I retired my husband from working construction

I had flown home to visit my mom. He was working a construction job in my home town building a power plant for the hospital.

After our first date, I told my mom “I’m going to marry that man.” 

Caleb had been on the road traveling job to job as an industrial pipe fitter for 11 years. After 6 months of dating, his job in Tallahassee finished and he told me he’d have to leave for the next one.

I replied, “give me two hours and I can be ready to go anywhere.”

We lived on the road for years. Me, Caleb, a red Ford ranger and everything we owned in suitcases. We lived in hotels (some nice, some not so nice) and air-bnbs.

He often worked 13 hour days, 7 days a week - two weeks on, one day off. Pipe fitting at refineries, gold mines, helium plants - you name it.

I was working part time remotely - doing sales for an SEO company and picking up a couple hours a week doing graphic design work for my brother.

Caleb’s work was exciting and he was damn good at it.

But it was destroying his body.

He came home some days after a 13 hour night shift covered in toxic chemicals, metal scraps from the grinder in his eye, with chemical bronchitis from all the weird stuff he inhaled at those refineries.

When I thought about our future, my fear would take over imagining what 30 or 40 more years of this life would do to the man I love.

In May of 2021, I decided to change our lives.

I started working with my brother Mario Menduni every week, learning everything I could about selling Print on Demand message card jewelry. I was writing messages for products, designing in Canva, opening my Shopify store and figuring out what sells.

The first time I heard the “CHA-CHING” on my phone, I was hooked.

I kept learning from my brother and later that year, I started coaching WITH him. My store kept growing. I went on ShineOn’s podcast, Coffee with Michael as a guest expert.

Then we took a leap of faith and Caleb quit his pipe-fitting job. We bought him a laptop and he came to work with us.

It's been three years and our life is bigger than I ever could have imagined.

I’m writing this from a villa in Italy. We were able to buy a new truck, travel full time in our RV (travel where we want to, not where the next job is,) and grow our family coaching business.

If I had never started taking this opportunity seriously, I know our life would still be blessed. I know the value of hard work, a simple life with the one you love.

I am so, so grateful I took this leap and believed in my ability.

The most limited resource is time and selling Print on Demand has given us so much time back that our “normal” life was robbing us of. Time to adventure together, time to visit our families more, time to experience everything this big, beautiful world has to offer.