Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, goes the old aphorism, which helps explain why Judy Pasley goes off to work in her own furniture store on Noble Street.

It's called H&A New & Used Furniture, the letters representing the names of Pasley's most important people in her life, her twin 11-year-old daughters.

An elementary school teacher by training, the 1976 graduate of Anniston High School owned a beauty and lingerie shop in Atlanta for 20 years, she said, before she had to return to Anniston to take care of her parents.

To pay the bills, she opened a similar business, called "Bargain Mart," next door to a used furniture and knick-knack shop called "The Stuff Shop." But soon the woman who owned the business next door took ill and had to leave; at the same time, Pasley noted that her own nails-and-lingerie shop on north Noble Street wasn't doing as well as she had hoped, while her neighbor's seemed to be thriving.

"I might as well pick up where she left off" was her thinking at the time, she said, so she closed down her beauty business and took charge of her neighbor's merchandise.

"I just started buying items, and people started buying them (from me)," she said.

Overhead was high at Noble and 29th, so Pasley moved to Gurnee Avenue and, nine years later, to her present Noble Street location, directly across from 3rd Street, where she's been nearly two years. It was a good move, because traffic has been higher at the south end of the main drag.

True to her sign, Pasley's stock is both new and used.

"I've upgraded," she said, contrasting her current selection with what she used to sell. "I got tired of bothering with that knick-knack stuff."

Much of her work now involves staying aware of her market. That way, whether she orders new or acquires pieces from estate sales or simply buys furniture people need to sell for household cash, she's more efficient with her purchases.

"For me personally, I buy what works. For me, antiques aren't moving. (Customers) want pieces they'll use every day," she explained. "Antiques are for looking — they're not for using."

As one might guess, Pasley doesn't restore or rebuild anything. Between being a single mother and a business owner, there's no time for "prep" work beyond simple cleaning.

"It's got to be ready to go," she said of her potential acquisitions. "I've been in (the business) so long, it's got to be ready to go when I buy it or I don't buy it."

She said she wishes she could be away from the store more often to go on buying trips — "to find better deals so I can pass them on" — but being the sole proprietor makes the goal difficult to achieve.

What she can do is make her customers happy — her favorite part of the job, even if it means she doesn't make as much money as she might otherwise — and it leaves her content in her small-town location far from the hubbub of Atlanta.

"I've always had a steady business. I'm not getting rich, and I'm paying the bills. This works for me."

Readers who know of interesting jobs — or perhaps common jobs that involve more than meets the eye — are invited to email bedwards@annistonstar.com for a possible write-up for "Off to Work."