If you’re a regular H*T reader, you’ve probably noticed some changes up in here. If you’re not a regular reader, well, know that stuff didn’t look like this a week ago. Why all the changes? I’ll get to that in another post but, first, you need to know a little more about the evolution of this blog.
I created H*T over two years ago as an outlet for all the home-related ideas floating around in my head. I had so many of them that I was starting to drive myself and Handy Hubby crazy, jumping from one idea to the next. At that time, I thought there wasn’t anyone else in my life that was interested in hearing about paint colors, furniture arrangements, area rugs, throw pillows, and my future home improvement plans. With HH’s support, H*T was born.
H*T’s first home was on Blogger. Since this blogging thing was ‘just a hobby,’ Blogger was a practical choice. It was user-friendly and free. HH put together a simple header for me. It was a strip of burlap with ‘House*Tweaking’ in white across it. After just a few posts, I was hooked. I had found my passion {all things home} and rediscovered my love for writing.
Throughout my childhood and teenaged years, writing had come easily and naturally to me. I wrote short stories, poems, books, articles, essays, speeches, and songs. I wrote at home in my bedroom for fun and also welcomed any school assignment that involved writing. But once I started pharmacy college, I put writing on the back burner. I didn’t have time for it anymore. I mean, I wrote pages and pages of notes in class but there wasn’t any joy involved. I did take a general writing course as an elective. I loved it. I felt right at home in that class.
Looking back, I don’t think I recognized how much I enjoyed writing. And I can tell you right now, I never once considered pursuing a career that involved writing. Who in their right mind pursues a career that doesn’t promise a regular paycheck?! After all, I was excelling in my pharmacy classes {I don’t mean to toot my own horn but I actually graduated first in my class} so didn’t that mean it was what I should do? No. It actually meant I was stubborn and had a strict work ethic. And quitting {i.e. switching majors} wasn’t an option.
Fast forward 10+ years and I was stuck in a respectable, good-paying job in retail pharmacy. I detested it. {Oh, the stories I could share with you about outrageous questions that patients asked me! They would make you blush, maybe even snort your morning coffee out of your nostrils.} I was still stubborn so I kept chugging along. And, honestly, the money was hard to walk away from. I was able to work 2-4 days a week and bring home a pretty nice chunk o’ change. Not to mention, the short work week afforded me time with my young family.
Once I started H*T, I found myself coming home from an exhausting 12-hour shift at the pharmacy and plopping down in front of the computer to post my most recent home décor undertaking. I’d hit ‘publish’ and suddenly at one o’clock in the morning, I’d feel revitalized, inspired. HH noticed it too. So much so that for my birthday he bought me my own domain. To date, it’s been the best birthday gift I’ve ever received.
HH’s hope was that I’d look into turning my hobby into a career. In other words, he thought I should start making some money. It wasn’t that he was pressuring me to bring in more money. He genuinely thought I was good at what I was doing – turning our house into a home and writing about it – and encouraged me to profit from it. My thought? ‘Who makes a living doing what they love?’
You see, I had lived in the dreadful world of pharmacy for far too long. I’d met and worked with many, many pharmacists and 99.9% of them didn’t enjoy what they were doing. A pharmacy technician once asked my fellow pharmacist, ‘What keeps you coming back?’ His reply? ‘Looking at my paycheck every week.’ It was really difficult for me to grasp the whole ‘do what you love’ concept especially when I was getting paid well in my current profession.
But HH kept after me. I soon found myself in an online blogging class. Shortly thereafter, I paid someone $100 to revamp HH’s homemade header. I taught myself mediocre HTML coding – enough to get by. I even enrolled in the Sheffield School of Interior Design to learn more about the business side of interior design and hone my skills. I saved up enough cash to buy a DSLR camera. Then I started getting recognition in the field – something I wasn’t expecting or searching for at all. Only after Apartment Therapy featured our house tour did I start to think ‘hey, maybe this could work.’
Not being one to make big decisions on a whim, I kept doing what I was doing all the while pondering a career switch. I knew any change would have to happen gradually. I wasn’t going cold turkey. My plan was to continue working, blogging, tweaking and finish the design course. Maybe I’d take blogging and design more seriously after my kids were grown.
But then I had an idea. The only thing holding me to my current job was money. We were living in a house that we could definitely afford on two incomes but we could easily downsize to something more affordable and pay it off in a few years, leaving me with the option of switching career paths. It was an exciting idea but I felt very selfish even thinking of such a huge life change that was sure to affect our entire family. So I kept it a secret telling myself it couldn’t happen. Mama’s dream could wait.
But several months later, I couldn’t wait anymore. My day job was sucking the life right out of me. It was starting to eat away at my creativity, my family life, my spirit. At a loss, I told HH about my idea. Needless to say, at first he was against the idea. We had put a lot of work into our home. We had great neighbors. He didn’t want to move. Not to mention, the real estate market had hit rock bottom. I could totally understand. But I persisted. Eventually, HH saw how much it meant to me and agreed to list our house for sale by owner. That’s true love, people. It put a lot of weight on my shoulders because all I could think about was the whole thing flopping. It’d be all my fault.
But it turned out okay. We sold our house by owner and found a dilapidated house in a great neighborhood and school district. It’s location would cut HH’s commute in half. The house needed a lot of TLC but that just made our home-lovin’ hearts beat faster. Then…the game changer. We found out we were expecting a third child. Surprise! That totally wasn’t in the plan. Not by a long shot. Let me remind you we were downsizing. Holy $#!*
We had two choices: 1) stress to the max and let it consume our lives OR 2) roll with the punches and make it work. We chose the latter.
That’s not to say things have been easy. No siree bob. Over the past 8 months we’ve been renovating. Layne adjusted to a new school. HH got a promotion at work that entailed lots of traveling. My hours at work increased significantly and I had a baby after two months of modified bed rest. Everett became a big brother. My plan to pursue a different career was falling apart. Or was it?
Regardless of my desire to change career paths, HH and I decided early on in our surprise pregnancy that 2 parents working outside the home + 3 young kiddos = 1 big chaotic, unhappy family…at least in our case. We didn’t want to spend our days shuffling our kids around. Since HH had gotten a decent promotion and the monthly mortgage on our new/old house was ridiculously cheap {think less than most people’s monthly car payment}, it made sense for me to become a SAHM. We did some calculating and, even with the loss of income, we could still realistically pay off our house in 4-5 years. The decision was made.
Here I am. A full-time SAHM. And that dream of mine just won’t die quietly. I can’t let it. I need it. In the words of Randy Jackson, “she’s gotta have it!” So, I’m going to do the only things I know to do. I’m going to tweak the bejeezus out of our Underdog and write about it. I’m going to finish my interior design course. After that, who knows?
Through everything, I keep coming back to one life-altering question that was asked of me during my online blogging class…
Would you rather be scared or regretful?
My answer? I’d rather be scared now than regretful later. Am I scared? You bet I am. I don’t know why. It’s not like I’m being deployed to serve my country. I’m not battling cancer. No one’s holding a gun to my head. Fear associated with those situations is based on fact. It’s a rational fear. My fear is based on emotion. What if I flub up?
Which brings me to another good question.
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
What would you do?
images: 1&2) Dana Miller for House*Tweaking 3) Pinterest 4-6) Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
family life, inspiration, interior design, renovation