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On Expansion In Business and In Life

Hey remember me? πŸ™‚

It’s been awhile since I’ve put up a new blog post or video, so I thought I’d stop in to give you an update on what’s been going on in my world.

This summer my husband Serge and I realized our long-time dream of taking over the space next door to Urban Martial Arts and expanding our school.

I hope to share pics with you soon, but we’ve now more than doubled the size of our space and I’m so proud of the awesome facility we’ve built!

Continuing with the theme of expansion, I’m just a few weeks away from giving birth to our second daughter.

I don’t know if it was just the fabled nesting instinct or what, but being pregnant again made me really conscious of the ways in which Serge and I were neglecting our home and family.

As small business owners, I think our default mode is often to put the business ahead of everything else, and put our own needs last.

But this summer, the impact of that neglect really hit me hard.

Our apartment was a total mess all the time.

Just about every meal we ate was greasy take-out or delivery.

But the thing that concerned us most of all was that our daughter was acting out big-time.

It took me awhile to see what was going on, but I finally realized that she was simply feeling neglected by us and was doing the things she was doing to get our attention.

Well, the wake-up call worked and I spent much of this summer working on restoring the balance.

I deliberately scaled back my work commitments (this blog included) so I could spend more time with our daughter.

I made an effort to eat more healthfully and cook more often.

I invested a lot of thought, time, money, and energy into getting our apartment clean and organized.

And I even did quite a bit of long-overdue decorating!

In the end? It was absolutely worth it.

Our lives feel so much calmer and less stressful now.

When I’m at work, I feel focused and in control.

Our apartment actually feels like a home now – not just a place we crash before we head to our business each day.

And our daughter is absolutely thriving. Plus she’s super-excited about becoming a big sister!

It may be another little while before you hear from me again.

I’ll be in that haze of happy sleep deprivation that is the hallmark of caring for a newborn baby.

But in the meantime I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read my blog and subscribe to my newsletter.

See you soon!

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