I haven't had much time to blog lately...a lot has happened in the past 9 months. Our coffee shop closed after a long ten year run. We really tried to make it work...tried everything, even radio advertising, shameless self promoting, begging and even a guilt trip or two. In the end, it was just sheer exhaustion that finally did us in. We were over worked, under paid and heading into our slow season. We decided we needed a change...we made plans to sell everything and go back to long haul truck driving. We used to drive truck when we first got married...for 3 1/2 years, we traveled the country. 46 states. Quite an adventure. We would reminisce about our gypsy days. It had to be better than our current situation. At least we would be out seeing stuff...instead of SSDD. We were telling all of our friends and family of our new plan, half thought we were giving up, the other half though we had gone nutters. So we started making our exit plan.
My brother, Eric, heard of our plans and called us up. He lives in Hawaii and suggested we sell everything, ship our coffee roaster to Hawaii and give it a go out there...Hawaii? Hmm, yeah, that sounds like a dream...could we really do that? Nah..But the more we thought about it, the more we felt like we just couldn't pass up the opportunity. So, we did some research...Florida's unemployment rate was 15%, nearing 20% in our county. Hawaii's unemployment rate was only 6%. We would have to go into debt even more than we already were, just to start trucking again...not to mention, we would have to work for a crappy company for at least 6 months before we could team drive together...trucking was looking less like a good idea and thoughts of Hawaii filled our minds. We started watching the new "Hawaii 5-0" series we had saved up on our dvr...it was funny that we hadn't had a chance to watch them yet and we had a whole entire season saved....Well, that's what did it. I can't even remember what the story lines were...we just watched the scenery and daydreamed of paradise...that's all she wrote. Made selling all our stuff for pennies on the dollar less painful..Made closing the business less painful. We had a renewed excitement for what the future held.
That was the hottest damn summer ever...business equipment sales, moving sales, garage sales, craigslist sales, even sold our prize possession comic.
Painful. Very painful. Had to be pried from my hands. But, it was what funded our trip, shipped the roaster and financed for our fresh start. August 15...we arrived in Hawaii. We were home.
We had a month or so to explore the island while we looked for jobs. Finally found a coffee consulting job for the both of us. Pay wasn't that great but we got to move into the same building we worked in. 14th floor.
Elevator commute to work. Office. Company credit card. And the opportunity to co-manage the cafe when it opened. 401k, profit sharing, health insurance, vacation time(what is that?) Truly a dream job.
We are roasting again.
Blessed to find a place to set up the coffee roaster. We share a space with another coffee roaster. They are a pretty big deal coffee company in Honolulu. Been here for years. We set up our baby roaster right next to his ginormous monstrosity of a roaster. Started the business in Hawaii...it was too easy. No bureaucracy, no red tape, no hoops to jump though. Wha???
The trying times, the sadness of business failure, the uncertainty...all for this. We are blessed.
Faith in God.
Fearlessness.
A little stupid courage.
A whole lotta moxie.
Two haoles living pono...it was NOT "all for naught".
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