I spent 6 hours cooking Thanksgiving dinner. At 7 pm, my son arrived with 6 guests from my daughter-in-law’s family. They sat down like they owned my home. My DIL said, “Would you mind eating in the kitchen, Dad?” I just smiled and walked into the kitchen… what I did next had everyone screaming. – usnews

I had signed the deed on this property in 1992. 4 acres outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, a house that needed more work than the asking price suggested, and got it because I did the work myself.

The back deck I framed one September weekend with lumber I bought wholesale through the business. The kitchen tile I sat on my hands and knees on a Saturday in November when the temperature dropped into the 40s and I worked with cold hands because the job had to be done before the holidays.

I had replaced the roof in 2008 and the HVAC in 2015 and three sets of windows in the years between and I had written every check from an account that I funded myself because that is what owning a thing actually means.

I started Finch Outdoor Services in 1991 with a used mower, a half-tonon pickup truck with 190,000 m on it and a handshake agreement with a property management company in West Knoxville that needed basic lawn maintenance on 14 residential accounts.