Before "Rent The Chicken".

Back in the day when we first made the move (back) to Western Pennsylvania, Phil was working on his 20th year of being in the IT industry by providing level II tech support part time from home for a friend's company. I was working part time also from home for a motorcycle related research program. We also were working on transferring our Motorcycle Safety Foundation Instructor certification from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Knowing that the research program was due to come to an end, we had to decide what the next step in our journey would be.

Rewinding a bit to a few years before and during my college years, I truly thought I would study to be a math teacher. Well, that was until I was enrolled in Calculus III, and Linear Algebra. Those were tough classes for me! From there, I felt as though I should change my major to Business Management. I had three concentrations to choose from: International, Industrial, and Entrepreneurship/Small Business. Bet you'll never guess which one I selected?! (Hint: Entrepreneurship/Small Business!) If you would have told me in those years that I would be the co-founder of a chicken rental business, I would have belly laughed for quite awhile! LOL

When Phil and I met and married, I was in retail sales and management working straight commission in the kitchen and laundry appliance industry. In my first six months, my manager at the time started calling me the "Million Dollar Baby" because I was on track to sell a million dollars of appliances that year! Aside from working a retail schedule of holidays, evenings, and weekends, I really enjoyed retail sales. The more profitable the sale, the larger the payout. The more add-ons sold, the higher the pay. It was strategic sales with price negotiation which was good for my brain power but it was helping the customers to meet their needs and wants with some spectacular technology in appliances. I learned A LOT about A LOT!

When Phil and I met (who wants to hear about that story someday?!), I was working about 25 minutes from home. Shortly after and when we married, I was traveling about an hour each way to manage a store for the appliance company. Add to the long hours and long weeks, two hours a day were spent en route. The market was also changing. When I started selling appliances in 2005, the market was accelerating upwards! People were buying a whole suite of kitchen appliances or remodeling their kitchen when just their dishwasher was on its last leg. My highest dollar single invoice was for the kitchen of a new house, main laundry room, poolside kitchen, poolside laundry room, and bar kitchenette. It was ticketed somewhere around $35k. We married in 2009 and trends were changing. We also had big goals of starting a family! Working 8-9 hour days at 5-6 days a week with 2 hours of travel time was not what we wanted for me to be doing when it was time to grow our family. Between those changing trends and wanting to spend more time together, I left my appliance gig to start an at home baking business. I made a whole lot less money but had way more freedoms than I had in my almost five years of selling appliances and managing stores.

As the years continued, in addition to the baking business, I wore a few hats AND don't mind having others wear hats too! I'd say that my appliance gig, things I learned way back in the day when earning my degree, and God's faithfulness are what I attribute to the experience level that I brought into the start of Rent The Chicken!