Wow! Thanks to everyone for the super support!! We appreciate you more than you could know.
We do try to be honest and up-front with everyone. Sometimes, what we have to say isn't what we want to say, when something isn't going right, or when our lives have turned upside down for a bit.
Rufus, Keebie and Steve - Yes, you were pretty much on target with your responses. A couple of months back, our car broke down. The other one is in poor condition, also. A couple of weeks ago, the mother board on Gene's computer crashed. That put our whole lives on hold for a while and it's still a bother, as we don't have enough money to repair or replace it. Getting on AZ is a major thing for us, right now. Also, in the past couple of weeks, we have had one sick grandchild after another living in our household, while their parents got well and returned to work and classes. During all that, I've been trying to run a small pool league and start up a new men's flag football team and Gene will soon be officiating flag football (again) for some extra cash to help pay the bills. His regular hours at his day job are still during most of the daylight hours, too. So, our time is really crunched, right now.
Rufus - your cue is almost ready to ship. Gene is working on it as hard as he can in what spare time he has. Thanks for being so patient with us.
Jay - I'm working on sending you some pics in just a little bit. I'm sorry this hasn't gone more quickly.
This year has been a bit of a surprise in how things have slowed us down. In fact, Gene is talking about taking a little break from cuemaking for part of 2011. His job put him on an odd shift that prevented much cue work during 2010 and nobody was prepared for our slower production and repair rate, so he has felt a bit run over by the "How's my cue coming along?" inquiries. Nobody meant any harm with their questions, but we normally have a lot more to show for the time than this year has allowed. So, it is more of a bother to us that we couldn't show great accomplishment. We just don't want to let down all our customers. It really bothers us when we can't offer them greater turnaround and response times.
So, if anyone wants a new Crown Cue built, please be prepared for the completion time to possibly take up to 2 years, right now. We have no clue how the future will treat us and right now, life is being rather tough on us. Gene has been building cues about 7 years now. I believe he could use a little easy time.
Oh --- and Keebie, it's okay to let folks know I'm Gene's wife, now. I just needed time to build my reputation on my own and to rebuild my strength after my heart attacks and cancer and when people automatically assumed I was a male, I didn't argue. I still don't. But, I'm not dealing with nearly as much anxiety and panic attacks, etc.. I've worked hard to rebuild my health and although I'm not fully recovered, I'm doing so much better and starting to stand on my own, again.
Steve - Thanks for calling us to make sure everything was okay. It would be really hard to replace good friends like you guys.
Renee'