When I first started at my past job years ago, I thought for sure I would be working there until retirement. I absolutely loved it. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit that things started to change. I won’t get into it, but I will say that how us “essential employees” were treated by both the customers and the company was not something I could continue to deal with. It took a huge toll on my mental and physical health. Add on that I was unable to take time off (even though I had an abundance of vacation and PTO because I hardly ever called off) and you had a recipe for complete and total burnout. So I decided to give up on the job I once loved so much.

It was beyond scary to take that leap. Despite the negative effects it had on my health, I was paid extremely well, and (not to toot my own horn) I was good at my job. But I just couldn’t do it anymore.

What we decided to do instead was take the plunge and work on our business full time. It was a scary decision that some days I regretted due to not having the stability that my other job provided. And it took several months to “mellow out” (my past job had me stressed out 24/7).

Even though I work way more hours now with our own business (some days it feels non stop with caring for the bees, making product, finding venues to set up at, research, generate social media content, and so much more), I have been able to spend more time with my family and feel just so much better mentally.

It has been full of ups and some downs, trails and errors (plenty of errors), doubts and confidence, excitement and fears.

Featured Image by Simon Berger on Unsplash.

Another year in the books, and boy was this one a doozy. Nothing inherently bad happened to us, thank the good Lord. But 2020 has been odd, to say the least.

The year start off normally. We went to a few beekeeper conventions in January and March, and then COVID-19 hit. That put a halt in everyone’s plans.

But I’m not gonna focus on anything negative that happened this past year, and instead list the positive aspects of 2020.

We were able to make some improvements to our home (new garage doors and new kitchen flooring). We also added a bunch of fruit trees (peaches, cherries, and plums), as well as several blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry bushes, to our property.

Mike was able to grow his apiary. He has also started to create products with his beeswax (such as lip balms, salves, and soaps). His business is really taking off! He started selling his honey to a local coffee house/restaurant, and now has a booth with his honey and bee related products available for purchase at a store in our town.

Here’s to hoping that 2021 treats everyone well!

Featured Image by Luke Hodde @gamevogue thanks for making this photo available freely on Unsplash.

I know I say this every year but WOW! 2019 flew by! And it’s hard to believe that 2020 is almost here.

For me, 2019 was mostly filled with positivity. My husband grew his bee yard adding more hives, I reached the one year milestone at my job (and even moved to a new department), our honey labels were approved by the state so we could legally sale our raw honey, and our daughter spread her wings even further and moved to Florida to give that a go. We have even been going to church whenever our work schedules allow it.

But 2019 wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It marked the one year anniversary of Jedi’s passing. And, most recently, a close family member was tragically taken from us this past November. We are still trying to make sense of that and will probably never fully understand it.

My hope is that 2020 is good to all of us. Because we all need a nice calm year to start this new decade.