Finding Balance in 2025
2024 was a big year of transformation for ONE SUN. It was the first year I took my business full-time. Over the summer, I did a full rebrand and rebuilt our website. On a personal level, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the ripe-old-age of thirty seven, and spent a good portion of my year trying to figure out how to make my business work with my bran, as well as with the responsibilities of motherhood, homeschooling, and just trying to take care of myself, something I am admittedly terrible at.
Over the fall and holiday season, I packed my schedule full of markets and events, and I definitely felt at times like I was on the verge of burnout. Hell, I may have actually been in burnout, but my Sagittarius self can’t even feel the pain of pushing myself further into the fires of exhaustion. Burn, baby, burn or whatever. While it was my best season saleswwise to date, I often felt like I was careening from one event to another, without taking the time to pull back and really ask myself where I was headed with all of this. As December came to a close. I knew deep-down in my bones that I could not sustain a market-driven business AND build the flower farm the way that I truly want to.
As a mostly one-woman show, I spend my weekdays doing admin, managing social media and marketing, working on graphics and the website, planting seeds, tending the gardens, doing production of our floral arrangements, dyed garments, and various other products, as well as homeschooling our kindergarten-age twins, cooking, cleaning, and running errands. I am exhausted even typing that all out. It is beyond two full-time jobs worth of work, with me often working late into the evenings after the kids go to bed. At least I have weekends, right?
Wrong.
The reality of markets and pop-ups is that they are absolutely grueling. Most Saturday and Sunday mornings I am up before the sun, finishing loading up the van, and heading out to markets that are sometimes hours away. Load in and set up can be stressful and exhausting, especially since I am often flying solo while Philip cares for our four kids at home. It is physically demanding, and can drain you before you have even gotten started. Florida weather can be brutal, and you are never guaranteed a good day. After all is said and done, you still have to break down, pack up, and make the drive back home. When I head to St. Pete or Tampa for a market, we are talking about an 18 hour day from wake-up to arriving back at home. Rinse and repeat on Sunday, and you are completely wiped all to start the week over the next day.
So what are we to do? My first move in attempting to achieve balance is to stop packing my schedule with events months in advance. It is against my nature, as I get anxious looking at my calendar with empty weekends, but I know that by saying yes to everything in order to maintain what I have, I am holding myself back from growing to the next level. I am taking on a small amount of weddings and private events, and giving myself the grace to outsource flowers when needed in order to supplement what I can grow myself, prioritizing what I can get from other local farmers. While I would love to be able to say I grew every single stem I use for weddings and events, that just isn’t realistic for my life or my family at this time. I also want to grow my portfolio of work for future potential clients, and I can’t do that if I am selling every single stem that comes out of my farm.
With that being said, I am working hard to spend more time with my hands in the soil growing flowers. This is no easy feat while homeschooling our two youngest kids, but I know that the gardens make me happier than just about anything else I do for ONE SUN. I planted more flowers than ever this season, with many more still going in the ground this month and next. We just launched our very first CSA, which is something I never thought I would be able to do. I look forward to increasing our flower production over the years. My first wedding client will have snapdragons, ranunculus, and anemones from our gardens in their arrangements, which is the coolest feeling ever.
My hopes for this space is to create content with a lot more intention and reflection to an audience and community who are invested in our journey. Be on the lookout for our February garden update this week, as well a fun garden harvest lunch idea I have been falling back on at least weekly lately. Thank you so much for choosing to be here in support of ONE SUN.
