Our Journey to Dood Mood

Well after 1 month, 29 days, many sleepless nights, at least 59 entire POTS of coffee, artwork edit, after artwork edit, after artwork edit and a whole lot of praying to our oh so merciful Heavenly Father.....WE ARE HERE!! And guess what, so are you! :) We can not say thank you enough for just being present and supporting our dream. Well, supporting my dream. Michael just happens to love me to pieces so my dreams are his dreams.

Michael and I have been married for 7 amazing years now and have two beautiful girls who are now 4 and 5. They are 18 months apart and we wouldn't have it any other way. Yes of course they argue, I mean come on tell me one set of siblings you know that didn't argue at that age?? But they know that they have a build in best friend no matter what.

Brinley is full throttle in to gymnastics; she has been turning perfect cartwheels since she was 18 months old so we knew at a young age that she had a natural born talent. So we decided to put her in gymnastics in August of this past year and she has just flourished! We have a bar here at our house and 6 out of 7 mornings a week she will wake straight up and do a double back hip circle lay out (Brinley would correct me here because I'm sure I'm not calling it the right thing). She is beautiful, brave and determined.

Salem Wren is unlike any other child I have ever met. She absolutely loves clothes and expressing herself through her outfits; you never know what she will come out with in the mornings. Right now she LOVES hats, tie dye, sunglasses and tall socks. I have had parents tell me before, you just let her dress like that? Just wear whatever she wants?? The answer is YES, yes I do because she has her own heart and her own feelings and if that is how she wants to express herself then I am 100% ok with it. She wanted to be a ninja so there is a constant flow of flips and kicks happening in this house. Salem is beautiful, free spirited, loves everybody, and is just absolutely HILARIOUS. There is not a day goes by that I am not belly laughing at something she has said or done. Life around here is always entertaining. They are absolute polar opposites and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Here are my two beauties in a normal day:

We live on a crop farm here in North Carolina. Michaels family has been long time farmers for many years. We love, love, LOVE the farm life. We have a great big garden full of all kinds of vegetables. Every family has their thing that they like to do together, well one of ours is our garden. We love to teach our kids about the process of growth,  how to take care of living things and the power of prayer. We pray over our garden as we plant the seeds, pray for rain and thank Him when we harvest. One of my fondest memories as a kid was helping my grandparents in their garden and sitting on the front porch stringing beans. I pray that our kids will look back and feel the same way one day. 

Memories from our garden last year:

I have worked in retail I feel like my whole life. The last 15 years I have had the opportunity to be a part of an amazing Outfitters store. There, I was the Retail Manager, Head Buyer and whatever other kind of hat I needed to put on in a particular day. I have always had a passion for businesses and knowing how they operate. I will proudly admit that I am one of those people in my free time I read business books with a highlighter and notepad handy. Some of my favorite fellow business junkies are Brene Brown, Simon Sinek, Jim Collins, and Eric Mosely. I graduate from Appalachian State with a Business degree in Marketing, Management and Entrepreneurship. One thing I have learned in the last few years is that there are 3 types of people; an Artist, a Manager, or an Entrepreneur. God has very clearly showed me lately that I am an Entrepreneur. I can most definitely play those other roles, but my PASSION is Entrepreneurship.

I have always wanted to have my own gig. There are days that will sit outside on our porch and just look around dreaming, an idea will hit my and I will run grab my ipad and start writing a business plan. Michael will come home from work and I'll say "Babe, check this out! What if we........" here is where I insert the 10 different businesses I have launched at him in the last 7 years. The ideas all sounded great and all but nothing ever FELT right. So finally I decided just to rest in the moment, stop brain storming, slow down and just start praying. I knew that God had something in store for me but I keep pushing and prying and wanting it on my time and not His. Then in April it hit me.

Dood Mood. On the porch again, Me and Paisley on the couch, the kids were at school and I was sitting there having a cup of coffee rubbing her head and I looked down at her and it hit me. "Dood Mood." I said it out loud. We are IN LOVE and border line OBSESSED with Paisley (our dood). Her personality and the stuff she does is hilarious! I know you guys are with me here, where you put words in your dogs mouth and try to act out what they would say if they could talk. So funny right? So I thought, "the doodle breed has just got such a wide range of personality types that would be so fun to try to express!" So I called my partner in crime, the amazing Artist behind the designs, Meghan and told her my idea. One month and 29 days later here we are and let me tell you guys, it FEELS PERFECT! It's amazing what the Lord will reveal if we just sit in the moment and wait for His timing. We are SO GLAD you are here with us. We hope you fall in love with the brand like we have. I am so excited for the journey ahead and being able to share "The Good Life" with you. We hope that you find it in your heart to pass it on and help support our small FAMILY business!

 Paisley showing you where it all went down: