We Are Back! Where did we go? - Episode 7

In this episode Jess and Chris talk about what has gone on in their life over the past 9 months. Lots of changes and lots of growth that has taken them to a new level. 

Transcript

Chris Norman: 0:09

Hello, and welcome to faith family and Freedom podcast. My name is Chris and I'm here with Jess. Just it has been a long time since we've done a podcast. Has it been a year, March? March? We did the last podcast right before we went on vacation,

Jessica Norman: 0:29

man. Yeah, that's a long time.

Chris Norman: 0:32

Yeah. We went on to vacation since then. A lot has happened since then.

Jessica Norman: 0:37

Yeah, we have a lot to talk about.

Chris Norman: 0:39

Yeah, we do.

Jessica Norman: 0:41

Where should we start?

Chris Norman: 0:45

Well, I guess we give a synopsis of what's going down and kind of pick and choose what we're going to talk about.

Jessica Norman: 0:52

So you've gone back to nursing. Yeah. I have taken over the shirt shop and closed both locations of the lovely Lily. Yeah. And I've had a surgery. Yeah. Have you had any surgeries?

Chris Norman: 1:09

Nope. No surgeries here.

Jessica Norman: 1:11

Just some.

Chris Norman: 1:12

We moved.

Jessica Norman: 1:14

Oh, yeah, we moved. Oh, yeah. We got a dog.

Chris Norman: 1:22

We did get a dog. Hello, Frenchie. We want a vacation with Abner's is like the first adult with other adult vacation we've ever taken. Yeah.

Jessica Norman: 1:31

That was exciting. That was fun time. Yeah. Right. Right. Do it again.

Chris Norman: 1:34

Yeah. With kids. Man, yeah, that's a lot. Extremely. This reason we haven't done a podcast, which we probably should have, it probably would have been therapeutic for us to talk about everything we were going through but March of last year the business was doing okay. We we were all in with both businesses, we were definitely treading water and using little can to bail water out of the out of the Titanic. We we just had a lot of leaks. Well I don't remember when we closed the lovely lilly. I guess everything started going down in July. So yeah, we, in July... We unfortunately lost some of our amazing employees, we had to completely change and restructure everything that we were doing within the business out of risk of losing it, which was massively stressful. We found a bunch of holes that we didn't even know about within the business and some things that we were doing that we really should not have been and should have taken care of a long time ago. And I guess it was July August is when we shut down a little bit both little lace. Was it August or July, July?

Jessica Norman: 3:10

July for Farmington, August for Ironton

Chris Norman: 3:13

Yeah, we barely made it. And we ended up taking a partner on in Missouri Shirt Company, which ended up being a huge blessing for us and definitely the right move. To sustain everything and not completely go under I took a nursing job, which was not a bad thing. In May, and now I am the Director of Nursing at long term care facility, which has been one of the hardest jobs in my life, but definitely rewarding and definitely teaching me a lot of things.

Jessica Norman: 3:50

You're more stressed now than you were running the shirt shop.

Chris Norman: 3:54

yeah, a lot more stress. But we have consistent income, which has been a huge blessing and change the game for us with business and with everything for a while, which has been super good. So I got some of the pressure off that we're not worried about more things. Well, we shouldn't be worrying anyway. But thinking about more things we should be thinking about.

Jessica Norman: 4:12

I think it's weird. Being not really on the outside, but I'm not you. So I can't I am on the outside. But it's almost like you traded one thing for another like you were super stressed about finances. And so now that that's gone, you've traded stress for this job. And it's like, you've learned to handle your stress a little better. But it's just a continual stress. Like it's not just easy like everyone thinks that you just leave a business and go work a normal job and you have no more stress, like realistically that we thought that that's what would happen, but it doesn't. And so we we recognize that Just because you own your own business, or just because you work in the workforce, there's still stress. You know, you just tried one, one evil for another, basically.

Chris Norman: 5:08

Yeah, I mean, my job is really unique that I'm dealing with a lot. I mean, I'm responsible for 70 residents and 40 employees, and it's substantial. But it's given just the ability to kind of stand up and take over the shirt shop, and she's done amazing with it. It's really highlighted the fact that I'm really good at starting businesses, but she's really good at running them. And that's been huge, it has been a learning curve for you. But wow, have you handled it well!

Jessica Norman: 5:40

I didn't. At first. I was working on vacation!

Chris Norman: 5:49

but the thing is, and you can say whatever you want to about how stress and all the whatever, but you didn't quit. I didn't quit. 99% of people quit. The majority of people would have quit.

Jessica Norman: 6:03

first of all, you didn't give me an option.

Chris Norman: 6:08

I'm not your king.

Jessica Norman: 6:11

There was many times that I said we should throw in the towel. And you reminded me that that is not what we were supposed to do. And honestly, if I didn't have you backing me, I, I might, would have should have could have. But that's where

Chris Norman: 6:31

you bailed us out of a massive amount of debt. You paid off extensive amount of loans. You paid off extensive amount of invoices that we had open some of the invoices we didn't even know about.

Jessica Norman: 6:42

And that was a fun time. We'll talk about that another podcast.

Chris Norman: 6:46

You've paid taxes on things we didn't even know about. You've paid off equipment... you've ended up between you and the partner, we took on landed some huge projects, which are complete game changers. We've restructured we're not doing a whole lot of the small projects anymore. We're taking on these big ones. And it's been a total game changer. We're still not out of the woods by any means. But we have a future, which is nice. Yeah... I mean, it was shady for a second.

Jessica Norman: 7:22

I think it's important. Like you said, our business partner has been very helpful in helping get some of these bigger deals. He's helped us. Yeah, it was nice having someone come in that had a new perspective, who hadn't been in the trenches, just getting the crap kicked out of them. Yeah. And that's what he said, when he came on. He's like, you know, you guys have been digging out of all this mess. Let me come in and, and be, you know, new eyes and new brain basically. And it was, it was really nice.

Chris Norman: 7:53

So he went after some bigger fish, and we would have ever even tried to go after, which was crazy. Yeah. And we should have, but we never did.

Jessica Norman: 8:03

But also, like you said, we weren't we weren't in that mindset. We weren't thinking we were literally just trying to get by that we were in survival mode survival mode.

Chris Norman: 8:11

We tried to keep as many people paid as we could. And we even failed at that. I mean, we failed. There's so many things, but we were trying to pay our bills, we're trying to we're trying to just keep our heads above water. We were trying not to lose a lot of things. Try not to lose our equipment.

Jessica Norman: 8:28

Yeah. And my car if we're being real honest. I mean, people don't realize we, we didn't pay ourselves for a long, long time.... fumes I don't know what we're living on.

Chris Norman: 8:37

I don't know what we lived on.

Jessica Norman: 8:39

I don't either. Well, I don't know if I talked about it on on a podcast or not. But there was a time that we literally didn't have any money for food. And I had cooked everything we had in the House and in the pantry. And I called my mom because I didn't want my parents to know that we were struggling, why? I don't know. But I call my mom and asked her if she had any leftovers from dinner because I didn't feel like cooking. And that was a why we just didn't have any food. And now I can talk about without crying. But man when we're going through that it was rough. And I what I do tell people because it's come up a couple of times. You know, our friends are like, Why didn't you tell me and let me just tell you that is not something that's easy to talk about when you're going through it. It is not only is it embarrassing, but you just feel like hopeless and I think that was a lot of the reason why we stopped doing the podcasts and stop doing we just were

Chris Norman: 9:33

We werent creative anymore. We didn't feel like we could even help anybody like anything ... it wasn't good. It was obviously a way for the devil ... which is crazy because we went on a trip that we had planned and paid for before stuff happened and some of it was free vacation. Some of it was debt that we took to take... we ended up taking vacation with Cody Michelle. This was right when crap was hitting the fan. I mean Literally the week before, actually, that week is when really, a lot of the stuff started to happen. And I just remember being out with them. And just, I think that was one of the first times ever we were ever really truly shared with people outside of our just immediate family. Actually, I don't even know we've shared a whole lot of anything like we truly just kind of opened up with them like this bad and kind of told them everything that was going on. And I remember Cody's being like, well, well it will turn around, it's gonna be fine. You'll get it through it. That was realistically a turning point for us. Because I was working. I was nursing at that point. So money was starting to come into our personal finances just a little bit.

Jessica Norman: 10:47

it was coming in, but it was going out just as fast because we hadn't paid out to the business so Yeah... we hadn't paid ourselves. And we were trying to keep everything afloat and trying to pay back. I mean, my car was what, four grand.

Chris Norman: 10:59

I took a sign on bonus and put it all back into the business to pay people.

Jessica Norman: 11:03

Not only that, but your sign on bonus paid my car back for they repoed it.

Chris Norman: 11:09

I think all this was going on. And then we ended up getting massively judged, because we went on that vacation. And which people think that we just like dropped three grand on a vacation. That wasn't what happened. But I'm thankful we did, because that was a, that was a massive turning point for us.

Jessica Norman: 11:25

that was a really hard thing for me to go on. I cried. I, I did, I texted Cody and Michelle, and I was like, Hey, guys, I'm so sorry. But we really just can't go, I was worried what people would think because we were struggling so bad. And we weren't able to provide, you know, basic necessities. And I just felt that we showed it. You know, if we were going to be able to tell our story that we can't go do this. But then Chris reminded me these people are from the outside looking and they don't know that. Three out of these five days were free. The two days that were not free we had paid for back in March when things were you know, decently. Okay, okay. Yeah. And he's like, will literally lose money if we don't go on this vacation. And I just, I had called our pastor, and I told her, I was like, I just don't know what to do. Like, I feel like, this isn't right. I have this gut, in my or this, like, check in my gut. And I don't know what to do. And she told me, she said, your husband is the leader of the house. Let him make the decision. If it's the wrong one, or the right one, either way, it falls on him. And I thought, Okay, I've got to give it to God. And I've got to let my husband make the decision, because I can't stress about it. I can't worry about it, if God has told him and that's one thing he told me. You know, the Holy Spirit told me that we need to take this vacation.

Chris Norman: 12:53

We were supposed to. I felt like I needed to be around Cody... being around people that have been in the same boat that we'd been. I mean, I remember when they were. I remember they were massively struggling. And I knew they'd been in the same situation as though somebody needed to be encouraged. And they did.

Jessica Norman: 13:12

Looking back and knowing now what I know, I wish that I wouldn't have been so stressed on vacation and wish I wouldn't have worried and been doing all the things but also at that point in time. It was just me we hadn't. Tony had just stepped in, you know, and so I didn't know what was getting done, what balls were getting dropped. He didn't know what to

Chris Norman: 13:35

Yeah do.

Jessica Norman: 13:39

to just keep everything still afloat. I felt like I had to ... and on my birthday. You and Abner's literally sat in the pool and had a grand old time and I was on my laptop for about five hours.

Chris Norman: 13:53

Grand time... I was worried about you. But I wasn't gonna stop you. Yeah, It wasn't worth a fight. And I was choosing my battles.

Jessica Norman: 14:02

I don't know. So much that we would have fought about it. I just... there was no other way for me to... I'm a very black and white thinker. There's really no gray for me. So I knew it had to get done, or it just wasn't going to.

Chris Norman: 14:19

You have come a long way since

Jessica Norman: 14:21

I wish that we could take the Mexico vacation right now. Yeah, over again.

Chris Norman: 14:26

We have grown... we have... we're stronger or our relationship is stronger. We're stronger individually. So the stuff we've been through the business stuff, I've been through work and stuff we've been through. I mean, we ended up having to let our house go. And we ended up when we were in a beautiful, smaller place. But thankfully a nice place now but we're not starting from square one. But we really had to scale back to go forward. I think that it was definitely something that God has taught us. I mean, I could write a book on what God has taught in the past nine months.

