My New Job

I've always wanted to have my own business. A long time ago back when my sisters and I worked as aides in a nursing home we used to talk about opening a group home someday. Not just any group home, but a totally awesome one that every old person would love to live in, with a 'feels like home' atmosphere. Well, that never really amounted to anything more than an idea, but over the years I've had a few other ideas, that again amounted to nothing. Well recently I decided to act on one of my ideas. I had a job assignment that involved going into a patients home and doing private duty nursing. I was assigned the job through my agency in Kalamazoo which is 65 miles away.
So it was on my second day of driving out to Kalamazoo to the patients house that I started thinking that I could do this kind of thing myself right where I live without an agency. I called my friend Michelle at 6am and woke her up, cause I decided that she would be the perfect person to go into business with. Yes I could probably do it by myself, but I didn't want to, I think my chances of success with a partner are way better than on my own. She was also super excited about the idea and quickly got over the fact that I woke her up at 6am.
We did some checking into it, and there are quite a few companies in the area who offer companion care, or aides, but not really any that offered RN's for skilled care. Okay there was one, but they wanted $100 per hour and as much notice as possible so they could 'find a nurse', not very reassuring and who's gonna pay that?
We have done most of the behind the scenes prep work and we expect to have our business license in hand in a couple days, our lawyer filed the paperwork with the state already and we are just waiting to hear back. As soon as we do we can get our business cards printed and start looking for work. We can't print the business cards until we hear back from the state because they rejected our first business proposal name. Apparently 'Private Nursing Services' could mislead people into thinking we are practicing medicine. I don't exactly agree with that, but I don't make the rules, I just have to follow them. So our new proposed name is 'At Home Private Nursing'. It's not really all that different from the first name, but our lawyer seems to think it will be accepted.
So far we are funding the business ourselves, the start up cost is less than what we lost in the stock market last year, so I think it's worth the risk. We have talked to a couple banks about getting a small loan or line of credit in case our business grows fast and we need to hire other nurses. (Michelle and I can work for free in the beginning if we have to until we build up some money, but I don't think that would go over very well when we hire employees) Apparently though the banks want a business plan before they will give any loans out. The business plan that I have in my head is not what they are talking about either, they want an official business plan which is a book with all kinds of info in it, you have to do market research for your services and the need for it, get info on your competition, revenue and expense proposals, worst and best case scenarios, etc etc. I guess that's where that bachelors degree in nursing would come in handy. At least for now we can get started without a loan, and work on our business plan in the mean time.
Anyway, we are very excited about it. We are not sure which direction it will take us. Our focus will be providing 4 to 24 hours of care in home for patients who need skilled nursing care, who would otherwise need to be in a facility of some kind. We are thinking respite care and newly discharged patients from the hospital will be where we start looking for clients. We have some other possibilities we are looking into as well, but I don't want to tell about it until it's more official.

Oh and this is just another one of my excuses for my lack of blogging lately. Starting up a business is rather time consuming. I really hope it pays off.

blogroll

Okay, here I go on a blog roll, I have been slacking terribly on blogging this summer. I blame it on the fact that I have been without a computer for a good part of the summer, which means I can't put pictures from my camera onto my computer and then onto the blog. Okay, that is just one of the many excuses I have. But get ready, cause over the coarse of the weekend I plan to get caught up. I think I will do a lot of little mini posts, that way if I get distracted I can just do a few rather than put the whole thing on hold and then end up with nothing.

So here goes #1 Patio Pictures

This is my back splash with shelves


kitchen area, the grill and cooktop go here

the bar
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First fire

New steps down to the deck

a closer look at the steps

the new landing

The new front steps

First Post: - check

PATIO PICS

Here are some new pictures for those of you who want to see some updates. I took some of the pictures during the night, so they didn't turn out as well, but you get the idea. Everyday it looks so good and visible progress is being made so now I will start posting more pictures daily.



The steps getting closer to done.


Counter top planning.
We decided to make the counter top out of stone instead of a granite slab. More cost effective and I actually think it will look better this way.
The bench seat on top of the wall.


Concrete finally poured. Makes it look so much better.

