AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I grinned down at her. “That’s the smartest thing anyone has ever said.”
“Atta girl,” Logan said, ruffling her hair.
Claire was adamant that we watch the Colts-Lions game, so I turned on the kitchen TV and tilted it toward the dining room table. “Now Uncle Chrissy and Uncle Braden are with us!” she said happily.
“Will they be around for Christmas?” I asked. “I haven’t checked the schedule.”
“Christmas is on a Sunday this year, so I doubt it,” Logan said. “But I’ll be around.”
“It will be my first Christmas!” Claire told me.
I turned to stare at Logan. “They seriously didn’t celebrate Christmas, either?”
“It was a cult,” Logan said, shaking his head. “They were a bunch of whackos.”
“What’s whacko mean?” Claire asked.
“It means someone who was very silly,” Logan told her.
“Oh. Okay.” She paused. “Loki is a whacko.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he keeps licking my fingers under the table,” Claire explained, “even though I gave himfour piecesof turkey already.”
Logan put down his fork. “Claire, you know you’re not supposed to feed the dogs from the table.”
“Yes, but it’sThanksgiving.”
I grinned at Logan. “Yeah. It’s Thanksgiving.”
Logan growled, then dug into the mashed potatoes.
The Colts-Lions game was a nailbiter, and unfortunately the Colts lost at the very end of the fourth quarter. That was two close losses in a row, and the television announcers were lamenting the team after the game. “This was a very beatable Detroit Lions team. Tonight’s loss was a missed opportunity for the Colts, who are already on the bubble of a playoff spot, and can’t afford to let chances slip through their fingers.”
Over the weekend, I spent some time sitting down and going over my finances. The numbers were good. Back when I started the business, I created revenue estimates for different levels of kennel capacity. This created a range of expected income, expenses, and profit.
Right now, November was set to bepastthe high end of this profit range. My business was doing better than I ever could have expected. At this rate, I might need to think about expanding the kennel building.
“It’s a good problem to have,” I said to Woody, who was currently laying at my feet. I reached down and scratched his head. “Don’t tell your mom I’m treating you so well. She may be rude, but you’re a very good boy who deserves all the pets.”
Business remained busy even after the Thanksgiving holiday, so I hired another employee to help with everything around the kennel. His name was Ken, and he was older than I expected based on the phone interview. When he arrived on his first day, he looked like he was in his mid-forties.
“I actually just quit my other job, working in finance,” he explained while I showed him the ropes. “The stress was eventually too much for me; I dreaded waking up every morning because I didn’t want to go to work. Honestly, I just want to do something meaningful every day besides staring at a computer screen. Working with my hands, and taking care of animals. I know that probably sounds crazy…”
“Not even a little bit,” I replied. “I quit my corporate job to open this place. It’s a million times more meaningful than what I did before.”
Ken was a natural with the dogs, and immediately got to work on the to-do clipboard hanging on the wall of the kennel. I had been afraid to hire a second employee because I didn’t know how long it would take to get the business up and running, but it was a huge relief to finally have someone else here. Two employees meant I didn’t have to work twelve-hour days, and could maybe even catch up on fixing up my grandma’s house. There were still boxes of her belongings everywhere.
“I don’t like him,” Suzie suddenly said next to me.
“I didn’t even hear you approach.”
“I don’t like him,” she repeated. “There’s something about his face. It’s dumb.”
“He has a dumb face?”
Suzie scowled across the field at him. “Yes.”
