Introduction

  So what do you do when you and your partner are at a point in your life where you find yourselves questioning if what you are doing is something you were meant to do? Well you could just suck it up and say "Hey, in this economy I should just be happy to have a job", or you could say "You know what, I have a great job, great family and I'm generally happy BUT I feel like I'm missing my calling". Which one do you think we've chosen? Well I don't think a blog about being happy to just suck it up and settle for general happiness would be that entertaining so here it is, Lisa and I have decided to take our lives in a different direction and thought it would be fun to share the journey with anyone who wants to listen.
  My name is John Hudson, my fiance Lisa Conroy and I live with our five children in King George Virginia. I own a one man mobile furniture repair and restoration company and Lisa works in the medical field. We both have good jobs and could continue to do what were doing for the rest of our lives and be happy but we were both infected with a bug a while back that we haven't been able to kick. Its a bug that once it gets a hold of you it grabs you with all its mite and  wont let go. Now don't panic, we haven't become addicted to drugs, were not compulsive gamblers or alcoholics, no its much simpler then that. We have been infected by the aquarium fish keeping and breeding bug. Okay I admit I tend to over dramatize things.
  I have kept fish off and on for almost my entire life, its been a passion I can not describe in words. Lisa on the other hand was a late bloomer to the aquarium world, it wasn't until she met me years ago that she was introduced to the magical world of keeping these fun and adorable underwater worlds and creatures. I was always a monster fish guy, Arowanas, Catfish and large South American Cichlids were my thing, the bigger the better but a few years ago I was introduced into a whole new world, the world of African Cichlids.  It wasn't long after I set up my first African Cichlid tank that they started to breed, it changed everything about what I thought keeping fish was. I know it might sound silly but it became about the joy that was felt to facilitate the creation of these beautiful underwater gems. Watching them grow from tiny grains of rice with eyeballs fluttering around the tank into larger more brilliantly colored  jaw droppers brought a whole new dimension to our hobby. It became all consuming, to the point of obsession. We found something that had such a dramatic impact on our lives (and our children's lives) that we made a decision that would change everything.
  About a year ago Lisa and I were talking about how much we love breeding these fish and together we made a decision and we haven't looked back. We made the decision to take our love for keeping and breeding these beautiful fish to another level and begin to breed them on a much grander scale. We would begin to establish a setup that would take this from a hobby that we love and turn it into a business. It was an easy decision, we were both saying silly things like "I feel like this is what we were meant to do". So we put a plan into action, a plan that included accumulating as many tanks as we could find, building racks and spending almost every dime we had to our name to get this thing up and running.
  So what is this blog all about? Well if there is one thing I know its that fish keepers could spend all day and all night talking fish and any opportunity to learn something new is eagerly welcomed. I figured this blog will give me an outlet to share our trials and tribulations of building this thing we love so much into a fully functioning African Cichlid empire. Yes I said empire, we are not looking to just be a mom and pop breeder down the street, we want to have our company be a household name (well in the African Cichlid community anyway). Sounds like a lofty goal, sure, but why do something if you don't plan on doing it right and trying to be the best.
  So follow along with me and hopefully I can teach you something through my experiences and mistakes and we can have some fun. We are aware that building a business like this doesnt happen overnight, its much more complicated then that. Its going to take years of establishing our fish, customers and reputation so you can count on plenty of content for years to come.
  On the next post I will get you up to speed on where we are right now, what we've done, decisions we've made and what our plans are for the near and far future.
  Thank you so much for reading!!! See you next time!!!