Today is my wife’s birthday. Right now she’s relaxing and getting the hour long massage she needed six months ago. I’m still not sure what we’re doing tonight, but I can assure you it will have something to do with having a great meal, and spending a night in a luxurious hotel. Relaxation is something we do not take enough time out of the year to treat ourselves to.

Running a small business is hard. I’ve watched Regan run Regan’s Brain for the last several years before I jumped into the fray. People who haven’t ran their own business have no idea. They think it’s all just fun and profit, you sell stuff, then you magically make it and ship it away. That’s not the case.

Regan spends a lot of time corresponding to inquiries, talking to customers, marketing herself (blogging, sales team stuff, wholesale), taking photos, listing items, creating new items, doing all of the paperwork that an accountant would do (Spreadsheets and paying bills), design work, constructing each item from scratch, shipping and tracking orders, ordering and shopping for supplies, hitting estate and garage sales with me, and to top it all off … teaching dance.

Between the dance and her Etsy site, she’s probably working a 50 – 60 hour a week job. Only no one understands this. Sometimes even I forget this. They just think “Oh, how nice. She only has to work PT and she gets to make pillows the rest of the time.” If it were only that simple.

I’ve seen the stress and the panic come holiday time. It sometimes seems to nearly overwhelm her, but she always gets everything done. Her dream is to be able to make a good living doing this. Each year she gets a little closer, but it’s harder than people realize.

My hats off to you special lady.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday.