Just like everybody else, I find myself making adjustments these days.

Just the other day, I found myself in a drug store, looking at a heel repair kit for my favorite boots. Just a year ago, or for any of the previous 20 year of newspaper employment, if my heels were worn or my laces were frayed, I often took that as a sign that I needed a new pair of boots, and spending $200 wasn’t unusual.

Times have changed. I started my career as a freelancer but I was still stunned to see my own sole proprietor instincts kick back in so quickly after my job was emilinated last fall. While walking home on my very first day of entrepreneurial life, I decided to sit down and read for a while in a bookstore, before buying a book. There was a time that I would buy five at a time, and possibly never read one or maybe two of them.

To understand what happened just now, I should explain that I have spent much of the last six months in self-training, at the intersection of new media, social media, independent journalism and so on. Among the new skills, I have been working hard to master WordPress, the platform upon which I have built this blog and several other new endeavors.

Of course many WordPress themes are available for free, and I seldom personally endorse products or services here anyway, so I have not previously mentioned my great satisfaction with FlexxTheme WordPress themes available at iThemes.com:

I bought two single-use packages, Flexx Bold and Flexx Canvas (upon which you are viewing this blog right now.) They have been adding theme variations and recently offered more in Multiple-Use Package, but really got my attention with upgrades to these themes just yesterday.

I practically had money to burn in the past – and once would have bought each upgrade without as second thought – but now that I read books before buying and think about fixing my own boots – I wrote to iThemes last night and asked for a break. I told them what I had purchased previously, and what I had hoped to acquire, and asked if they could give me a break.

I’m not going to put them on the spot to match their generosity with everyone who might come across this post, but let’s just say they offered me a better deal than I asked for. I like iThemes products, and if you like them too, this is an outfit you can do business with.

The rules of small business are changing and I don’t know where it will end – but as you have read this post – I think we all just might have contributed to a win-win-win scenario.