Thanks brothers, I really am touched! My situation currently is that I have no work in the shop, things are basically dead. Tree work jobs, I think two since the quake a month ago, hardly enough to live on. I have some savings, not a whole hell of a lot at this point, and that is what my wife and I are living on. I have an exhibition of woodwork scheduled in early June, in a part of the country quite a distance from the quake and nuclear concerns, and I am building pieces for that event now. We are just trying to live as cheaply as possible until the show, and hopefully I can sell some work and we can get back to some reasonable stability for awhile, and maybe in some ways by then the situation will have started to lighten up a bit in the country, and folks might be wanting to consider custom furniture again, in terms of commissions, who knows? Perhaps it might even be worse?? If the show isn't somewhat successful, as my wife and I have discussed, we are going to have to do something, I don't know what, but something. My wife teaches a little English to kids, but currently has no students.
The offer from you kind souls to help us out, I don't know what it is really, but when I think about it I start to feel uneasy, that is kind of the best way to describe it, I think. I don't know why that is, maybe because I've been an independent my whole life, pretty much only know self reliance. Maybe I should learn to be more accepting of generosity? Anyway, just trying to be honest here, since the offer has been made a couple of times, and from some people in private communications as well. I'm thinking that I need to get through to the June event by my own accords somehow, then it might be time to reassess. Please bear with me, I hope I'm not seeming discourteous to what you folks are kind heartily wanting to do for us. I sure do accept the spirit of it, it's a real comforting thing at least, not having the sense of being alone.
Jay