Business & Baby

We have been busy weeding in the garden, working for our renewable energy company, raising 2 boys, and enjoying the last month or so before Stella officially turns 1!!!

Tom and I are getting into the groove and accepting the fact that our company is finally a permanent gig. We've been together 20 years now and sprinkled throughout those 20 years we've had a few self-employment businesses, and many, many, left-over business cards.

The picture above is just a sample of the business cards we now use the backs for small notes, phone messages, and book marks. I don't know how many we ordered...I want to say it was a box of 1000 for our first business together...See More Clearly. We still have a ton of these cards left.

I remember hand drawing the design of the window, frame, and sparkle shine (note Tom's initials TC in the shine). It doesn't seem like 20 years ago! Reeve and Kyle crack up when they see Starving Student Rates. They thought that sounded horrible...after they discovered the cards they come up with new questions about starving students: "Who wants to hear about starving students?" they said, and "Why are students starving?", and "Was Papa really starving?".

A couple of businesses we started we didn't bother getting business cards. Like the food cart business we started with our friend Cory in Madison. (Cory now owns and manages his own Grill & Malt Shop). Here is a sample menu...complete with little rainbow magnets in the corners!

 A picture of Tom and the food cart parked on MLK in Madison...

 Cory, Tom, and Cory's Dad built that cart in freezing temps on our old driveway on Lacy Rd. I think they did a fine job. It was a fun business, but soooooo much work! I remember Tom getting up a 3am to get to the certified food kitchen we rented from La Brioche Bakery to start making all the food he was going to sell that day. It wore him out! One of the coolest things about that business was buying from local producers...like Tipi Produce, Shooting Star Farm, and Nature's Bakery even made us a custom pita bread. The kids LOVE to hear the story of when we vended at the Badger State Games. It was a baseball game and we had hand-made over 200 veggie burgers from scatch! They were delicious! BUT we only sold a handful there...not even 5! However...I had listed on the menu HOT DOGS...I didn't say what kind of "hot dogs" they were. Of course they were vegetarian, but not one single customer questioned it and we sold out! We must have sold 100 veggie hot dogs and no one even suspected they were vegetarian and we had people coming back for more!

Okay now we track forward to NOW where we are a thousand times busier than those fond memories and our little angel Stella will be one year old soon! I'm already starting to tear up about her not being a "baby" anymore. She's started to take her first steps (unaided) all on her own. She's LOUD...she screams with joy...she screams with angst, but overall she's just plain happy. She makes me Reeve and Kyle happy. She makes me & Tom happy.

We set up a tent that my Auntie Mary Lea gave Kyle. She LOVES it!


Her latest thing is she likes to try to put clothes on...doesn't matter whose clothes it is...and then look at herself in the mirror. Too. Cute!