It's been a while since my last post, and so much has happened in that time! We all know that 2020 was quite a doozy with the pandemic. On top of that, my business and family both experienced some changes in the last several months as we relocated from Denver, Colorado to Wake Forest, North Carolina.
On the business side --
Due to COVID, the majority of businesses were forced to send employees home to work remotely. Parents juggled full time jobs with homeschooling their kids. And small business owners were forced to pivot in order to survive.
With this all said - I'm pretty fortunate to still have a small business that is still thriving. Many of my clients went through changes of their own during the pandemic. Face to face events and networking opportunities went virtual and that change alone opened up numerous opportunities for me to provide support. Marketing and social media became a higher priority for clients as well, and we worked together to develop ways to reach target audiences.
I've also been incredibly fortunate to keep my clients through these changes (and our move across the country!). One of the major benefits of owning a virtual business is that your geographic location doesn't necessarily matter. A virtual assistant from Colorado can continue to work with the same clients in North Carolina with no major changes. The only minor hiccup I recall is having to get used to the two hour time difference.
What a blessing it is to work through so many changes in a short amount of time, look back, and think - "Wow! We did that together!"
On the personal side --
Making the decision to move back to the east coast was not an easy one. We absolutely loved Colorado - the scenery, our community, and all of the opportunities for fun as the kids got older. However, we are originally from Northern Virginia and still have friends and relatives who live there. Throughout the pandemic, we had a lot of time to reflect on life - relationships, priorities, and the future - and ultimately, we decided that having our children near their grandparents was most important.
In the months my husband was looking for work on the east coast, I temporarily brought on another client. I worked to help him browse for jobs on all the major sites, created a spreadsheet to keep track of it all, and did my best to cheer him on as he managed a full time job on top of multiple interviews. He finally found a position and within a couple of weeks, we were packing boxes and on our way to a brand new state.
When we arrived in North Carolina, we were faced with yet another difficult decision. Do we continue with homeschooling or get the kids enrolled in public schools. We moved forward with getting them enrolled in their prospective schools and at the very last second (literally a week before school started), we decided to opt for homeschooling instead. And so, we continued to work through all of the little decisions that homeschooling requires: Which curriculum? How do we establish routine with a preschooler and kindergartener? How do we provide opportunities for them to socialize? How do we juggle teaching our kids with working from home? It certainly hasn't been easy, but we are still managing to figure it out!
And so, now that we are finally settled, it's so nice to be able to take a small breath, explore our new state and community, and enjoy all the reasons we decided to embark on this new journey.