Feeling a little like a chicken with it’s head cut off, as the saying goes…

I know it’s not the most beautiful analogy, but it really is the right description.

There’s so much to do before my husband leaves.  We’ve been running around picking up things needed to get things done before he leaves, like parts for mending the horse fence, things for the trailer he’ll be towing that he’s going to be living in for the first while, ink for the printer because the silly thing ran out as we were trying to print labels, again. I think I need stock in black ink for kodak printers.

I’ve been going through the kitchen cupboards to find dishes, cutlery, FOOD, anything I can find that he’ll need in the 5th wheel to live, for an undetermined amount of time.

Hubby is also trying to do a bunch of extra fabric cutting for me before he leaves, yet I told him he’s already got so much to do to get ready. He’s trying to make things easier on me once he’s gone, I’m trying to make things easier on him until he leaves. Ha!

He leaves on the 31st. His first day of work is on Aug. 3rd. Time is flying. Flying MUCH too quickly.

I want our ToDo list to look like this:

• go for one last quad/atv ride before he leaves, since he won’t be coming back here to live, it’ll be our last chance
• go see Long Beach before he leaves. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to make the drive without him but I want to see it one last time before we leave this Island
• go to bed early every night, watch a movie together, or just snuggle. I’ve been counting down the nights until he leaves. I only have 6 more nights before our bed will feel empty, again.

It was different the last time he left. We knew it was just temporary. We were apart for 40 days, but only because we decided he would stay through his time off since it was so expensive to fly home. This time it’s permanent. He is MOVING. He won’t be coming back to the Island to live anymore, and even his time off will only be in 4 day stretches between stretches of 12 hour shifts. There won’t be time to come home.

*Photo from our last ride.

Yet, our todo list looks way too much like a real todo list. It includes things like:

• shock the well
• organize papers regarding the house (since it’s for sale etc.)
• get our quarterly taxes done for both businesses
• get extra fabric cut out for the business
• finish up this week’s custom orders
• package orders
• sew, sew, and sew some more
• work in this week’s stocking
• figure out how to order more windpro while every last penny is going out the door to get dh to Saskatchewan, in the meantime, pray the windpro we have will multiply. ha ha.
• try and get Joshua’s (our son) drivers licence before Graydon leaves, so I’ll have help with all the driving of both eldest kids to and from work.
• make plans for Alesia (eldest daughter) to get her licence within the next month as well (she’s a little more nervous, so she’s going to take some driving lessons)
• pack up the trailer
• make extra foods for the trailer freezer so dh has meals ready, if he’s working 12 hour shifts I don’t think he’ll be in the mood to cook big meals for the first while.
• try to fit in time for that last quad/atv ride
• try and figure out how we can fit in one day off to make that trip to Long Beach
• pray that each day goes by reeeeaaaalllll slow so there’s still time remaining within each day to have some proper family, and couple, time together.

So much to do, all while still carrying on regular day to day life right here, right now. Business needs to remain as usual, full steam ahead, as always. Go go go, it’s what we’ve been doing for months now. Years really.

And then there’s the hobby farm, our home, which is still for sale. If everything is FINALLY falling into place, perhaps it will sell now. If it’s going to sell, it means more house showings… Oh how I LOVE house showings!  <insert sarcastic eye rolling here>

Anyone want to buy a 5 acre hobby farm sight unseen? I’ll show you pictures, lots of pictures. ha ha! Just please don’t ask me for a house showing today. ha ha!

It’s all good though, or it will be. I try not to think about the fact that we have no idea when the rest of us will be moving. Or when we will see Graydon again.

Graydon asked how I really feel about all this. It all happened so fast. I told him I’m VERY excited, because we’re finally seeing a first step to our dream, our goal. We’ve been working towards this for so long. Yet, the memories of the loneliness from the last time he was away, are still there. I push them aside. I told him, “I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me…”

I know it’ll still be difficult though. We all know this next month, with him leaving, with all these extra expenses, with all this uncertainty, it’s all difficult. But stressing, worrying, crying, none of it helps. So we press forward, and look to the positives of our future.
The blessing of all of this.

I keep singing inside my head, like Dory from Finding Nemo:
“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.”

Only for me, swimming changes to “sewing” or “going”.