Jessica Norman: 15:07

That is the truth. Yeah, I started journaling. And I had stopped there for a while. But I think that looking back and seeing all the things that we've been through, will be our testimony too, because I feel like we've probably forgotten a lot that we've been there too. And just sitting

Chris Norman: 15:29

here, recounting it in my head, I've remembered stuff like, Oh, man. Like, it's, it's a lot.

Jessica Norman: 15:39

But even just looking back at what God's taught me and all of that, I would write down what, you know, he was telling me or what I was going through, and I've come out on top from a lot of that.

Chris Norman: 15:51

So, I mean, you're not the same person since July what so ever. I mean, you are a business shark now. I mean, it's crazy how just sharp you've become. And I thought you were before, but not like you are now. I mean, you are... And you are intense. And it's awesome.

Jessica Norman: 16:13

Yep. Remember when you said I didn't have a choice?

Chris Norman: 16:17

I don't remember saying it, Oh, well, you said I didn't quit. You didn't quit.

Jessica Norman: 16:23

Maybe I said, you told me I didn't have a choice.

Chris Norman: 16:27

Most people would have quit, most people would have completely walked away or crumbled. Without a doubt. I think if there's anything that we can teach people is to not to quit. I mean, I think there's appropriate times to quit. I don't think that was an appropriate time to quit. I think that we were definitely just in the fire. Most definitely. And we, there were some decisions we had to make that we should have made a long time ago, probably would have prevented us from being in that position. But we're both stubborn, and mainly me. And there was decisions I didn't want to make or things I didn't want to do. Or things I wanted to ignore that ended up biting us in the butt later. Yeah.

Jessica Norman: 17:14

This a total squirrel, but I just realized that that part of your table is not together that screw is off.

Chris Norman: 17:19

Its from the move... It took us... we started moving on my birthday in September and is six days straight of horrific mess moving and

Jessica Norman: 17:32

then the last day he texted me he goes, I'm getting a U haul. I can't do this by myself anymore. And I was like, Well, you could call...

Chris Norman: 17:39

we've taken two trailers a day for five days. We ended up getting a U haul and it ended up taking two more U haul trucks

Jessica Norman: 17:48

and two more trailer loads. After that we had to load up that lawnmower and take it to my parents along with all that other stuff.

Chris Norman: 17:55

And we've got stuff shoved all over the place here and we got our shop corner of our shop filled with our stuff we ended up there's some of your stuff our stuff at your dad's... stuff everywhere. I had no idea we had that much stuff.

Jessica Norman: 18:07

gonna be like Christmas when we finally move again. And we get to open up everything because I mean, we have a real tiny kitchen right now. I mean, so tiny. They don't even have room for all my pots and pans. The hardest part of all this.... Yeah, I I've had a meltdown a couple of times in the kitchen.

Chris Norman: 18:24

I think that the bedrooms aren't bad. The situation is really good. I mean, the living room is actually a nicer living room that we had in our old house. But the kitchen is rough.

Jessica Norman: 18:37

Yeah. I have like two counters.

Chris Norman: 18:43

But it's only temporary. Yeah.

Jessica Norman: 18:47

And I like to cook a lot. So it's been a challenge, but it'll get better.

Chris Norman: 18:52

Yeah. Next few months either the markets gonna drop. We're gonna buy a house or we're gonna start building one... one or the other.

Jessica Norman: 18:58

True story. Yeah, I went back to work PRN as a Rad Tech.

Chris Norman: 19:09

Yeah. in October.

