Chapter 82: SK flowers

Jeffrey woke up, he found the rest of his family still in bed. Now that he was young, he actually wanted to get out of bed. His body was full of energy to get up and play. It was as if every fiber of his being was excited to do something.

The mental stress that came with the responsibilities and complex thoughts of a mature person made getting out of bed a herculean task. Now however, Jeffrey quietly removed the blanket inch by inch to not disturb his sleeping sisters.

"Finally, out of bed", Jeffrey thought to himself tiptoeing on the carpet floor.

Then his next obstacle was the door, turning the handle he could hear the snores of his light sleeping father.

*aaahhh* *hooo*

The brass metal handle made a small clicking noise as he slowly pried it open. It softly made a creaking sound. However, Jeffrey made it out of the room.

Jeffrey headed to his room and quickly got dressed. He took off his pajamas, brushed his teeth and grabbed a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Before heading out he grabbed his work backpack. Inside was his packed lunch he took out from the fridge, a bottle of water, cellphone and the gardening stuff he left at the shop.

Jeffrey headed to the front door to grab his shoes. After a few moments of searching he found his pair of tennis shoes buried under his parents dress shoes, slippers, his sisters 2-3 pairs of shoes, crocs and swimming sandals.

Jeffrey bent down to tie his shoelaces with a knot and then headed outside.

Jeffrey's first thought before leaving was, "Getting ready to go to work I'm looking forward to this."

However like any day going outside or that feeling right after jumping into a rain puddle. Jeffrey felt an immediate discomfort as was reminded of something, "It's so cold!"

The sun had just begun to rise, the air had yet to heat up. A few wisps of clouds slowly floated overhead.

Figuring out the right direction in his head Jeffrey set off. He passed by various houses, cars and trees as he walked for a little bit.

However Jeffrey's impatience got the better of him as did his dislike of the cold. Soon, Jeffrey felt the wind against the cheeks as he started running to the shop. Step by step, he ran across the sidewalk pavement. His feet going over the cracks in the cement with the occasional dandelion and grass weeds that grew in-between.

He ran past the suburbs, with white and chain link fences. Passing by gated communities, grass lawns and cul-de-sacs, Jeffrey arrived to the intersection where the store was located.

It was a corner store of a two story tall building.

Upon arriving, Jeffrey could see the open sign already flipped by Kevin and Susan. Susan was busy adding some soil and moving the plants into better sunlight, placing other ones into the shade.

"Hey Jeffrey!", Kevin greeted him as he entered the door.

"Good morning, you guys!", Jeffrey said enthusiastically.

They busied themselves in the shop, handling customers, selling flowers, crafting bouquets. Jeffrey did various menial tasks such as sweeping and watering, but the Gilianos and him did those tasks on rotation.

As it neared lunch, Jeffrey pulled out the lunch he packed from the day before. A simple sandwich, a few of Dad's cooked dumplings, some scrambled eggs, and whatever leftovers he could pack from last night. A deep brown pork enriched soy sauce broth with bell pepper and slices of pork was added as well.

At this point Susan came up to him and asked, "Hey Jeffrey are you good with technology?"

Jeffrey who was busy eating quickly swallowed and responded, "I'm the training to be chief technologist of the family. But my Dad knows a lot more than me."

Jeffrey returned to taking a few bites of his meal.

Susan continued, "Well we're trying to get a website set-up and since you're still in school we thought you might know something about it."

Jeffrey took a moment to think about what she said.

"Yeah I know a little bit, we just made a Wordpress site in computer lab class. I know a little bit about Wix, Squarespace, and some java and coding stuff I ask my mom for", Jeffrey replied.

Susan looked happy to have found someone that knew what this internet thing was. Kevin and her attended various community meetings and a few local business alliance presentations talking about the internet. It was about time their business started to get into and take online orders.

"You think you could get it done, say in about 2 weeks?", Susan asked.

Kevin and her had been staring at the instructions and the tutorial the site gave, but this was out of her league. Hiring an internet tech specialist would cost them thousands of dollars for something they weren't really sure how to use.

Jeffrey thought it would offer good work experience and perhaps might provide a new phase for the science project. Jeffrey mulled it over.

"Yep, I'll help you get it set up", Jeffrey agreed.

Jeffrey spent some time thinking about things before finishing his lunch. Throwing away the trash and placing his lunch containers back in his bag. He went back to work again.

"The internet, huh?", Jeffrey thought to himself.

"Is that my dream? an internet business?", Jeffrey pondered for a moment.

He could be a basketball star, e-sports professional player, gamer, vtuber, musician, play in a band. Jeffrey had no idea what he wanted to do. At this moment, he was kind of just letting life happen to him. When things appeared he reacted to them, it's much easier than planning things out and stressing over the future.

However, Jeffrey could feel his heartbeat slowly beating faster and faster. His mind getting excited thinking about the possibilities.

Jeffrey was tired, but as he spent more time being happy and discovering things, he wanted to do more. A sense of greed in fame and fortune arose. Even more so, he wanted to do something important or at the very least something that he thought was important.

After all this was 2007/2008. There were many exciting things that would start to happen. Google Glass, the Oculus Rift, Drone Delivery, plenty of failed projects that would appear again.

the Motto of Youtube was still, "Broadcast yourself". Apple, Google and Facebook were taking off. Android and Linux are still in its development years. The post-decade internet era was starting to take off.

There were a million opportunities to take advantage of, Streaming, Spotify, Mobile Gaming, Subscriptions, Loot crates, online marketing and many many more.

Jeffrey just wanted to step foot into this era, to chase after a dream, any dream.

He didn't even know what his goal was or where it would take him. However he'd find out, as he always did trying new things and seeing it through.

No one really knew what the future holds, not even Jeffrey himself.

Author Jeffrey scratched his head. "Where are we going with this again?", he asked himself. (･ω･'∩)