I moved to Lansing, Michigan in February of 2001. It was days after a blizzard had blown through town and I came with luggage devoid of socks. Texas weather requires much less of a winter wardrobe. I stepped off of the bus with my guitar case covered in stickers, napkins full of song lyrics and ideas about who I wanted to be. Not one of those ideas had anything to do with the construction industry.
I met Paul six months later and my mother likes to say I never came home from our first date. We were in love, smitten and completely twitterpated. Nine years later and I am effectively running a flooring installation company. My guitar sits in a corner behind my couch and I read magazines entitled Business Monthly and Tile Magazine. I attend functions wearing tropical flower wedges and "gasp" lip gloss in a room full of men in hard hats and work boots. I spend my time trying to build a legitimate business in an industry of trunk slammers.
It didn't start out this way. I was slowly enticed by my husband with small favors. It began with dropping off invoices and picking up grout samples. I entered the tile business with my fist tightly clenched around my home. Slowly I have opened my hand to hold both my family and the business that supports it. Now my days include both lunch making and contract signing. There are evenings where I get dressed to the nines and run a roulette table for a fundraiser after a day of sitting at a desk under which a one year old eats goldfish.
JR. Associate Levi Torok
Owning a family business is not easy and we have yet to grasp all of the ways our family will need to be committed to it's growth. Today my children tag along with me to the bank, to pick up checks from customers and sometimes they help Daddy seal floors. Tomorrow, we hope our children will have a trade they can use as a tool to pay their own way through college. Tomorrow, Paul and I will have grown the business to a place where we can ride off into the sunset and point our rocking chairs towards the west.