“Just keep sewing. Just keep sewing. Just keep sewing, sewing, sewing. What do we do? We sew, sew.”

And then I remember why we are doing all this. The dream. And then I hear inside my head…

“Just keep going. Just keep going…”

In other news, as far as house/farm/property hunting goes, we’re putting that on hold until spring. We’ll begin looking at farms again at that time. By then my husband will have worked at this job well over 6 months, and the banks won’t have any reasons to be so stubborn about a mortgage any longer. Sheesh… that’s really been a thorn in our side all this time. I’m so glad that’s over. Now we just need to find out what kind of penalties they’ll decide to swing at is over this. And in the meantime, hope that this property sells, and sells SOON. And when it does, hope that we find a place to rent until spring and trust that even though we have horses, dogs, cats, a parakeet and even a duck to move, somewhere, out there, is a place waiting for us.

But in the meantime, we’ll “Just keep going. Just keep going…”

My husband is leaving, again.

This past January he left for work in the oil fields and was gone for three months. When the spring thaw came and his time was up, I met him out in Edmonton and we drove over to Saskatoon, and area, to look at farms.

We came back home to Vancouver Island and listed our hobby farm for sale once again in hopes of moving to Saskatchewan, sooner, rather then later.

Summer is half over and our home is not yet sold. Meanwhile, work for my husband’s business has been slower then ever and something needed to be done. Through a series of ups and downs, finding out that as long as we both remain self employed, the banks won’t even consider giving us a mortgage, even a mortgage for a 1/4 of the price of what our current property is worth, we decided enough is enough already and we’re not longer going to let the banks dictate what we can, and cannot do.

There comes a point in life when you’ve been working real hard for 21 years to get ahead, when you say enough already, and make some drastic changes.

My husband and I LOVE being self employed. LOVE it. Yes, it’s been scary at times, yes the money is very up and down, and yes, you can NEVER EVER budget your finances properly because you never know what your finances will actually be. But we’ve done it, and we’ve done it pretty well, for quite some time now.

However, the ‘banks’, during this tough time in the economy, are not making things easy on those who want to go their own. Small business owners. We’ve been paying taxes through the nose, watching all money that comes in, go right back out again, all the while working harder then we’ve ever worked before, just to never get ahead.

So we decided to make a change. A big change. One we thought we’d never make.

My husband is returning to full time employment. He is closing up his business.

On the one hand, we are VERY excited. On the other hand, also some what disappointed that it has had to come to this.

We’re choosing to keep pushing ourselves to the ‘excited’ only side of things though. This really IS a very exciting change for our family. For many reasons.

You see, the full time employment my husband is taking is a job as a 4th class engineer. A job he performed while in the navy years ago. A job he continued his education for after we were married, but a job he never seemed to be able to land. Until now.

Nineteen years ago we moved 3000 miles for this same job, only to have it fall through once we got there. Now, here we are, 19 years later, with a job acceptance letter in hand and him on his way.

I want to put this job offer letter in a picture frame. This letter makes me so happy! So excited that my husband is finally getting his dream career. It’s been a looong time coming.

However, this job my husband has accepted, is not here. It is not a few hours away. It is in Saskatchewan. He’ll be travelling 2000 km. My husband will be moving. For good this time.

In the meantime, the children and I will remain here. We’re really going to miss him, AGAIN!

We will continue to hope our hobby farm sells, and soon. Winter will be approaching quicker then one can imagine. We know there is always the possibility we will have to be apart for quite some time, but we’re going to hope, and pray lots, that maybe, just maybe, things will finally fall into place for our family.

It’s been a long time coming.

There is absolutely NO denying that I COMPLETELY and TOTALLY love what I do.

In my teen years, there were several things I wanted to be when I ‘grew up’. The main thing I wanted out of life was to be a wife and mother. That was my ULTIMATE goal, my dream. My dream started to come true when I met and married my husband.

And then I became a mother, not just once, but five times over.

I am blessed. VERY blessed.

Another dream I had was to teach, which I now do, by homeschooling our five children. Our eldest had gone on to graduate 2 years ago, and the second will soon follow.

Living in the country was another dream of mine. We’ve got that, working on getting to a bigger ‘scale’ of country living.

My other dream was to own a business.