Jessica Norman: 19:13

Yeah, I worked my first shift in October. I got hired in August. Yeah. I just worked a shift last week. That's been good. I missed it. I really did. It's been good to be back. You think that you forget everything, but it's really like riding a bike. You just go back into it and you remember it all. It's pretty cool. I mean, I'd been out since 2020. While I hadn't taken an x ray since 2018. Because when I worked for go health, I was starting all their new locations in Oklahoma and Arkansas. So I was the field trainer. It wasn't actually taking x rays. So Four years, right? 1920 2122 It's pretty crazy. I know. I'm just a button pusher, so I shouldn't push the red button. Yeah, yeah, the red.

Chris Norman: 20:12

Still. Yeah. You push a button.

Jessica Norman: 20:17

that's exactly it... you don't have to know a technique. You don't have to know how to position anybody...

Chris Norman: 20:23

Deep breath.

Jessica Norman: 20:33

Yeah

Chris Norman: 20:35

You're so sexy in your your little outfit.

Jessica Norman: 20:40

My scrubs Yeah. Oh, gotcha.

Chris Norman: 20:44

Sitting at the nurse's station watching her walk on by pushing her whole X ray machine.

Jessica Norman: 20:50

You wouldn't look at me though.

Chris Norman: 20:52

Why eventually? I did...

Jessica Norman: 20:54

You wouldn't look at my face? Let's just say that. Oh, goodness, how times have changed. We just had an anniversary!

Chris Norman: 21:03

We did. Four years of being married. Yep. I almost forgot it.

Jessica Norman: 21:08

Oh, you did? Forget it. It's okay.

Chris Norman: 21:11

Well, I didn't forget it. I just got I thought it was a different day.

Jessica Norman: 21:16

Technically, you forgot it because I woke up and I said Happy anniversary. And you go, wait, what day is it? And I said the 14th. And you go. Oh, it is happy anniversary. I forgot.

Chris Norman: 21:28

I was like, yeah, I forgot what day it was. Then I realized what day it was.

Jessica Norman: 21:34

You thought it was on the 18th? Yeah. Oh, well. I wasn't mad.

Chris Norman: 21:39

We got. Yeah. Anyway.

Jessica Norman: 21:45

Oh, man,

Chris Norman: 21:46

My brain is full of all kinds of stuff lately.

Jessica Norman: 21:49

Yeah, you're studying first and tests and big tests. You're gonna start teaching here soon. Yeah. Got lots going. Yeah. Lots in the hopper. Yeah.

Chris Norman: 22:00

I'm ready to get my pilot's license again. I haven't done that since February.

Jessica Norman: 22:05

It's too cold. I mean, it's it's cold on the ground. It's really cold in the air.

Chris Norman: 22:11

Airplanes have heaters

Jessica Norman: 22:13

they do. Yeah. Well, that's nice.

Chris Norman: 22:22

Santa Claus will bring a flight simulator and actually start with that. Well, I hope Santa Claus does. Put a good word in.

Jessica Norman: 22:35

Hopefully that I'll follow through, right. Goodness. got high expectations over here. You got a sauna!

Chris Norman: 22:45

We're getting healthy. Which has been good. Yes. I don't even care about being skinny. I just want to be healthy. And that pursuit has been good. And we were thinking about the sauna is forcing both of us to drink more water because we know we have to so we've been mindful of our water intake.

Jessica Norman: 23:10

Bryson loves the sauna. comes and sits in it with us

Chris Norman: 23:15

having a lot of mindfulness time, which has been good. Within you've been taking vitamins, which is not like you, you've been taking vitamins, I always take vitamins. You're the one that doesn't take vitamins regularly.

Jessica Norman: 23:29

Let me tell you why.

Chris Norman: 23:30

Because you don't like to swallow?

