CMO 119: What's Next?

 

Done!

I originally began writing this on Wednesday, 08/19/26.

Today is day five, post CANO Awards. I have begun what I said I would do on Tuesday 08/18/26—reduce spending, terminate unnecessary work accounts, and seek new revenue sources.

Next up is generating a plan to move forward with. Here is what I did this morning..

I went through the Visa statement and cancelled the following accounts:

1.        Zoom (Reinstated until the end of 2026).

2.      Wix (Website)

3.      YouTube Premium (Reinstated until the end of 2026).

4.      Experian

5.      Microsoft CoPilot

6.      RIPL

7.       OpenArt

8.      HappyHorse

9.      DropBox

10.   Poster My Wall

Savings: $221.37 per month

I still have a way to go to bring these monthly expenditures down to an affordable amount. I am giving up on business but not the "Matthew Phillip Andrew Foundation." 

Speaking of “burn a debt!” (Laura’s joke), I need to reimburse Bernadette the amount borrowed to file for an LLC. I also need to submit notification that I may be vacating the office space as well. That, I have not decided on yet.

This morning (Thursday, 08/20/26), I reinstated both the Zoom and YouTube Premium accounts just in case I decide to continue podcasting. However, if I fail to produce any shows between now and the end of this year, I will cancel those two accounts permanently.

My friend offered a hug yesterday morning. My head and emotions were in a strange way. I declined. I said, “I am getting out of the hugging business!”

Did I really mean that? No, I did not. It is just how I feel at the moment. It won’t last. My faith is greater than my broken heart and these wayward emotions.

I miss my son (Matthew). This coming Tuesday (08/25/26), it will be three weeks since he left for the assisted living facility. I wonder if he truly understood the decision he had made. Hard to say with his autism, intellectual disability, and schizophrenia.

I am at peace but the hurt in my heart is real. I am currently listening to Gregorian Chant on Matthew’s Alexa Echo Dot which I managed to program this morning. I am glad that it is working.

So, where do I go from here?

Honestly, I don’t know. I will continue to pray for guidance. I believe that God is with me although I do need to avail myself to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession).

 I truly dislike sinning.

The priest at the local parish responded to Tuesday’s text message regarding confession. He can hear my confession on Thursday, or I can schedule an appointment to meet with him.

Thank God for that.

Update: I made it to confession and reconciliation. Thank God for His Church and the sacraments.

If the situation remains as it is, I believe I will use this time blessed to me to pray, study, write, read, learn, and lose weight. Lord knows it’s about time that I do that. I also need to get a handle on the finances. The situation is spiraling out of control.

Trust! I must do my part, but I will also trust in the Lord. He is all that I have.

Let’s move on … >

__

Act I. Scene I.

Question: If your life were a stage play, how would it begin and why?

Answer: I would start where I currently am in life while populating the story line with flashbacks to the past. The play would open with me as I would be found sitting in my bedroom at my desk just before bed, writing my thoughts in a journal.

Why: Because I like reading stories that are written in journal format—where the writer is sharing his or her thoughts; sharing their story. I enjoy reading about how other people live (or lived). What their life adventures were like and how closely their life resembles my own.

However, that is a story for another time.

Let’s move on … >

--

How about a short story?

"For twenty-two years, James Sedgewick walked past the Whitaker House and told himself there was nothing to it. Just a rotting Victorian on the edge of town, full of dust and old stories.

Then he took a bet to spend ten minutes inside after dark.

What he found wasn't raccoons. It was a cold that didn't  belong to October, an armchair that was still warm, small bare footprints in the dust that stopped at the top of the stairs, and a message written for him alone.

Some houses are empty. Some are waiting.

This is the journal of the night James went in -- and what followed him out.

October 21st

Martha from the hardware store finally talked me into it.

She said, "James, you've lived here twenty-two years and never set foot in the Whitaker House?"

Of course I've set foot near it. Everyone has. It's on the edge of town past the old mill, paint peeling off like sunburnt skin, windows blind with dust. Kids dare each other to touch the front porch rail. For fifty years it's been "the haunted house." I always figured haunted meant poorly insulated and full of raccoons.

Martha bet me a coffee I wouldn't last ten minutes inside after dark. So tomorrow night, 8 PM, I'm going. She has the key - her cousin is the estate agent. I told her to keep her dollar coffee hot for me. I'm bringing this journal and a flashlight. More for the raccoons than the ghosts.

October 22nd - 11:14 PM

I'm writing this at my kitchen table and my hand won't stop shaking, so forgive the writing.

It was not ten minutes. I was inside for an hour and seventeen minutes. I know because I checked my watch when I went in and when I came out.

The house is colder inside than it should be. That's the first thing. Outside was 58 degrees tonight. Inside was like a meat locker. My breath fogged. No broken windows to explain it.

The layout is simple downstairs. Entry, parlor to the left, dining room to the right, kitchen in back, stairs straight ahead. Nothing strange, just rotten. Wallpaper hanging in strips, floorboards soft. I called out "Hello?" feeling stupid. No raccoons.

I went to the parlor first. There's a fireplace in there, big stone one, and an armchair that someone left behind. It faces the fireplace. The strange part was the dust. Everything in the house is thick with it, gray and even. Except that chair. The seat of that chair was clean. Not recently cleaned, but... indented. As if someone had just stood up.

I told myself that was Martha trying to scare me and I laughed out loud. The laugh sounded wrong in that cold.

I sat down in it. I don't know why. Stubbornness, I suppose.

And it was warm.

Not residual warmth. Living warmth, like someone else's body heat was still in the cushion. I shot up so fast I knocked the flashlight off the arm.

That's when I heard the upstairs. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate. One room to another, directly above me. Thump. Thump. Thump. Then stopping right over the stairs.

"Hello?" I called again. No answer.

I should have left then. The bet was only ten minutes and I had done that. But I felt insulted, somehow. If Martha had someone upstairs to prank me, I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of running.

So I went upstairs.

The second floor is three bedrooms and a bath, all empty. The hallway runner is still there, faded red. The footsteps had stopped, but in the dust on that runner there was a trail. Bare footprints. Small ones, maybe a child's. Coming out of the far bedroom and stopping at the top of the stairs. Just standing there.

I followed them back into the far bedroom. Empty. Closet open. Window shut. But the air in that room was different. It smelled like... laundry soap and woodsmoke. In a house that has smelled like mold for thirty years.

And on the far wall, someone had written in the dust. Not with a finger. The letters were too even, too small, like they were breathed onto the surface and then wiped away.

It said: SIT BACK DOWN

I didn't. I ran.

I didn't stop until I was halfway down Main Street. I left Martha's key on her doorstep. She can get it in the morning.

I am not going back for my flashlight.

October 23rd - Morning

I didn't sleep.

I kept thinking about the chair. About how the warmth wasn't just warm, it was comfortable. Like the chair had been waiting.

I went to the library this morning when it opened. Old Mrs. Albright was there. I asked her about the Whitaker House, who lived there last.

She said, "Oh, old Mr. Whitaker and his wife. Their little girl died in there, you know. Pneumonia. Winter of '71. He sat in that parlor chair for two years after, waiting for her to come downstairs. Just sat there."

I didn't ask her how she knew about the chair.

Martha came by. She said she never went inside to set anything up, that the footprints have been there for years. She said she lost the bet, coffee's on her.

I told her to keep it.

Until next time ...