AvantGarb has been a growing, productive business for a really long time.I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.
From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years. AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.
Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and toes painted, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.
This is crazy thinking.
When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching fleece onto fur on the latest mascot head, I’ve taken to counting my blessings.
Here are some of them:
- I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
- I love my biz – making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
- I’ve traveled everywhere–okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places – Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can’t speak the language.
- … however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
- I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
- I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
- I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
- …and right now I’m listening to the general chatter in the studio as Joseph drafts patterns for a very buff mascot, Mike finishes the electronics for a ventilation fan in a Giant’s head and Anne finishes 3 pairs of really big mascot shoes for 3 very different mascots – a Griffin, a Tomato & a Parrot!
- Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
- Every Friday I come home to a really good martini with my husband
I have imagined my life, and it became real.
I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.
