![]() Even so, on that first day of self-employment, January 1, 2010, I felt like two different people merging into one: equal parts fear and hope, small potatoes dreaming big. The answer came from a devotion that my best friend from high school e-mailed me: “Wherever God’s finger points, his hand will clear a way.” I had to trust. I sought counsel from Ben, our friends, our family and our church. What if the business failed? What if we ran out of money? I’ve always been afraid that if I don’t manage my expectations, the other shoe will drop. The challenge came for me when I had to decide whether I could do it full time. Then she shared the hankies on her blog, and within hours I had a rush of inquiries from customers all over the world, not to mention a call from Martha Stewart Weddings, saying it would be featuring me and my handkerchiefs on its website. The next thing I knew, I got an email from a woman in New York who’d seen what I’d done and wanted me to do something similar for her wedding. I snapped a photo of them to post on my blog-which I had named Lucky Luxe-packaged them in boxes and mailed them off. I came up with a classic design but, instead of printing it on card stock, screen-printed it on ivory handkerchiefs with lace around the edges. I couldn’t wait for five o’clock to come each day. I was grateful to have a paycheck, but the work wasn’t at all what I’d dreamed of. I would wish for things, and he had the vision to make them happen.Īs for my job, I commuted to an office cubicle at a tech company, where I worked as a designer. Though he had a job as director of youth ministry for a Methodist church around the corner, that armoire-made from an old door he found in the rafters of my grandfather’s woodshop-was a harbinger of things to come. ![]() The floorboards had nickel-size gaps, the nine-foot-tall single-pane windows were a century old and too expensive to replace, so we learned to love how the wind whispered through them in all seasons.īen had always been handy, but in redoing the place, he discovered his gift for woodworking: restoring old pieces of furniture, making an armoire from reclaimed material because we couldn’t afford to buy one. Together, we fixed up a second-floor loft in a flatiron building in the historic district. What if there could be a bookstore on the corner or an Italian restaurant or a shop that sold sweet-smelling candles and soaps?īen and I made Laurel our home. Others might have hurried past the shuttered storefronts, but I kept seeing the myriad possibilities amid architecture that was worth preserving. But industry moved on, and people moved out. Founded in the 1880s, it had flourished when lumber mills were harvesting the area’s yellow pines. I did: Laurel, a sleepy old place that had seen better days. His family had moved around a lot, so he didn’t really have a hometown.
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