Opening Night

My event opened for the year last night. I have never cut things so close financially - in fact, I didn't technically "make it" as my bank account is -$71 (following a frantic attempt to deposit a gig check on my phone Saturday night so my mortgage payment wouldn't "bounce" this morning - the stupid check deposit is still "pending" as of tonight, so bounce it did). I also owe $5000 on my credit card, still have to pay my second property tax payment, and have a few utilities pending. I played fast and loose just to make it to Feb 1, but I did it. Didn't go further into debt and didn't borrow from anyone but myself. 

AND opening night was a huge success. About 80 people snapped up my first two pricing tiers in a couple of hours - just to get some perspective, I have had years when one person signed up on opening night. So, 80 people is frigging awesome. It means I have enough to pay all of these bills and live until about mid-April, by which time I will have made enough to make it to summer, and so it goes. 

I had terrible anxiety all day yesterday as I always do on opening night, convinced something would prevent me from sitting down on my computer and linking the registration system to my web page - a car accident, power outage, Internet down, crying baby, vomiting toddler - but none of those things happened. I sat down with a nice cold glass of water and my computer, hit "save", and watched the fireworks. It was a good night.