It’s always good to know where a person has been. Knowing where someone comes from and where they might be going tells you a whole lot about them. This is where I currently live.

I have spent a good part of my adult life raising three kids with my hubs, doing laundry and trying to be part of transforming a little community called Trinidad in southern Colorado through economic development.

In 1992, my hubs, Mark and I began our entrepreneurial adventure with a little company called Danielson Designs that produced hand painted, hand planed picture frames and home decor from locally harvested pine.

Our call was to bring jobs to our local economy in Trinidad, CO. Our mission was to create a place to work where people actually enjoyed working and were able to gain skills.

I was the creative. He was the wizard behind the curtain that made it all happen.

At a certain point in time, we found ourselves employing roughly 100 people between manufacturing home decor, running a retail store and a cafe, and managing a few real estate investments. (Yes, this was incredibly satisfying! Hard, hard, hard work. but SO MUCH fun!)

We grew large. We gave generously. We made a difference. We learned a lot.

We won some fancy awards (CoBiz CEOs of the Year, Stevie Award for Most Socially Responsible Company under 100, Entrepreneurial Woman of the Year (under $10M) and Best Wall Decor Company for several years running) just as the economy began to crash in 2008-2009. Yes, it was all a bit surreal.

In 2010, we launched another home decor business that allowed people to create custom frames and signs online. It was truly was a cool little company with a whole lot of potential.

In 2012 we sold Danielson Designs to a large company in order to give our all to the new company. (I cried. Danielson Designs had felt like my fourth child for 20 years running!)

In 2014, after several years of seeing the online business grown in fits and starts, the dream of this company came to an end. It is an understatement to say we were broken-hearted. A change of seasons was upon us.

After all the dust has settled, we both find ourselves so grateful. Grateful that we got to go on the entrepreneurial ride of our life with our family, friends who became family and our best friend Jesus. We thoroughly and happily spent ourselves on answering His invitation to help bring life where there was once very little. We will forever be grateful for each incredible person who passed through our businesses and all they taught us! We are forever blessed.

In 2015, we took a year off in hope of giving our bodies, minds and spirits time to heal. Yeah, we just did after 24 years of running hard and “being in charge”. We sat alone in stillness. We prayed. We talked and went for long walks and held hands. We cried. We laughed and breathed in the deep. We drank wine and cooked tasty dinners. We traveled with friends and family. We watched in amazement as good family friends became family when our kids married each other on August 29th, 2015!

It would be an understatement to say that learning to rest in Him is a new concept! When you’ve been doing for a long time, resting can be a challenge. But we have been fundamentally changed by deep rest because deep rest for us translates into deep trust.

In 2016, we hope to be off on new adventures and businesses. (This is the part about where we might be going mentioned at the beginning.) This time the call seems to be “Watch and see what I can do!” Rested and recovered and renewed in body, mind and spirit we are simply and profoundly grateful.

Pearlsandsalt is part of my new adventure and my hope is that some of the things I’ve learned along the way encourage you to look for and expect to see and experience God in your everyday life!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a joy to the full day!

Annie XO

For anyone looking for a more succinct, more formal synopsis 🙂 adresume