I never really knew what, or how. The closest thing to my ‘own’ business I had in our earlier years of marriage was first selling Avon and then providing day care in our home.

Everything I have done from working as a Long Term Care Aid, an Activity Co-ordinator in a Nursing Home, several waitressing jobs, working a couple of jobs in Holland, to doing my ‘own’ thing in the home has all helped to prepare me for this time, running a home business.

However, I’m still learning the most difficult lesson of all. A skill that can not truly be acquired by any course, or work shop, or any degree one may attain.

How to balance it all, and balance it well.

I really do try my very best to get it all done. I commented on facebook the other day, in a moment of frustration when the product photos I had taken for last week’s stocking had some ‘not so great’, that any wahm (work at home mom) who claims to be doing it ALL is not only fooling others, but she’s also kidding herself.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there ARE work at home mom’s who are running successful home businesses with kitchen counters that are ALWAYS clean, children who are always well dressed, and of course well behaved, and teens who never have a need that goes unmet.

Home business owners with happy husband’s who never have to go to sleep at night without their wife by their side because she’s busy at the computer listing the next day’s products until 1am.

Home business owners who homeschool and teach their children for a minimum of 3 hours a day, Monday to Friday without interruption because there are deadlines to be met, custom orders that need to go out, and orders that need packaging.

Maybe there’s homesteading mama’s who run home businesses and find the time to actually RIDE the horse they always dreamed of owning, instead of spending the day working while watching said horse in the pasture outside her studio window.

All this makes me sound unhappy about it all, doesn’t it?

I’m not! I do LOVE what I do. ALL of it. But, I really need to learn how to balance it all a little better. Everything is balanced just fine until there’s “extras” which are important. Finding time to visit with friends and/or family. A special date comes up. Helping a neighbor by caring for their homestead while they need to be away. Making time for my children, and my husband, to do special things.

Some days I think maybe I should hire someone. For a while, I had some outside help. I had hired a friend to do all my listings for me, and that worked out well, but the problem with a small business is that to make money, you have to spend money, and I always have so much money already going out the door to fabrics and other supplies, that to add the expense of a helper, is REALLY difficult. There’s a fine line there that I can’t seem to get quite right, at least not while this business is the main source of income for our family.

So… the family helps! When my husband is without work, he helps with the fabric cutting. Our eldest daughter helps with some of the packaging, and sending out emails. Even our son helps. Once a week he does all my snaps. That’s really a huge help. He does them so efficiently!

The one job I would GLADLY hand over to an outsider that I could completely trust, would be the packaging and shipping.

When I began this business, I never dreamed that I would spend so much time packaging orders, and so much time sitting at the computer processing orders and handling customer service and web work.

I am a creator. A designer. A seamstress. Sometimes even a writer & a photographer.

I am NOT, however, a computer techie, or a lover of packaging things.

Thankfully, my husband does the actual shipping. This saves me quite a bit of time. Rather then ME standing in line at the post office for hours a week, he is. Hee hee. I feel bad saying that with such happiness.

Last week he helped with packaging the orders too. This was great! Rather then spending 6-8 hours packaging, it only took us about 4. Leaving me with more time to be doing other things. That night, it was to sleep. We finished packaging orders at about 12:30am. Had he not been helping me, I would have been up until about 2:30am OR, your orders would have had to wait yet another day.

We’re looking at ways to improve things. Maybe two shipping days a week again? I’m not sure. There’s only so many days in a week, and at least four of those days must be spent on actual creating, instock, custom orders, and wholesale. Another day each week is spent on photographing, editing and listing products and sending custom order photos to customers. That leaves two days a week. Hee hee. Amazingly enough, I actually like to try and get just one day off a week, usually Friday’s, and that day isn’t REALLY a day off, but rather spent answering questions on facebook and email in the mornings and early afternoon as the products go live and customers need answers quickly. Then Friday afternoons are ‘mine’ and we try to do something fun.

Since one day a week is already spent packaging and shipping… well… that adds up to seven days a week already… so if you’ve ever wondered why sometimes packages just don’t seem to get out as quick as you think they should/could,  now you know.

Balance… where to find that… I’m still looking.

I have some great articles and books to read on how/where to find that, but… well… I just haven’t had the time to read them…