Biz, Blessings & a Martini

AvantGarb has been a growing, productive business for a really long time.

I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.

From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years.

AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.

Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and eyebrows tamed, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.

This is crazy thinking.

When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching yellow muppet fleece to green muppet fleece, I have taken to counting my blessing.

Here are some of them:

• I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
  
• I  love my biz - making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
• I've traveled everywhere--okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places - Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can't speak the language.
• ... however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
• I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
• I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
• I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
• ...and right now I'm listening to the general chatter in the studio as Angie drafts patterns for a very round Chipmunk, Tasha finishes some braces for the teeth of an orthodontist's mascot (sequins w/ holographic silver) and Amanda finishes 3 pairs of baseball shoes for the round Chipmunk!
• Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
• Every Friday I come home to a really good martini.

I am truly blessed. I have imagined my life, and it became real.

I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.