I'm Not Weird. I Swear.

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Our family tends to do things a little differently that most people we know. My husband and I didn't like working 9-5 jobs for a few hundred dollars a week, so we both quit and started our own cleaning business. People said we'd fail. They said we were crazy for quitting our jobs and taking a chance. We've had our business now for eleven years and make way more money than we would at "normal" jobs.


Now, after a few years of deliberating, I have come to the conclusion that I do not want to continue house cleaning forever. I've decided to quit within the next year or two to concentrate on expanding my creativity, and seeing where that takes me. So far I have many wonderful options I'm exploring.


We can't have kids so we decided to become foster parents to adopt. This was not a road I dreamed of going down when I was a kid. Fostering can be extremely rewarding, difficult and frustrating. But all of our tears and frustrations were worth it for the beautiful day in August of 2009 when we adopted our son. 


We don't like the school systems so we homeschool. We've taken lots (and lots) of flack for this, but we don't care. We do what's best for our family. Homeschooling is not for everyone, but it is definitely for us and we love it. 


My husband has always wanted to move out of state. I've always been the one to resist, saying I didn't want to leave my family. But something has shifted in the last eight months (I seriously think it's the work I've put into our Facebook page, Learn to Live Simply and Creatively, where we encourage and inspire people to live the life they want and be the best person they can be). We are now planning on moving to Colorado, hopefully next summer/fall. We've never been there but will be visiting this August to check out towns and neighborhoods. This will obviously be a huge deal for all of us, moving across the country, but we are really excited.


When I look back at all of the "odd" things we do, I realize that I've been looking at it wrong. We're not weird for the things we do. We just see changes that we want made and we do them. We didn't like working 9-5 so we created our own company. We couldn't have biological kids so we adopted. We didn't want to send our son to school, so we homeschool. We don't want to be those people in their 80's who regret never moving away from their hometown, so we're (planning on) doing it. 


I've never regretted one thing that we've done, and I will always be proud of us for taking the chances we've taken. I think if more people stopped complaining about their life and started taking steps towards changing it, they'd be much happier. YOU are in charge of your own happiness, no one else is. 

Comments

chickadeegirl said…
You are so totally not weird. I applaud you and Mike for things you've done to make your life work for you! How many people do I know that can actually say they are happy with their lives? Not very many of them. I'm proud of you! Most of the time I'm scared of taking chances and making changes. But, when I actually do it, I'm so much more happy and all that does is create a happy environment for my and my family. We're all better off being happy and doing what we like to do. Screw anyone else that has anything negative to say about it, they just wish they were as happy.
May 31, 2012 at 4:30 PM
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