I think I know what I want to do when I grow up

Man, growing up is hard.  I have spent my whole adult life looking around at other adults wondering why they have it all together, and I still don't know what I want to do.  People come straight out of high school and know they want to be doctors, or that they want to join the Army, or that they want to be lawyers, but that was never me.  I have always accidentally become what I am currently doing.

I'm a preschool teacher and daycare provider.  As a teen mom, I was terrified when it came to leaving my child so I could go to work, so I quit my job and decided I would do it myself.  I opened a child care and am still here today.

Still, I always saw it as temporary because of what the world put on me.  Since I work from home, no one ever considered it a "real" job.  Even clients over the years haven't seen what I do as a real job.

22 years later, here I am.  My husband and I together make this certified child care work.  We're respected in our community and it took me nearly that long to convince myself that this was a "real" job.

Guess what?  If you pay taxes for income, you have a "real" job.  I don't sit around eating bon bons and watching soaps while some neighborhood kids run all over the house.  We have a structured successful award winning program that I am proud to say we built from scratch.  That is the American dream, my friends.

There's also the accidental photography side business.  Total accident.  One day people started making me take their money for taking their photographs, and now I am a photographer with a good client base and I really love doing it.  People still don't consider it a "real" job unless I'm employed Lifetouch (heaven forbid) or Sears.

I realize now that I always wanted to be a teacher.  I always wanted to be a photographer, a writer, and a speaker.  It's everything I've always been but have never taken seriously because society said that if I don't punch in and punch out, get a W 2, and have a boss to answer to, it's not a "real" job.

I felt like I had to keep trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I didn't like it at all!  Why isn't what I am worthy of being taken seriously, and who are these people I need to take me seriously?  Why do I need that?

I don't.

Now that I'm in mid-life crisis mode, I can finally put down all of those opinions I've been lugging around for decades and say, "Guess what?  I don't just have a "real" job, I have a PROFESSION, and get OFF my BACK!"

Is it me, or do you think people who tell you being an entrepreneur isn't a real job because they're too afraid to do it themselves?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm...........

I love what I do, I love my students, and I love being the foundation to their future.  You may not think it's all that and a bowl of cherries, and sometimes it isn't.  Sometimes it's all that and 135lbs of canned peaches!

Don't let society bring you down!  If somebody says something that doesn't lift you up, let it fall to the ground where it belongs!  It took me half of my life to figure it out.  Word to the wise, don't wait that long to be proud of who you are and what you do.  Be proud today.

XOXO
Sunshine

Holy bucket list Batman!!!

This weekend Julie and I got to check something off of our baby list!!!

For our mid-life crisis's 6 month birthday, we got to be extras in a movie.  Not only a movie, but a ZOMBIE movie!!!  Not only a zombie movie......but a ROMERO ZOMBIE MOVIE!!!!

Yes, you saw right!  The son of George A. Romero, the father of the zombie culture, George C. Romero was in Portland making an undead short film, and we were lucky enough to be in it!

Can I just say, WOWZA?!  The high still hasn't worn off.

Sadly, you won't see this movie in theaters...we're not even really sure how we'll see it, or whether we'll even see us in it, but as soon as I know, we'll post it for sure.  There's a running joke that my ghost sock is the only part of me that will be in it.  WATCH FOR THE GHOST SOCK!!

Until then...here are some photos of our fun!  #bucketlistthis

It's 7am on a holiday, we need COOOOFFFEEEE

GOT COOOFFFEEE!!!!

Red carpet shot of our socks....just in case.

The set is back there.  Creeeepy, yeah?

"Wear these bracelets in a place that we can't see them!"
............................

Being a zombie can make you.....a zombie.

XOXO

Sunshine and Julie