other companies and went with what I thought was the best deal I could find.  A few days later, I had to work from home to be there during the install. I thought it was going to take 4-6 hours; to replace both units, that would be reasonable, right? WRONG! It took a full 8 1/2 hours of painstaking (not on my part) labor and manual effort. But when it was all over, I had cool air. Curious to know the funny part? They had to test the furnace right after the install. So after being hotter than hot for over a week, I had to endure hours (it was more like 20 minutes) of hot air actually blowing in the house.

The days that followed the install were quite hilarious. I could not get cold enough. I joked with one of my sister-friends that I was going to set the thermostat to 50 and put on a sweatshirt. Which is quite funny, because growing up, I didn’t have central AC – and I didn’t really notice much. So I didn’t set the thermostat to 50, but there were a few days when I did force the numbers in order to keep the unit blowing cold air. So that’s it – I’m just chillin’ in my cold, cold world and I love it.