Who I am and why am I writing

My name is JoAnn and I’m a middle-aged, entrepreneur, living in a small home, with my husband, two adult children that need our help and support and our adult golden lab dog. To say my life can be crazy at times would be an understatement.

I’m a techie at heart. I love all things technical, but right now as I write this I am using the low tech pen and paper, and I’m ok with that, even more than OK with it.

Isn’t it funny how we think that if we are one way (i.e. techie) we have to be that way all the time. Since I’m a techie at heart then that’s all I can do, right? Wrong. That is not true. I’m a pen and paper gal just as much as I’m a techie. We need to be comfortable with who we are, even if we are very eclectic. 😉

My quiet time

As i write this I’m outside, enjoying the cool, summer evening weather. I brought the dog out so she could get some exercide, but I came out for some quiet time. That’s how it started anyway.

I’m now sitting around a dog who keeps chasing her ball under my chair, continually bumping into it and both my children decided to come out and join me. They are sitting on either side of me and they are having a conversation with each other, right over me, with me in the middle. Why did I come outside again? Oh, right, for some quiet time. 😉 lol

That about explains my family and my life. I’m a female entrepreneur, who works from home and is constantly trying to juggle being a wife, mother to adult children with extra needs, and first-time dog owner to a dog with major separation anxiety, just to name a few.

My work life as a middle aged entrepreneur

I’ve worked from home as the Director of Website Management for The Old Schoolhouse® for over 5 years, but last year I added to that, starting to really work at building up my business Watered Garden Creations.

These past 10 months have been very interesting as I’ve learned how to build up a service based business. But as I look around for support as a middle-aged woman dealing with all these things all I find is support for new or young moms, with children in diapers and young ones running around. It is great that they have support, but what about support for us, entrepreners who are middle-aged?

The need for support

I don’t need to worry about wiping noses or changing diapers. I need to know how to work through hot flashes, helping my adult children navigate life with the issues they deal with, supporting my husband and taking care of my house, just to name a few.

I’m a middle-aged, female entrepreneur, where is the support for that? I know I’m not the only one so I thought, I can’t find support but maybe I can give some support. So I thought why not share my life to encourage others? Well, at least I hope it’s an encouragement. 😉

I’ll be talking about all the areas that I’m dealing with. Like trying to bring my body back to a healthy lifestyle after 2 surgeries, a death in the family and a life-altering diagnosis for a family member (that had me doing a lot of stress eating), all within the past five years.

I’ll be talking about the changes I’m making in the kitchen, working on body acceptance while making healthy changes, how I live my life in all this craziness, how I run my business through all of this and how I try to live my life to the fullest!

We are not a ‘typical’ family, though I’m really not sure what ‘typical’ means. My husband has a retail schedule. We only know his schedule one week in advance, so we are definitely not your typical Monday – Friday, 9 – 5 type of family.

We are former homeschoolers, and I’m still passionatte aboutt homeschooling. Though my life has taken many different twists and turns that I never expected, I am beyond blessed. I’m thankful for all the Lord has blessed me with. My house and life may get crazy, I may not be able to run my business on a ‘normal’ schedule, I may even get interrupted when I go outside to write quietly and everyone follows me. 😉 But that’s OK. It’s my life, my crazy, unpredictable, hard, beautiful life.

Supporting each other

I hope you enjoy your time here reading my stories. I want you to feel encouraged and if you are a middle-aged entrepreneur like I am, I hope you find support. But this isn’t going to be just about me. I hope that anyone who reads my posts will join in and let me know about your life and what you struggle with. As much as I hope to be an encouragement and support, I need that myself. I want to know I’m not alone with trying to work through hot flashes or the stress of working while taking care of a family member with a major mental illness. I hope we can be there to support each other.

I plan on sharing recipes, websites I find encouraging and more. Right now though, I want to know about you. Who are you? What brought you to my site? Are you a middle-aged, female entrepreneur? Please introduce yourself and share, I would love to get to know you.