As I type it is about as far from Christmas as you can get in the calendar. The turn around day was last week, June 25th. Since then there have been three pieces of good news that seem like presents that everyone is certain about, but that I can’t open, play with, or use until a parental figure says Go! Until then, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve who also remembers finding that some presents turned out to be a boxes of socks and handkerchiefs. But not this time. Right? Patience, lad.

Many of you read last week’s good news. The mortgage modification looks good. All I had to do was sign the papers, get them notarized, and ship them off. I think that happened, though there was an issue with the envelope. And there was an issue with the formatting of the document. And there was an issue with the signatures. But, that’s all taken care of, I think. Just because I think it is so, and just because people are celebrating it, doesn’t mean that the official word is inevitable. As anyone who works with contracts knows, technicalities can arise. Resolving technicalities within a deadline can cause an inordinate amount of work within anxious hours to simply correct the position of a page break or a comma. I will be relieved when I finally receive an official notice and when I receive the first proper mortgage statement with the envelope with the little plastic window. Until then, I more likely to pop open a beer than a bottle of champagne.

A quieter bit of good news is that I am up to three major clients. Months ago my business had grown to the point that I could pay my bills, as long as I continued to live my comfortable, yet frugal, lifestyle. But most of my income came from two major clients, with the rest being filled in by an ever shifting combination of consultations, speaking engagements, teaching assignments, and book and photo sales. Work seven days a week and make those payments. It creates Full Speed Days, but the trend is in the right direction. Within the last couple of months, another regular client signed up. A third client helps ease the income fluctuations that come from the continual shuffling of my clients who have smaller projects and less certain funding. That sounds like a very nice present wrapped up by a team of clients, yet here I sit waiting for the checks and email payment confirmations that I can then deposit in my business account from which I can pay myself from which I can pay the mortgage, et. al. – and maybe a bit left over for that bottle of champagne I mentioned earlier.

Those who are following MicroVision (MVIS) may have seen the third bit of good news. Microsoft announced a patent that mentioned MicroVision. I was particularly pleased because the patent was for eyewear, which I now think is a better application than projectors in cell phones. Cell phones with projectors may become ubiquitous, and even one successful product can make MicroVision profitable; but the positive breakthrough product will probably be in wearable computers. Offices changed when computers arrived on desktops, then again as laptops replaced desktops, then again as mobile Internet connections unshackled the computer and the user from the office. The home computer went through the same transition, though for different reasons and with more incentive to use tablets. Now, they are all converging until offices look like coffeeshops, and coffeeshops are acting as third places as long as they have web access. PicoProjectors may change all that again, I have a rough time imaging everyone beaming their images onto every surface, but an easy time imaging them watching the web inside their eyewear, privately and clearly. And Microsoft may learn from Google Glass and skip the ick factor of the camera and avant garde design. Great news that they are working together, but that present stays under the tree until they announce a product launch or a revenue deal. MVIS has to hit one of its old delisting hurdles before I can sell enough to safely and effectively sell enough to affect my short term financial hurdles.

Bad news comes fast. Good news arrives slow. That’s why patience is precious. Fast or slow aren’t bad or good; but if bad news moves slow enough we can hope to dodge it, and no matter which pace good news picks the main thing we try to do is position ourselves to meet it.

Right now, my best position is to sit still, work hard, and somehow simultaneously take it easy, relax and enjoy. And hope that Christmas, or at least unwrapping my presents, comes early this year.

Is it too early or too late to mention I have cards for sale?