Home Sweet Home

I'm home...well, the parental home. And yes, the picture is a picture of my home. Extra points if you can name the town. While I love where hubby and I currently live, I absolutely adore my so-called 'hometown' (didn't actually grow up here but my whole family is here and, in truth, I didn't really grow up anywhere since we moved around a ton. So this is as good as a hometown as any). I want to buy a ranch in this general area one day and have tons of dogs, bunnies, goats, horses, riding cows (a cow that can be saddled - strange but true!). Best of all, I think hubby actually wants the same thing too - or at least he says he does. I think we're still at least 15-20 years away from that actually coming to fruition but it is good to have goals. In the meantime, I always look forward to coming home.

The benefit of running my own business is that I am able to escape for a few weeks every December to come home. This year things got a little crazier then usual as I was frantically trying to get the house ready for an appraisal as we're hoping to refinance, and then also trying to get out of town before the massive storm hit the Pacific Northwest. I honestly think I got out just in the nick of time though the two day drive still had us going through some pretty miserable conditions.

But I'm home now, the dogs are with me (the reason for driving), and I even brought home some inventory and - surprisingly enough at this late stage - have even had a decent amount of orders. Mostly retail but also two wholesale which really surprised me. Do you really want to place a wholesale order and then request ground shipping? It won't get to you until the 22nd? Apparently they did and who am I to argue.

As I mentioned above, hubby and I are hoping to one day move out this way. It dawned on me that to help move that goal along I needed to make some goals for my business. And not just 1 year goals - but true 5 year goals that include both revenue targets and what that would do for the business. IE - at revenue figure X I ccan hire on a fulltime manager. At revenue figure Y I can start to pay back the loans that were used to cover startup costs. The funny thing is - and I didn't plan it out this way - it looks like my goal is for the company to grow by approx 75%each of the next three years which is on target for how much it grew this year. Nothing like ambitious goals in a down economy!