Just Peachy

Sharing a peach with Auntie Francie

mmm, it's sooo good
or maybe not

'Touchdown'

6 more weeks and she'll be eating peaches

Concrete makes me happy

I've been waiting for this day for a while now. The electricians finally finished their job yesterday, and today we had the concrete poured. Now the actual building of the patio can resume and I am very pleased about that. Although I saw on the news today that we are expecting rain Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which could mean another BIG delay! Everyone involved in getting this patio built is acutely aware of my lack of patience with setbacks, and I imagine that they'd probably all be slightly amused if it actually did rain for 4 days since there would be absolutely nothing anybody could do about it and no one for me to blame! Let's just hope the weather man was wrong.

Here is the slab for the hot tub. We actually already have a hot tub that we haven't used in 3 years, so I am excited to get it back and start using it again.
Supervising...I had no idea how much was involved in setting up a foundation for a hot tub. Does everyone do this?

Here is a picture to show you where the hot tub will sit in relation to the patio.
Dan the concrete man going above and beyond, suggested and then helped me do this.

This is my new landing in front of the door, I am probably the most excited about this. The only thing I can actually say that I hated about my house was that when I walk out the door I am on a narrow step. When you have a toddler and a diaper bag in one arm and a car seat with a baby in the other, it makes it rather hard to get out the door AND close the door. Now I can put one of them down on the landing to have a free hand to shut the door. I know it seems minor, but to me it's huge. (It will be covered with flagstone by the way)

The fire pit got poured today too.
The lovely smooth concrete will be all covered up with these fire bricks never to be seen again.
And that's all in a days work. Hopefully tomorrow will be another productive day and I can show you more progress pictures.

Rome wasn't built in a day...

For those of you who know me well, you know that patience is not one of my virtues. And this patio project is taking a little (or a lot) longer than I expected which is mildly (to put it lightly) frustrating to me. The most frustrating part is that there is nothing I can do about it, I don't know how to do any of the things that need to be done. All I can do is wait, watch and keep asking how much longer.
We had a minor (or major depending on who you ask) set back with the electricians (who, by the way, are shockingly expensive) that put the whole project on hold for a few days, but thankfully they arrived this morning promptly at 7:20 am and got started. Hopefully they will be done tomorrow and we can have the concrete poured for the floor. Once that is done (cross your fingers) I've been told things should start coming together pretty quickly. I am still hoping for a finish date (or even an almost finished so long as it's usable) of August 29.
Here are some pictures of what's been done so far....


There used to be a wall between the house and the post. Where the wall was is where you will enter onto the patio from the house. There will be a landing where the steps are now, and the new steps will be where the landing is now. At this end where you see the little temporary step is going to be another exit off of the patio, and will lead to the hot tub.
Up against the house is where the outdoor kitchen will be, we have a grill, a 2 burner cooktop and a sink. Those two holes on the sides of the window are for lights over the cooking area. The two holes below that are for electrical outlets.
On the left is the fire pit with a bench seat, and the wall to the right of it will have a granite counter top on it for an eating area. Notice the little foot rest my dad incorporated into the wall? Pretty cool huh?

Here's another angle, (my brother says I don't put enough pictures up) this one sort of gives you an idea of all the electrical stuff going on. There are lights and electrical outlets on the inside of the patio wall, and the outside of the wall and they will be on separate switches. Should be pretty nice when it's all done.

Sunday

There aren't many days in the summer that Todd get's the day off AND the weather is nice. Today was one of those rare days. Well he didn't take the whole day off, but the afternoon at least. We decided to take the kids to the beach.


Anthony doesn't seem the least bit interested in the water, but he loves the sand, I think it's like a giant sandbox to him. They had a playground at the beach which was also a hit with Anthony.Bella had her first swing today and wasn't overly excited about it, but seemed to be okay with it.She looks like she's in a lazy boy recliner.We left the beach and headed for the downtown area to go for a stroll and get some ice cream. I wasn't planning on having any myself because I had decided to start my diet today, but then we saw this, and I had to give in. I mean really how often does something like this happen?

Anthony got to feed himself an ice cream cone for the first time. He made quite a mess but thoroughly enjoyed it, right down to the chocolate covered malt ball the SouthBend Chocolate Factory is famous for putting in the bottom of your ice cream cone. I had to wrestle it out of his hands and he was so mad at me. (I was worried he'd choke on it, I wasn't trying to steal it from him)

Trying to take my own picture of the girls while the boys were playing.
And these were taken this morning at home while daddy was working.

Hope you all enjoyed your Sunday afternoon as much as we did.