The Comfort Trunk

Hello, my name is Monica and I live in El Paso, TX a border town along the Rio Grande River.  I am a stay-at-home mom and have two small children, ages 2 and 4.  Before I bacame a full-time mom, I was a real estate administrative specialist and I did just about everything in the office just short of actually selling a house.  I must say that while I enjoyed the process of learning (I knew nothing about real estate) and putting into practice 13 years of prior customer service experience, I was happy to leave it all to stay home with my children.  Up to that point it was one of two of my dreams:  to have children.  I was nearing 40 and I gave up on the idea that I would ever get married or have a family of my own.  At that job I met my husband and he gave me my two children which I cherish above everything.

Taking care of a house and family is perhaps the hardest, most demanding but ultimately most rewarding experience of my life.  Even though there has been lots of ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs, sadness and happiness, and lots but lots of challenges, I would not have skipped it for the world.  My husband and I mutually decided that I would leave my job so that I could stay home even though we knew that it would sometimes be hard.  He works as a tile setter and is in construction as a sub-contractor and was doing rather well until the builder he was employed with went under after 25 years.  He runs his own company, Team Tile Masters, but with the decline of the housing market it became a challenge.

Still, now that we have settled into a routine, a dream I had been secretly harboring for years had begun to surface when my children finally mastered potty training.  I felt that it was time for me to try to build a business that I had always wanted now that I had a smidgen of time to at least lay the groundwork for my dream to materialize into a full time job.  I had already signed up for the Dreamers Into Doers of the Week newsletters because I liked the stories and I had already bookmarked marthastewart.com and that is where I had seen it.  It was Pia & Kat Kayo of Cake Pop Fusion that finally made my decision to at least get started.  Her story is what finally did it for me.  Her inspirational piece was that "kick in the rear" as her story said is what got me going.  She mentioned that she laid the groundwork for when she was ready to jump in and that is what I am doing, laying the groundwork and since that story was printed I have set up a business email, created my Dreamers profile, got my designer and begun my inventory.

I have always liked to sew and quilt and I was always disappointed when I went to the store to buy things to dress up my home.  I could never find nice or good-quality pillows or throws or curtains or quilts or things like that to make my home cozy.  So I dabbled in making things for my apartment.  The first thing I started with is making quilted pillow cases with zippers for my throw pillows for my couch.  I could get a regular pillow and "dress it up".  This way I could wash them when they got dirty or soiled.  After that, I started to embellish the pillow cases always keeping in mind that I could still wash them.  I had only done a few before life happened and I had to put it aside.  Now, many years later, I want to start with that same idea because it was my first.  I have many other ideas on paper that I want to bring to life but this is my first.  The name The Comfort Trunk came from a hope chest I had given my son to put his many toys in.  I love the comfort of a home.  Every time I opened up my hope chest it was filled with things that made me happy and comfortable and sometimes held surprises. 

Now with this step that the wonderful Martha Stewart provides as an opportunity to all walks of life, I hope to officially launch my business as soon as I get some inventory that will include my quilted pillow cases.  The home is the heart of a family.  Being here in my home is the most happy and most safe that I feel and I hope to evoke that through my hard work!

Monica