Catching Up: Looking Back & Planning Ahead
2025 is here. Yesterday, I wrapped up a full day planning session for the future of our growing office. Looking ahead to 2025 also had me looking back over the last few years…both assessing the challenges and feeling so incredibly proud of all that we have done and all that we have overcome.
Some suggest that you should keep your business and personal life separate but as anyone who has ever run a small business knows, there is really very little separation. Your life is part of your business and your business is your life. Reflection requires looking to both in order to see the full picture. As I reflect over the last five years for my family, I can hardly get my mind around the previously unimaginable struggles that we’ve endured. Each member of our household of four have faced down a life threatening diagnosis/ accident complete with major surgeries, multiple hospital stays and extended treatment and recovery. Every single one of us. In five short years. What are the odds of that?! We were previously just average, healthy and healthy-ish people. Beginning in 2020, each of us has stared down scary news for big things like brain, heart, lymph node removal, cancer, broken neck. I lost my dad and one of my very best friends. The storm raged on…one thing after another. And yet, here we are. Two of us are healthy and strong again. One looking at a surgery in 2025 but hopefully that is the last step in recovery and one trending in the right direction. We are still standing. The office is not only still open but growing by leaps and bounds.
Those years weren’t all bad. Our family learned that sometimes the little things are, in fact, the big things. We learned to count our blessings. We learned that you can endure far more than you think you can. We learned that all is well that ends well. We laughed A LOT. We travelled. We watched 8904 basketball games and discovered a universal love of Crumbl cookies. If nothing else, we learned that life does, indeed, go on.
During that time, Tasha and I started this office and watched it grow from an idea to busting out of our space and adding significantly to our team. We’ve grown in fits and starts. Busy months and slow months. We’ve done work and cared for clients in ways that I am SO very proud of. We’ve done work that was slower than I would’ve liked especially as we navigated the rough seas of those major battles and took on a huge project with the State of Ohio. We’ve navigated the challenges of illness, growth and giant projects with just the two us. We tried a merger with a larger company in the hopes it would allow us to better serve our clients. We course corrected when that wasn’t the case. We’ve grown our team through trial and error. We’ve learned that growth for a small business is AWESOME and also so hard. Through these years, we kept showing up, learning and striving to serve our clients well on the easy days and the really hard ones, too. Without Tasha, I certainly could not have managed it especially during hospice with Dad and later during my own surgery and recovery. She kept the doors open and I will forever be grateful for that. We could not ask for better clients and do not take that for granted a single day. We grew and grew in our little office at 101 S High Street. We officially outgrew that space and our capacity as a two girl team. We limped across the finish line of 2024 exhausted but excited!
Tasha and I head into 2025 in a brand new space to accomadate our growing team. We can’t wait to welcome each of you into our space at the OSU Endeavor Center on Shyville Road in Piketon and introduce you to our squad. Through trial and error, we’ve assembled a team that we think will allow us to serve our clients well in 2025 and beyond. We are so excited for all of the improvements and I look to 2025 full of hope and excitement for my family and our office. 2025 feels like a brand new chapter for both. Thanks to each of you for being here and catching up with me. You will be seeing a lot more of us online in 2025. Stay tuned!
