Today is pretty dang special to me. December 1 is my self employed anniversary; I’m overjoyed to share I’ve been running this business full time, and our bills have been paid, for four solid years.

Four years.

It still feels so fresh – coming off of maternity leave with Phil, going in to the office of my last day job to meet with them about the projects I’d be working on from home. Being treated terribly from the moment I met the new boss who came on board while I was on leave.

Emailing everyone I knew to see who had work.

Quitting my job to be my own boss.

It was a scary, scary thing to do. It still is sometimes. There’s so many things I stress about. Is there enough work coming in, are my clients happy, are all my projects on track. Are my kids taken care of, do they have enough to do, is it ok if they watch more than 2 hours of tv just this once…

I worry about going crazy more often than not. I’m afraid I’m gonna be buried under the piles of paperwork and toys one of these days. If I go missing, here’s where you’ll find me:

I see pictures of perfectly organized offices on Pinterest and I get a little starry-eyed… I could have that office. I could get a day job, put the kids in day care, and work for the man again. But like I shared on Facebook this morning – I’ve been working since I was 16. I’m 37 now. This four years of self employment is the longest I’ve kept any job. Ever. So I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say I’m not really cut out for the standard 9 to 5 office environment.

One of my biggest goals in life has been to put our family first, and we are so blessed that this design business has been working. Even on its craziest days, it is so worth it.

If I worked in an office, I might have missed Joy’s first time playing peek a boo.

If I worked in an office, I would’ve probably stuck with apparel illustration jobs and let my web design skills rot. And I wouldn’t have received my web design award in the mail today, on my four years of self employment anniversary.

So here’s to sticking it to the man, here’s to walking your own path. Here’s to the clients that make this business possible every single day. Here’s to the husband that supports me and deals with my breakdowns. Here’s to the husband that helps me back up. (Don’t worry guys I’m talking about the same husband. Georgia isn’t THAT weird.) Here’s to the kid that pushed me to quit my day job. Here’s to the other kid that keeps me even more on my toes in the office than the first one did.

Here’s to forty-four more years.