Jessica Norman: 23:32

No, because, well, yes, because sometimes they're like horse pills, but really, real vited Like, so we've been taking juice plus, which is amazing, because it's all the fruits and vegetables and all the things you need. Plus we're taking the omega one, which I think has really helped with my brain function, I've been able to remember words and just feel better in general, like I feel more alert, but they don't make me sick when I take them without eating. So a regular vitamin makes me just feel yucky if I take it in the morning. And so if I don't take things at the same time every day I forget to take them so that's just that's why I never take vitamins because I don't eat breakfast. So having to take them on an empty stomach every day I just stopped and then I don't take them at night because then they keep you awake. So there's just really no good time to take them. Right. The Juice Plus doesn't make me feel like that. So it does make me have a little bit more. If I take my empty stomach a little more like energy and you know when you get like after you drink a thing a coffee and you just kind of feel like you need to eat but you got like a lot of energy. Well you don't because coffee is dead to you like you're dead inside from the coffee. It's fine. But normal people that are still sensitive to caffeine. Feel that so then I'm like, oh I need to eat but it's not like oh, I'm gonna go throw up feeling.

Chris Norman: 24:55

So it's nice. I like them because you have them they're ready for me and I just take them because they're there right there. And you made it super convenient for me.

Jessica Norman: 25:07

I just put them on the dresser? Yeah.

Chris Norman: 25:09

So I don't have to think about buying them and taking them whatever they are right there for me.

Jessica Norman: 25:14

Come to the house every month. Yep. So that was not a plug, though for Juice Plus, that was just because we really enjoy them... not selling them.

Chris Norman: 25:25

So in the past nine months, what would you say the biggest thing you learned.... that you would tell the people listening.... Hopefully, if people still listen to this, it's been nine months.

Jessica Norman: 25:36

I bet you they will, um, to listen to your husband. Oh, my gosh. There's a caveat to that, though. Well, you harped on me for so long to stop stressing that the stress was killing me that it was It wasn't doing any good. And I don't remember the exact words that you use. But you basically told me that I wasn't the person that I was before like that I just kind of lost myself. And I just wasn't... I don't want to say it meanly... But that I wasn't a nice person anymore. Because I was just letting the stress and the anxiety and the worry consume me. And I that's all I could think about. And I would ruin our conversations that we would have because I would just talk about work or talk about the negative or talk about it. Just not fun things. And I saw our marriage deteriorating. And I just knew that if I wanted to keep our marriage going and be the person I was supposed to be I was going to have to change and just stop letting it stress me out. So I prayed a lot in

Chris Norman: 26:49

our marriage almost crumbled a couple times the past nine months. Yeah. Unreal. Yeah. Which would have been sad, real sad.

Jessica Norman: 26:56

Yeah. And I knew that I didn't like the person that I'd become. But I also didn't know how to fix it. I couldn't let things go. I couldn't. I have to be in control. God kept showing up and kept showing me that... hey, I've got this. Stop, you know, stop worrying, stop, stressing stop. I'm going to continue to show you that I'm here. And he did. And I think that's really the only way that I got through it. Because had everything crumbled around me. I think I would have crumbled to

Chris Norman: 27:34

Yeah. All right. And we were we were dancing on that line. Yeah, both of us were.

Jessica Norman: 27:43

The saying goes that God will never give you more than you can handle. And I also think that God will let you go through those times. So that you can learn.

Chris Norman: 27:53

Yes, hardening... hardening yourself to difficulty. We definitely got hardened to difficulty. Yeah. I mean, the way we see and handle things now is way different than it was nine months ago. That is the truth. I don't think it would take a lot to surprise us now.

Jessica Norman: 28:14

I don't know I I just feel like I have this piece in this joy. I have a friend who does devotionals with me on the Bible app. And she sent me one. I think we finished it a couple days ago, on joy, and I've just really been digging into that. And there's one thing that I screenshot that I read every single day. And I just it's super important. I feel like that's what's kept me grounded. And it says Joy helps you fix your eyes on Jesus and point others to Jesus, because joy fulfilled is Jesus. Yeah. So if your joy is coming out of you, you're showing Jesus. That's right. So why would I not want that? I know, I want him to be the light of my life and for people to look at me and say, what does she have that I want? You know, and then that's Jesus, I don't want people to look at my material things or you know, like, I just want to be so happy and so joyful. And I learned that joy and happiness are two different things. And it's just been a huge revelation. So what about you? What did you learn?

