We have had a long history of having God show us things beyond our dreams. I can't seem to get one of the most trying times in our married life off of my mind this morning. We were living in Pontiac IL; Robert was 4, I was a stay-at-home mom and Andrew was, of course, working for Walmart. We had moved into an apartment that was beautiful, it had just been completely remodeled. However, it was the 1st floor of an old Victorian home and the electric and gas were seriously eating us alive. I had started seeking out things I could do from home to help the income situation. I had seen an ad in our local paper for a work at home job, when I sent my resume in, I got paperwork back that they wanted me to SEND THEM $79.95. It was the final straw for me that day. We were in a strange town and I didn't know a lot of people. I called my sister and literally sat and bawled. I couldn't believe God was telling me to leave my son with strangers while I went and worked outside the home. I got off the phone with her and prayed. The phone rang again. It was so quickly after I hung up the phone with Sis that I thought it was her calling back. It was Andrew. We were being transferred to Southern Indiana. Average cost of rental houses was $300, half of what we were paying for renting our apartment. God is good, all the time.
So, back to today. As many of you know Andrew ended a 27 year career with Walmart in April of 2012; or Walmart ended it for him. If you don't know the story, go back into my posts and search April 2012, it's all there. He decided then that he wanted to go to work for himself. God just hadn't made it clear what we were supposed to be doing yet. Andrew had spent 4 years of his Walmart life running the Tire and Lube Express. The building across the street, which is a tire place was for sale, so we started looking there. Lessons learned from that: making a business plan, searching out legalities, and the fact that even though he was thinking him and Robert, we realized Robert needed to find his own way, this needed to be something just for Andrew. The Goodwill job came along and that coupled with a couple other doors shutting, seemed to be the answer for now. He was disillusioned with Goodwill from the start. I don't want to go into the details but he had not been happy there for quite sometime. He stated weekly that he wanted to quit. The woman that he was working for wanted him gone too. Just a week before my trip to Kansas City for work, that Andrew was supposed to go with me; they changed his schedule and cut our trip short. He wanted to walk that day and I begged him not to. Things actually came to a head on the day before our trip and he ended up leaving that day. That was a little lesson to me, I should have had enough faith that God would take care of us to say okay when they started messing with our plans. The way it ended up, we still had to cut our trip short because I couldn't get reservations for the last night at Brookfield again.
So, we started looking to God to see what He was thinking now. When the Walmart deal happened, I looked toward Dave Ramsey and made sure we would be okay if Andrew never got a job again. I had loosened the reigns a little but nothing so drastic as to the fact we wouldn't be okay. We are working on a major project with Robert's house but all in all, when I looked at the books; I told Andrew we would be good to go until October without even really making any lifestyle changes.
His first thought was to go back to school, he knew he couldn't handle the 12-15 hours a day that retail management required and he just plain out didn't have any desire to go back there. One day my mom called and was having a problem with the water pump at her house, Andrew went and fixed it, like he always does. It dawned on me what he needed to be doing. I told him that night I felt like he should look into being a handyman. He told me he didn't figure there was a need. I am going to tell you, he has always been good at this stuff and so we never have to call anyone else. (Our siding and roof was done by Dale Milliman, that one was too big for the time frame we had and Andrew was already working on rebuilding Robert's house). We are both DIYers, and love it, but I truly believe there are people out there who aren't. After I went to bed that night, he started looking on the internet and realized maybe there really was a need.
The next morning, he told me he planned to start a handyman service. I was ecstatic. When I prayed about it, it was just right.
One morning shortly after that I was at our Weatherization office working on their computers. I told Denny, our head of Weatherization, what he was planning. I asked him what we needed to be legal. Denny said there are no licenses for contractors or electricians but that we needed to get his lead certification. He pointed me in the right direction for that and we got Andrew enrolled in the class.
(Plumbers and Roofers have to be licensed- Andrew will only do very minor things to do with either of these, but if someone needs a new roof or major plumbing lines, he cannot do that, which is fine because we have fine licensed professionals around who can). I texted him on July 24th and told him we needed to plan on starting the business on September 18th because the fall festival parade was scheduled for the 13th and we could hand out information there.
So, the last 6 weeks have been a flurry. Andrew found a man who is a seasoned handyman. He has made a fixed price list as well as a guide to getting his business started. We bought Andrew uniforms, had business cards printed, magnets for the truck and then I made brochures and ordered refrigerator magnets. I bought shirts for me and Robert for today and just did the logo with my cricut for them. Thursday night we had a "brochure party". My mom and I worked from 4:30 to 8 glue-dotting magnets into the brochures (the brochures got here Wednesday). The guys came home at 8 from working at Robert's and helped us finish, which we did at 8:30. Last night was the first night in ages I don't remember having something to do for the business. But we are ready.
Today is the day. I have on the calendar that Monday the 18th is the "First Day of Business" but we actually had our first paying job last Tuesday.
That was really just a little positive that I needed because even though we are being met with tons of encouragement and excitement, it set in last week that this is just a little scary.
I got the facebook page up and running last week and I hope to eventually get a website. I have been just a little busy at my own job though so I will do what I can when I can.
He wants to stick to small repairs, home maintenance and home improvements, as I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of reputable, great contractors for your major projects, but a lot of times, they do not have the time to run and do little jobs when they are in the middle of more major things. Andrew wants to fill in that gap as well as do the maintenance things that just needs done to keep your house healthy.
So, here we go, truly a new chapter of our lives. Hope to see many of you at the parade!
Happy, happy start of your new business Andrew!
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