 My 25-year old daughter, Emily, has been in hospital for 68 days waiting for a heart transplant. This is an important first sentence because Emily's heart health has sculpted my last 25-years. I wasn't that entrepreneur, solopreneur, mompreneur who hated her corporate job and tossed it aside to start a business. I was a happy, corporate employed, married, pregnant woman in 1993 planning on returning to that much loved job after my baby was born. Then in December 1993, Emily was born with complex congenital heart defects that couldn’t be repaired. As a result, she’s had three heart operations at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and a heart transplant would be in her future. Priorities for my husband, Gary, and I snapped into place immediately after Emily was born. I wouldn’t return to the career I adored, and that was 100% fine with Gary and myself. There wasn’t even a millisecond of doubt that my life wouldn’t be devoted to family. There is a foundation of security knowing exactly the path we would travel even though the path itself remained a mystery. I stayed home raising Emily, mostly at Sick Kids for her first three years. In January 1998, Emily was given the okay to go home and live a great life. We knew Emily’s heart health journey wouldn’t be easy and wanted to make every moment count. In June 1998 we went to Disney World. It was such an amazing vacation that we decided to return often, even though I didn’t have an income to finance Disney vacations. After Emily’s third heart surgery, a year before she started kindergarten, I wanted to get healthy, fit, and take aerobics instructor training. A month after Emily started school, I started teaching fitness classes for The City of Mississauga fitness centres and Goodlife. Soon, I was teaching yoga and art lessons while Emily was in school and in the evening when Gary was home. In January 2000, we welcomed our son, Evan. Our next Disney World vacation would come to fruition a year later. That vacation also came with a freelance job offer as a travel agent specializing in Disney. Without realizing it, I became an entrepreneur. Life was magical, even enchanted ….. until it wasn’t. In the 6th grade Emily received a grim diagnosis of a rare disease that had a miserable mortality. The disease was a result of a complication of her last heart operation. I broke. I became depressed, anxious and was put on anti-depressant meds. The side effect of weight gain made aerobics and yoga instruction so difficult that I stopped. I let my Disney travel business mostly fade away. But, I did continued teaching art lessons. Art was my therapy. It had to be, all the traditional therapy that I tried was not helpful. Not only was art my therapy, it became my business. Once again, I was an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is the perfect career for me. I’m able to earn a living and still be Emily’s heart health advocate. I created an adult colouring book, started writing knitting and crochet patterns for Ravelry, built an Etsy shop, taught art lessons (still do), became an Artist in Residence at Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre, and built Earth Looms. In 2010, we bought a 2.5 acre off-the-grid cabin in the woods just south of Algonquin Park in Ontario. We recently converted my Algonquin art studio into an Airbnb. Because my creative focus is textiles and fiber arts, we have plans to raise fiber animals, such as angora rabbits, goats, and sheep once Emily’s heart health becomes stable. For now I spin and teach spinning (on spinning wheels and drop spindles) with sheep fleece from Ontario farms. I still teach weaving, knitting, and crochet. My Etsy shop and Ravelry patterns are excellent passive income. I sell all things related to textile and fiber arts; spinning wheels, drop spindles, raw fleece, roving, knitting supplies, embroidery hoops and patterns, crochet supplies, weaving looms and supplies, and more. Our off-the-grid cabin has inspired me to pursue permaculture techniques that include; microgreens, vermiculture, beekeeping, and organic urban farming. Forever a teacher, I also teach online English lessons to students in China early in the mornings before you even think about your morning coffee. We are so fortunate to have our feet in two locations. Living in Mississauga gives us the home base to visit Emily in Toronto General hospital daily, and the Algonquin cabin gives us the retreat we need to recharge to be able to give Emily our complete support. Although we are in a holding pattern waiting for Emily’s heart transplant, we can still move forward. I include Emily in my creative entrepreneur business. She helps make and select items for the Etsy shop, she enjoys needle felting, adult colouring books, and sometimes crochets. We are working on an interesting new cookbook (Emily is a foodie) that will be published just in time for Christmas 2019. Twenty-five years ago my life dramatically changed course and I wouldn’t have missed a single second. #GratefulMom LETS CONNECT Instagram: instagram.com/sandra.clarke.canada/ YouTube: youtube.com/c/sandraclarke #BEaDONOR #AdultColoringBook #LivingArtsCentre #Airbnb #TextileArts #FiberArts #Ravelry #Etsy #AerieNorthProject #PatternsBySandra #Beekeeping #Permaculture #Vermiculture #Studio89 #Mississauga #OffTheGrid #Homesteading #Microgreens #UrbanFarming #TeachOnline #Spinning #SpinningWheel #Spinolution #DropSpindle #Knitting #Crochet #Weaving #Loom #ArtTherapy |
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