Chris Norman: 29:35

I would have to say, I mean, the biggest...there's many things but the biggest thing that I would have to have learned is to be... all in. What the past nine months have shown me is I can easily dance around things in life, whether it be my relationship with God or whether it'd be my relationship with myself and the way I take care of myself or my marriage, or as a Dad, as a businessman, the way I am as an employee, I always try to be one foot in and one foot out. And I think that's... I don't know if that comes from different things I deal with a child or whatever, that I was needed a way of escape for everything. And I think for the past nine months have taught me that if I'm going to succeed at anything in life, if I'm going to succeed in business, if I'm going to be who I'm called to be, and to be the man that I'm called, to be that I have to be all in. I have to! Our pastor say, at best, you have to nail it down, and you have to nail down your marriage, you have to nail down your goals, your dreams, your vision, your beliefs, your purpose, everything, you have to nail it down. And if you don't, if there's a crack in it at all, there is one foot out, there's one toe out, it's going to show and when the pressure hits, it's going to be evident. I think that that is the big way that I crumbled in the past nine months. And it was evident that I didn't I wasn't all in everything and if I had been if I had been fully committed to everything, I needed to be fully committed to that. Some of the struggles we had, wouldn't have happened in business, and our marriage, and my personal growth, and my physical growth. I mean, everything you can just tell when somebody's not all in... I sure the heck wasn't in friendships, my work, dreams, everything...

Jessica Norman: 31:30

I can definitely tell you are in our marriage, it's our marriage has changed for the better because of it. For sure, it's it's almost like a switch flipped in you. Like, I, I can tell you the exact time I realized it. And it's so cool. To see that happen, not just because it makes our marriage better, but you just seem happier. I don't I don't even know how to describe it, you just have this aura about you, that's, it's joyful.

Chris Norman: 32:04

Well, I kind of had to scale everything back to recommit to the things you need to commit to and to truly commit to them and realize there wasn't an exit plan, there's not a plan B, there's not a back burner, there's not a other option that

Jessica Norman: 32:19

There better not be a back burner,

Chris Norman: 32:21

right, but not just in our marriage and everything in life because if there is another option if there's another plan, if there's anything in anything, when the pressure hits, you'll try to fall to it and you can't do that. I mean, if you aren't fully committed when you wake up in the morning to have a new period of time working out whatever it is you say you're gonna do, you're not going to do it does when you're tired and when you're ready to hit the snooze button. It's gonna win if you're not ready it's everything, it's all starts just all sorts of little things and if you're not fully in... then you're gonna get messed up.

Jessica Norman: 33:02

I agree. I think that was one of the things I really had to focus on when I took over the shirt shop because I didn't want to it wasn't fun for me it wasn't what I had planned and especially to walk into all that stress it I remember telling people this is not what I want to do. This is not my forever this is not and Darlene again said you have to find I'm pretty sure she said I have to find the joy and she verger said that I needed to change my words and my thinking on it because if I like you said if I didn't nail it down if I was one foot in one foot out God wasn't going to be able to bless it because I wasn't doing what he

Chris Norman: 33:48

well you're gonna fall out you are I mean if there's another foot out of one thing that I've realized if there's anything out of the line, you're gonna end up out... Yeah, period.

Jessica Norman: 33:58

Yeah. And that's changed for me... I actually enjoy it like it's it's fun to me. Yeah, there's still some some stresses with it and some struggles and some things I have to have faith for but, man it's not like it was right.

Chris Norman: 34:19

well cool. I think that's a good first episode back. You have anything else?

Jessica Norman: 34:24

No, I hear our puppy whining. So yeah, either needing to go potty or he's hungry for whatever we have an owner.

Chris Norman: 34:31

He just wants to have his way maybe. All right, well, thanks everyone. And we will have another episode probably next week we'll move to all of our we moved our entire podcast studio to make it quicker and easier, more efficient. So stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you