BY RACHEL BITTON
One of my favorite Brenn Hill songs includes the line “It’s said life is that which happens while making other plans.” The older I get, I realize how true this line is. As the new year rings in, it is easy to make goals and plan, but I like to reflect on how life changes. A few years ago, I decided it was finally time to get my real estate license. I thought about it off and on for about 10 years. I was used to sitting at a computer with the kids during my jail sentence (I mean homeschool during COVID shutdown), so I was prepped and ready for hours behind a computer learning real estate.
After being a stay-at-home mom, returning to the society of working adults was a bit of a shock – adults can’t be bribed with fruit snacks, and there were no songs about potty training. It was nice to feel like an adult again, and I really enjoy real estate. It is so fun helping people find their perfect home or navigate the stress of selling a home.
I didn’t account for how much I would rely on my husband for his help and knowledge in the real estate space. It’s super handy to have an electrician/general contractor in my back pocket. He joins my cooking segments on my Facebook live show to give advice. I also talked him into playing ridiculous games with me while making total fools of ourselves on the internet. Bless that man!
The more I worked, my goal became retiring my husband from his ‘side work.’ My husband not only had a full-time job managing my wild requests and bad animal decisions, but he also had a real full-time job and owns an electrical/general contracting company too. To put it mildly – he was stretched very thin. Our plan was to always retire from the side work…this is where life changes. We are now fully self-employed.
Being self-employed with kids, a funny farm, house, jobs, etc. means that there is never-ending juggling going on. Sometimes, I get the kids ready for school and ship them out the door, sometimes, my husband does. It really is a team effort to keep everything afloat. Recently, there were a few weeks where I never washed a dish. My husband stepped in to load the dishwasher while the kids took turns unloading. It seems like a small thing, but it was so helpful to me to have just one thing taken out of my juggling act. It’s important to us to teach our kids that everyone in the family can help, no matter what the job is.
This was never our plan, but here we are, enjoying this life change. I hope this means my husband will have more time for some of my projects…like finishing the old grain silo into an outdoor kitchen or buying more mini cows.