Having a small salary (and accepting it) is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Almost 6 years ago my husband and I quit our jobs to start our business.  We lived on savings the first 6 months and then started pulling a salary.  We had no experience running a business like ours but we had passion.

We never went into the business wanting to be "rich".  I wanted to make the same salary that my husband made at his previous job which was barely above average salary numbers.  But, as almost anyone can tell you, owning your own business is hard and making a salary, especially pretty much out of the gate, is practically unheard of.

We actually have settled our lives into making a salary quite a bit under the national average.

Honestly, I couldn't be happier.  Why?  Because it's enough.  We pay our bills.  We save.  We also have a little fun.

Do we go on extravagant vacations and trips?  No.  Do we drive new cars?  No.  Do we keep up with fashion trends?  Definitely not.

What we do have is time to breathe.  Time to be together as a family.  We do have a very slow lifestyle.

I remember crying about not making the money at first and feeling like a failure.  I even considered our business a failure.  But really it is very successful.  I just needed to change my mind and accept that it's ok to not make a lot of money, just enough money.

We have had investors approach us about expanding.  They had big plans with an even bigger price tag.  What was worse is it would have made our lives very chaotic and very not what we want.

Their minds were on margins, bottom lines and big money.

Ours was on our family.

We then settled into and accepted our salary and our lives grew much more simple.

I no longer feel like a failure because I'll probably never step foot in Europe.  I no longer stress about making it to the weekend.  Well, I never actually did before this, but now I really don't.  I really enjoy our outings way more than I used to.  Before being invited to a friends birthday party was just one more thing to add to the calendar, now it's the only thing added to the calendar.  We go out to eat maybe once a month and we always love every second and every bite of food.

We do things that are low cost and fun.  Bowling for example.  We went on a Monday when our son was off of school for Martin Luther King day.  We played one game, it was a load of fun and it only set us back $16.00 then we went to a BBQ place we had been wanting to try.  It was a great day that I'll never forget.

We still work hard at our business but it feels good to go to work.  We don't dread it.

Life is just full of fun now.  We appreciate everything we have.  A roof over our heads when it's freezing outside, food on our table and kitty cats to cuddle.

We have enough.

I'm so glad to have found this peace.

What a great life I have.

Until Next Time.

That Day After We Went To Cooter's And Headed Back to Good Ole Winchester VA

On our way back from Luray we decided to stay on Rt. 11 heading back home.  We stopped along the way to just enjoy sites we hold dear in our memories.  We don't know how much longer those places will last, so we at least took a couple pictures.  But before that we stopped at Woodstock Brewing Company for an afternoon snack.  Ashton had ginger ale, I had chips and tea and Eric had a flight of their beers.

Ah Montgomery Wards.  The building has been sitting vacant for nearly 2 decades now.  I still have memories of going there- and my mom worked at the diner inside, even though I don't remember that. 

This is the wall coming from the "back way" to the plaza.  How awesome it is.  It used to lead to the movie theatre but now it sits empty. 

Ear Food!  I remember when this store was next to the Fashion Bug on Berryville Avenue- where the Sharp Shopper is now.  It was a Safeway, Rite Aide, Ear Food, Fashion Bug, laundry Mat and the Center for Figures.  Good Times.  Eric and I went to this location when we first were together.  annnnnd.......

We were so happy to take our son there too.  I don't know how much longer it will last with the digital age upon us but I hope it will be a long while more.  Vinyl is making a come back so you never know. 

We ended the night with a special request from Ashton.  It's been yeeeeaaarrrs since we went to the Chinese buffet!  he said-- so there we went.  Good times and regrettable yet yummy food was had.  A great way to end the evening.

I guess the theme of the day was going down memory lane.  Old TV shows, old stores, old architecture and old restaurants.  Great places continuing even if its just in our memories.

Until Next Time. 

Just watched a video.

I'm sure you've seen the video on facebook about putting away your phone or ipad and live the real way.  I just watched it and I'm deeply touched.  For months I've been focused on having a blog or youtube channel and put lots of energy into it.  I wanted to be heard.  I wanted to be special.  I wanted lots of followers.  I have a hard time remembering life when I didn't at least sometimes think, oh I gotta put this on facebook or I gotta put this on instagram.  -- and I literally just thought about shutting down my instagram account and then I immediately thought of reasons not to.  Why is it hard for us to just live like we used to?  Everyone wants to be special, everyone wants to be famous and suddenly everyone thinks they are important.  And even now I'm writing a blog about how I don't want to blog any longer.  Let me just stop right here. 

Lazy or Content?

The other day I was working on our business bookwork.  After having paid what seemed like everybody and their brother during the month of April, I watched our bank account slowly drop, and drop and drop.  I remember thinking to myself....

"hmph, it looks as though we may not be able to pay ourselves in the month of May."

Did I also mention that our heat pump needs replacing and while it heats fine, it does not provide us cool air? 

