Hi there.

Happy Spring. Here in New York City we got a big dump of snow thanks to Nor’ Easter Toby. But it has mostly melted.

I got back at the beginning of the week from being away for 17 days. Away from home, away from Duncan. Needless to say it was tough. But it was for something very exciting…

Mr. SOTSS is opening a business. It’s a franchise called FASTSIGNS.

Basically a business that creates visual communications like signage for other businesses. In addition to traditional signage there is digital signage now added to the mix and even vehicle wraps. When Mr. SOTSS made the decision to do this I immediately jumped on board because I knew I could help him design the signs. He was really excited about the production part of it (actually building the signs). So this seemed like a great combo. This has been in the works for well over a year now and over that span it became clear that he, as the franchise owner, would be busy with many tasks at first, including the very important task of sales and that the production part is really more a dual role for the graphic designer…moi. I knew this would be a challenge for me, and as I learned while we were away, challenge is an understatement.

Let me back up for a minute and tell you about the trip which was to the corporate headquarters of FASTSIGNS, in Dallas, Texas. We had to complete a 2 week intensive training.

We set out back on March 2nd on a drive that would ultimately land us in Dallas, We were originally going to take our dogs which is why we opted to drive. We also thought it would be fun to see a bit of the country as we traveled (I think we covered 15 states total—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansa, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland).

We ended up not bringing the dogs (HARD THINGS #1: Leaving my dog for 17 days! and HARD THINGS #2: Leaving my home for 17 days when I’d never been away for longer than 8 days before.)

We started the drive through a snow storm and the first 6 hours of the trip were very stressful for us but more so for me. I legit had a panic attack in the car and asked if we could pull over. And so we found a WalMart and he got new windshield wipers and I took a few deep breaths. HARD THINGS #3 was definitely getting through the snow storm. There was an 18-wheeler trying to make it up a hill on the Interstate and kept rolling back. We were the vehicle directly behind it.

But after that we were smooth sailing and made it to Ohio where we slept for the night.

The next day we drove through Kentucky and into Tennessee and when we got to Nashville we walked around for a few hours.

 

We hit the road and pulled into a hotel in Memphis for the night. The next morning we had breakfast in Memphis at the iconic Arcade diner where Elvis apparently frequented regularly.

We walked around the city for a bit and then continued on to Texas.

We rented a condo that was very close to the corporate headquarters and started our training that Monday.

I was both physically and mentally exhausted after just one day and by that Thursday I ended up in urgent care. I think a combination of tension, an uncomfortable bed, working on my laptop for so many hours and all the physical strain of trying to hand cut thicker sign materials all became too much and my neck/trap muscle started spasming. (I’m still struggling with pain now over 2 weeks later thanks to shoveling snow 🙂 HARD THINGS #4

The good news is we learned a ton and both feel much more confident and prepared to open officially for business. I can now use our large format solvent ink based printer, cut out vinyl with our plotter and mount and laminate with our monstrous laminator (ok this is currently my struggle bus but I refuse to let it beat me).

The bad news is I’m so busy with everything (I’m still running my business on nights and weekends) that I’m having a hard time keeping positive and find myself getting overwhelmed at times. I know it’s only natural. Still, I’m just taking this challenge head on and I know it will be so worth it for both of us when we can see the fruits of our labor reveal themselves. HARD THINGS #5

We managed to do a little sight seeing in Dallas and hike a little bit in the suburbs over the weekend in between training. We really needed that down time to regroup.

Oh, and guess what? I’m running again! I’ve been managing 2 short runs (between 2 and 4 miles) each week since the beginning of March. So far so good. It’s going to be a very slow climb but luckily I’m so busy with everything else I’m actually totally fine with that 🙂

 

Unfortunately this just means Sweat Out the Small Stuff will be falling to the bottom of the priority list for a while. HARD THINGS #6 I literally come home from working at FASTSIGNS and, after walking and feeding Duncan, work on my laptop for another 3-4 hours.

Have you ever been away from home for more than a week?

How do you handle changes in routine?

Have you ever owned your own business?