ALL WORK, and NO PLAY :(

It has been "All WORK and NO Play" around here lately.

Usually our family has a nice balance between work and play but for the last five months Dan's pie chart has been filled 99% with work, and 1% divided between family, fun, 2 church callings and sleep. (Did you notice date night is no where to be found in that 1%. Ughhh. We've gone from 2-3 date nights a week, down to zero a week. I know I have been spoiled for the past several years at Dan's ability to take so much family time, so I shouldn't be complaining, but when you grow accustomed to something, once it is gone it feels like a big sacrifice)

With the way the economy and the real estate market have been going, Dan made some business decisions that didn't pay off for him as anticipated. He was driving his business in one direction, believing he would match the direction of the market perfectly, and instead, his business slowed to a crawl. He doesn't want to give up on it because he has such a passion for real estate and investment and knows that with some adjustments in his business models that he will still thrive in this market. He just has to retool and adjust how he has been doing things.

He always does a great job providing for our family and through this dry spell it has been no different. While reorganizing his real estate investing business he has started working with a good friend building up his Alarm Security System business by selling Alarm Systems as well as helping him grow their sales team locally and in other cities here in Eastern Washington.

Dan is such a talented businessman and provider. He is great at what he is doing and has been making pretty decent money doing it. Well, I should clarify, it isn't near the money he has been accustomed to making with his real estate activities, but we feel very blessed that Dan is able to provide for our needs.

The friend that owns this Alarm Company is Jacob Rose. He is also a successful and talented guy who has run a couple of companies of his own. This new Alarm Company is called Nationwide Security and Dan has been helping Jacob put some systems in place to hopefully produce some residual income for Jacob and for our family.

In addition to continuing to run his "limping Real Estate Business", as well as taking a full time active role in building up Nationwide Security, Dan also just started up his 4th Lawn and Landscape company. Dan has owned 3 other Lawncare and landscaping businesses in the past, which all proved profitable, so he decided to start one up this spring just for a little back up cash and for a way to employ the kids as they get older.

Dan has a great business mind and is working his tail off to get us back to a place where he has the time freedom and flexibility we are accustomed to. But for now, I think we have a few more months of these outrageous hours.

Here's a typical Day for Dan...

4:45am-8:00am- Passes out flyer's door to door to advertise his lawn mowing business and spring clean-up services. (Anyone who knows Dan, knows that he is NOT a morning person. So this is killing him. He has been passing out flyer's for a month now and says his feet feel broken. Ouch! He is trying to get 20,000 flyer's out by the end of March.)

8:00-8:30am- Shower and gathers his stuff for the day

8:30-1:00pm- Works at his New Horizons office doing Real Estate Investing

1:00-8:00pm- Works at Nationwide. Selling Security Systems, Interviewing and training people. (Also, usually fielding lots of real estate and Premium Lawn and Landscape calls.)

8:00-10:00pm- Usually gets called in to help with closing a deal or talking about business plans.

10:30-1:00am- Works on his laptop. Finishing up whatever he needs to, as it relates to the 3 businesses he is in the process of starting up.

Then it's off to bed for 3-4 hours of sleep. I don't really know how much longer he'll be able to keep this up. It's been grueling.

I won't even go into my day, other than saying these two simple words... "Single-Mom".

I have been trying to do my best to be supportive and to take over all of the family responsibilities at home, but the kids really miss their Dad. Dan has been doing a great job making sure the kids know that they are loved. He likes to leave them little notes, or take them out for an early Saturday morning breakfast date, at a restaurant.

It's hard to complain about Dan working so much, when I know he does it 100% for our family, to provide the things we need and to set himself up to have the time freedom he desires, to be with our family more. We are hoping that all of this hard work will start paying off soon so we can get back to a more normal, balanced life.

We sure love you Dan!