It’s International Women’s Day, by ClipArtMax, licensed for personal use

This is what I wrote in my last post a year ago, in September of 2021:

“I’m going to post this now and go to bed. I will try to post shorter posts but more often going forward.”

Well…THAT didn’t happen. Surviving the business ended up taking precedence.

Where to even start? Around mid-2021 we had a buyer interested in our business, but the banker valued our business far under what it should have been. Though our revenues had been healthy for several months, the bank was concerned about future revenues after COVID.

We declined to sell but realized this was a huge “wake-up” call. We knew that we had to prove sustained business health if we wanted to sell, so our goal was to drive business as hard as we could for the second half of the year. We could see the graphics market opening up so we “went for it”.

All of 2021 was a blur of 70-80 hour work weeks, partly due to the volume of work and partly due to still dealing with staffing shortages. Companies went wild over graphics the second half of the year as COVID restrictions lessoned so we were swamped with work. We would get home at the end of the day, eat dinner and then get back on our laptops and catch up the emails and quotes that we were unable to get to during the day. We tried to say “yes” to everything we were asked and then somehow we pulled it off and delivered the graphics.

By December we were burned out shells of ourselves. All of those areas of life that one should do to keep healthy…eat well, get enough sleep, control stress, take time off…we didn’t do any of them. We ate more takeout during that time than we probably had in the previous 5 years. Not good at all.

But…we knew we were having a phenomenal year, so we hung on. When we closed the books at the end of the year and I saw the numbers, I literally cried. I knew we would be able to sell and sure enough, in early 2020 we had interest from several potential buyers. We officially closed on the sale in mid-March.

I woke the morning of the sale with anxiety, but it was not about nostalgia. I just wanted to know that the sale would go through, and I could move on with my life. After 13 years in the business, I was desperate to have more “life” to my life.

Business Women Rock image by ClipArtMax, licensed for personal use;

I will always be proud of growing the business and of being a “Woman” Business Owner (thus the clipart). I will always be proud of what we were able to accomplish financially as well. We paid off the house during that time and also paid off the medical loan against our house that funded residential treatment for one of our kids. Still, it was with great relief that we said goodbye to the business.

I spent a cathartic Spring and Summer working through home projects. I had a wonderful time cleaning out files and closets and reveled in my newfound freedom. I spent about 40 hours stripping paint off my bedroom dresser and then stained and refinished it…a lot of work but so much fun.

After some weeks I also started job hunting; from a financial standpoint we still need to keep working. Job hunting in one’s 60’s; now that’s a challenge. Most people our age are not looking for a job; they are winding up affairs and looking to retire. We can’t afford to retire though, so the next best thing is to work for a large entity with great benefits and less stress.

I wanted to work for the local university and though it took quite a bit longer than I thought, I finally got a job there in the finance department. As I type this, I have finished my 5th week. I’m planning to be there for 6 years so have quite a long road ahead of me, but I did get my wish to work for the university so am grateful for that. As I thought, the benefits are incredible. After using a co-op medical plan for the last 5 years which excludes all well care, it’s going to be nice to have that covered, not to mention pay premiums that are a tenth of what they were as a small business owner.

A lot of other things have been going on in my life but those will just have to be other blogs. Good bye for now until next time…hopefully soon.