Service with a Smile

I apologize for the long absence, tomatoes and eggplant are fruiting and I missed three solid months of updates on what's happening with 3BsWithB. If you've been following my story you've read a lot of talk of taking steps, thinking about taking steps, and thinking about thoughts of taking steps into a homestead-based business. 

Two weeks ago I took a giant leap: I left my secure job as a federal Regulatory Biologist and filed for my LLC, as Bonnie's Barefoot Gardening Service. I am now officially living the dream of gardener, baker, and all around farm girl. I had many friends and family supporting this move, knowing that I have desired for years to run my own horticultural-based business. Still others could not believe it.  Why leave a secure, well paying job with a solid retirement package a month before I was due to get a $10,000 raise to venture into the risky land of entrepreneurship? I can't adequately explain it in this one post- but as a co-worker noted a week before I left- the passion for this career move shone from my face- and how could anyone hold that back?

Yesterday I spent eight hours cleaning out shade garden beds, chatting with my client and dear gardener friend about plans and plants, repairing a rock wall, and singing my heart out as I went. Growing up, I was given the advice to find out what I was created to do in this life- to pursue the work for which my hands naturally reached. Discovering this was the biggest step- not just, what makes me happy, or what am I good at, but what work calls to me? Growing plants and baking things have always been my passion- and the handing of those goods and watching anyone smile as a result of my service makes my heart sing.

This is what I have found in my business- the work that makes my heart sing. It's a service that I can provide to others while also feeding myself, literally and spiritually. I often think about where my son will go in this world, what will call to him as a career, and I hope I can adequately show him there's more to choosing your path than finding out what you're good at, or what makes you happy. I was good at my other job. While it did affect my happiness, I did not leave because I was unhappy. I left because I was drawn towards what I was created to do- what came naturally to me, and what makes my heart sing. 

Will there be times of uncertainty? Times of hard work and other times of little work?  Isn't there that anywhere we go? Life is uncertain and ever changing, that's a given. Doubts will arise no matter where we stand. As for me, I will stand through all these times barefoot  in my gardens, providing the services that make both my clients and my heart smile.