I lived common law with a guy for 12 years, and I lost him to cancer when I was 27.
And I was living in Elmer, Quebec at the time, working for Northern Telecom.
And they shut down the plant, so therefore I was laid off, let go.
Then I came back to Bolton, my hometown, and I worked for Mars, Canada, for 12 years.
And did several different positions in there, wore several hats.
And in the year 2000, when they were worried about all the computers crashing,
I trained 500 people on a new computer that I was training myself as I was training them.
And I got burnout, and I was off on stress leave for five years.
And while I was on stress leave, I went and opened up my own coffee shop, because I thought I can't come back.
The coffee shop was that old baseline and airport route.
And it was a gold mine, because there was no Tim Hortons all the way to Wasaga Beach.
So I was busy, non-stop, from five in the morning to nine or ten o'clock at the drive-through.
And I actually had, in there, in the store, I ended up doing the drive-through,
I opened up a restaurant, set antiques up in the store,
and I had businessmen coming in and asking me if I wanted to do a franchise.
And I looked at them, I said, what?
A franchise of this?
I thought they were like crazy, I just got this going, what are you talking about?
And I got burnout there, and plus I was raising my daughter.
I walked away, shut it down, walked away, thought, oh my god.
Anyways, you know, you live and learn, right?
You got to do what you got to do at the time.
I should have sold it, at least.
I shouldn't have just walked away.
This was, at that time, an antique shop for 45 years called the What Not Shop.
So I wandered through the stores and thought, wow, could I do lots with this place?
I think, for me, I've been given the opportunity of having the space with this place
because when I get something up and running smooth, and I'm happy with it,
I need another challenge.
My problem is letting it go.
I still want to see the little children come in to have the rice cream,
and I still want to see people's reaction when they take a bite out of the sausage.
But I still want to see the person that falls in love with the antique,
but I can't be everywhere.
So it's my own challenge.
I don't know what will be next, what will be...
And when I decide to do something, I'll work on it, and it's done, and it's up and running.
Once I make my final decision, I think about things for a long time,
and once I make that decision, it's going to happen.
And I surprised myself.
It's like, wow, it's open.
Oh, how did I do this?
And people will come in and say, how did you do this?
You did what? You opened what? Yeah.
