My journey started with a creative business named Olde Made New in May 2018. My very first year, ended on a high note!! It didn’t start that way though. I foolishly thought I was going to start a blog and make money by writing blog posts. I obviously had no idea what all goes into starting, writing, and promoting a profitable blog. But I am happy to say that I am still standing and grew and learned.
In January 2019, I launched a podcast called Sheer Will that is geared toward inspiring and empowering women to go for it. What I had intended as solely being a recruitment tool for an online coaching group quickly turned into a place for women to come and share their experiences for various reasons. To stop hiding behind things, to start the healing process, or just simply to share their story. What this has taught me, is that we all have a story, and that story is what makes us uniquely beautiful.
March 2019 I launched the online coaching group All In On Business! I could not have asked for a better group of entrepreneurs to kick things off! We knew we wanted to break the mold with our group by making community the most important piece, and these ladies and gentlemen embraced that and have helped us triple in size since our launch date! It is amazing to see the excitement and confidence with their growth!
We have plans to launch online courses for those that don’t find the community aspect useful in 2020 and I am also completing my manuscript for my first book and self publishing the title “Out of The Darkness” .
Some history...
So until about 13 years ago, I went to a job every day that I absolutely hated! Then one day I am at work, and I stand up because I think my leg is falling asleep, and the next thing I know I wake up in the trauma room of an emergency room. I had had a stroke, that falling asleep feeling was me losing feeling and function of my left side. This resulted in a myriad of surgeries one after the other over the next 2 years. Turns out that I have Lupus. Because it wreaked havoc for so long on my body without diagnosis, it put me out of the regular working world.
Fast forward 7 years. I'm doing okay financially, have my own home, kid is in college. I picked up a few hobbies and started to settle into a routine. My brother and his wife along with their two sons came to live with me so they could help with the daily care of my ailing mother while my father worked to keep a paycheck coming in, and secretly, to keep me from being alone.
We were Army brats, so very close. Your sibling is sometimes your only friend, so when a Sheriff is waking me up telling me the paramedics are working on my brother in the front yard, my world spun off of its axis. He had had a massive heart attack and the doctors said he was gone before he hit the ground. Needless to say my life changed dramatically again. My sister-in-law could no longer care for my mother because of the grief, so I gave up my home and took over as caregiver for my mom. My mother passed away almost four years ago now, and I was lucky enough to inherit the family home which is a 40-year-old double wide mobile home with a foundation and a den and garage addition.....which was literally falling down around my ears! Try to envision a two acre property overgrown with milk weeds that had become trees, an abandoned goat pen turned forest, a garage that was a black hole catch all for garbage, and a yard full of 30 cars that someone was going to "get around to" fixing and reselling just sitting there abandoned. Add to that, I had to take in my nephews who were dealing with a whole host of issues of their own. So I had to just start! So I did what my mamma always told me to do, I put my big girl panties on and dealt with it! Like a BOSS!
Today, the house is on solid, clear ground and being filled with happy memories again after so much loss and grief. My dad is alive, happy, and healthy and remarried to a wonderful woman. My nephews both graduated from high school and are thriving. My family is coming back together. My beautiful daughter makes me so proud and thanks to her, I am a grandmother to seven wonderful grandchildren who are the light of my life. Then, with all those blessings already, I finally find work that I love!
The reason I'm here....
When I first got to work on the house, my savings was depleted, and I was living on disability....with two teenagers. So I had to learn how to do things fast, on my own, and as affordable as possible. I know that I'm not the first person to encounter this predicament. So to the internet I ran! What I didn’t find there, I found researching books in the library. I completed all the work on my own, with my money and no debt. It is a beautiful space and we love it. And the pride I feel when I'm in my kitchen cooking, or having a family dinner, or hosting game night is out of this world fantastic!
Once the major work on the interior of the house was done, I started on furnishings. All the furniture was trashed, and honestly my taste and my mother's taste was very very different. Naturally I took to thrift stores, Facebook Marketplace, and LetGo. Then I found Pinterest and away I went. I could look past all the damage in a piece of furniture and see the finished product. I would spend hours looking at different ideas until it sparked my concept and I would go looking for something to suit my purposes. There were some bad buys, I had a few projects that I scrapped for hardware or wood, but when I got the knack of it, I was off and running. Each finished piece became my new favorite! It wasn’t long before I was like, “Hey! I should blog about this and help other people figure this stuff out too!” I was off and running again. I started taking in custom work, then started making my own decor, learned how to set up a business online and get it moving. Best of all, I absolutely love it!
I have learned a lot since I first started, and I am a big believer, as I said, of paying it forward.
So my hope is that you will find something of use here. Whether it is a DIY craft idea, an idea for a quick meal on a busy day, an encouraging word right when you need it, that just right thing for that space, or the help you need to get started online to start your own business! I have been surrounded by so many great people that lifted me up, and my number one goal is to do the same for someone else. I look forward to this adventure with all of you, my friends.
https://oldemadenew.com https://allinonbusiness.com http://sheerwillpodcast.buzzsprout.com
