Things are crazy here, as usual.
I started helping my dad at his shop recently, and it is getting hard to keep up with orders in Caustic Threads, but I have been managing. I like helping my dad,
and don't mind the work, but I was hoping he would try a little harder to hire someone. Caustic threads is a full time job, and even working about 10 hours a week is taking a toll on both my family life and my business. My younger brother started working for my dad a few weeks ago also, but I know he has other things he wants to be doing too.
I am absolutely thrilled with the unexpected success of Caustic Threads. It is amazing to me that a hobby that was started with relatively low start up cost has grown into a business that allows me to stay home with my daughter autumn (and soon a second daughter, Penelope) and make more than I was making at my last job... granted, I have made more take home income at other jobs, but they required long hours and a lot of travel, which is just not very compatible with a family. (although I know some very amazing families do have a parent that has to travel often). I feel extraordinarily lucky every day to be married to an amazing man that I fall more in love with every day, have a beutiful daughter and another on the way, and to have been able to build a business that allows me to work for myself doing something that I love. I thank Adam, my husband, regularly, for giving me everything I never knew I wanted.
If someone had asked me 10 years ago, when I was 18, what I thought I would be doing right now, I never would have expected to be married, with children, living in Albuquerque. In fact, I think a senior paper that I had to write in high school was about what I wanted and expected to be doing at this point in my life. "Where do you want to be in 10 (or 5, or 15) years?" seems like a common question for people to ask 16 to 18 year olds, and it was always an easy question for me to answer, because I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, and I was sure I would accomplish my goals. I would say, " I want to be a fashion designer, with my own label at some point. I would like to work for someone else to learn the ropes at first, and when I have some experience and capitol I will start my own business. I like the juniors market, it is fast paced, trend driven, and exciting- oh, and teenagers usually have part time jobs and no bills so they have more disposable income than other markets. I want to be single, with no children, living in LA or New York. Preferably New York. " That is really what I thought I wanted to do! I wonder if I had taken a look forward to see myself here now, if I would have considered myself a failure. I don't now, but I may have as a stubborn teenager- which is not to say I am not stubborn now- just that I know how unbelievably happy I am, and I wouldn't trade my life now for the unrealized dreams of a teenager. There are many parallels, and I think the progression of my life, and the steps that brought me here all make sense. All we really want in life is to be happy, and I am so lucky to have found happiness, in a life that I had never expected to be in.
Xoxo,
Erica