Did I mention that to replace said heat pump that is almost 11 years old, will cost us about 6 grand? 

Yeah.

But, as I sat there, I realized that it doesn't bother me any where near as much as it would have if this happened a year ago.  I actually surprised myself.  I simply thought to myself, well, we've got savings to live on in May, and that will suck, because that money should go towards the heat pump, but I guess that's the way it will be.  I also thought, I wish we didn't have a house that requires a heat pump.

Have I become lazy?  Am I so lazy that the thoughts of my business not having a super strong month just floats along without a care in the world? 

I don't think so.

I really think that I've come to a place in my life that I'm just content.  People lived for years without this thing called "air conditioning"-- It will really be fine.  What we did do is buy a small window unit to use if needed out of our emergency fund. 

You're probably wondering why we don't just head on down to the bank and get a loan to replace that heat pump? 

We don't do debt.  We're done.  We'll be fine. 

It is nice to be in this new place of contentment.  Nothing seems so dire any longer and I attribute some of it to learning new skills so that if I did need to down grade a lifestyle (and I know how to do that!) I can go back to basics even farther. 

Keep Moving Forward.

Not even forward, just keep MOVING.

Until Next Time Friends.

Blessed.

I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. 

I just learned yesterday morning that my step-dad's lymph nodes are clear of any cancer.  I was so happy and relieved to hear it, that the enemy had been defeated that I cried and just hugged him.  I never got to hear those words when we lost my father in law, nor my mother in law. 

I tell ya, having a scare like that really brings you back to what is important.  In the depths of my fears when I did let myself imagine the worse, I realized how much I love him. 

Him being ok was the only option. 

I prayed. 

This time I received the answer I desperately needed.

I am so blessed.  I will never forget how blessed I am. 

No matter what you believe or don't believe, remember that life can throw you a hard ball at any moment so be appreciative of the ordinary things. 

Until Next Time Friends!

1950s, The Perfect Combination?

I did a YouTube on this question recently and thought that it was worth blogging about as well. 

I came across this thought while watching a video on wood stoves.  The maker of the video said that a lot of people have a romantic version in their heads about the life of using a wood stove.  "It's dirty and hard work!"  she said. 

I am guilty of this romantic version.

It got me thinking about how truly hard life was back in the days where most people had wood stoves to cook on and for heat.  With little medical advancement in those times and the hard lifestyle, people didn't live as long. 

On the other side of the coin, we now in this day and age have lots of medical advancement, but too much convenience in my opinion.  We can easily go through a fast food drive thru anytime and fill up on junk -- We have some choice over where our food comes from, but most of us just go down to the local food mart and pick up whatever is offered there.  We're so busy that we don't give it much thought. 

My thoughts are that the 40's 50's maybe early 60's may have been the sweet spot for medical advancement but also having healthier, more localized, unfooled around with foods. We were a bit more self sufficient getting exercise from these old fashioned habits.

Where will our current lifestyle take us? 

My son says that maybe we'll turn out like the people on Wall E  -- and I'm sad to say, he might be right. 

If You Don't Like What's Being Said....

Today I've been thinking about a quote from one of my favorite TV characters, Don Draper.

"If you don't like what's being said, Change the conversation."

I'm thinking about it because I have a hard time sustaining friendships and have very few people that I could call in the middle of the night if I was in trouble.  I admire other people in my family who have had close friends for years and they spend time together regularly.  Other than my husband, I really don't have anyone outside of my family that I could depend on. I do have a small group of friends that I get together with occasionally, but could I call them in the middle of the night?  Not even close.

Now, I could stay in this funk that I've been in all morning or I could take a cue from Don and change the conversation.  Right now it's saying, "Oh, poor Kim, she's got no friends, why doesn't anyone ask to get together with her?"  But I'm going to change the conversation by saying "Kim's not afraid of getting out there and asking people to do stuff with her." 

We hear all the time that we have to create the lives that we want to live.  We are responsible for our own happiness.  Making us happy is not someone else's job. 

I have to change my behavior.  I have to let go of my comfort zone of waiting for someone to come see me or ask me to do something.  I need to approach people and just ask for what I want.  I want someone to do hobbies with.  I want to have nice conversation that makes me both think and laugh.  I want friendships that I can relax in and feel safe in. 

I don't have to settle though.  I don't have to waste my time on people who aren't available to me.  I can have friends who are excited to spend time with me and have an amazing time. 

My first step will be an open invitation to going to the House and Garden Tour in our area.  I will do this over facebook.  I have fretted over who to invite.  I'm OK with going alone, (I'm going either way) it's just way more fun to have someone to go with.  This way, my first experience in going outside my comfort zone will hopefully be positive since they will be approaching me to volunteer to go. 

I am getting together with those girls whom I can't depend on too much this evening.  I'm changing my attitude to being happy and excited to go instead of dreading it.

I'll continue to post.  I know it's sad that I have to work on having friends, but hey, what can you do!?

Until Next Time!