On the home front

I'm getting more involved in my wife's crafting projects. While I initially had not planned on doing so, as we continue discussing things it's evident that in order to help facilitate the growth of her projects into a part-time job for her, I will need to help her get it off the ground.

I'm not complaining, not in the least. It's just an unexpected hobby/side project that I hadn't initially planned on taking part in. Basically, we are getting to the point that as we finalize exactly what inventory we are going to be purchasing, it's looking like she'll be taking care of a lot of the intricate details, while I stick to the broader, less-artsy and more "easy" tasks, such as painting/crackling boxes, refining edges of things, and dealing with the website.

Website. I still haven't done one for myself, even after initially talking about it a couple months ago. I still need to get it done. While I don't think I can transition into full-time consultations, I'm still getting 3-4 freelancers every month who need/want advice on how to get started in the industry. It may sound like greed but...I've been giving back generic replies in the last month just letting people know that I don't have the time to give them personalized tips anymore because I haven't finalized my consultation plans and fees. Sorry, but business is business, and in much the same way a lawyer might give you a generic consultation for free to start, he's not going to give you the juicy tidbits until you fork over some cash. So, on top of my own website, we started discussing a website for my wife last night as well.

If I didn't know it would cost 500+ per website to have someone else design them, I'd just farm it out, but I'm not in the mood to shell out 1k for something I can do myself over a few weekends, just as long as I find the time to focus on it. Too many hobbies = not enough time to do work-related stuff.

Speaking of which...the last week and a half of June are blissfully free of work. I'm taking that time to work on some personal projects, as mentioned in earlier blog posts. Then in July I'm looking at stepping it up a notch, and seeing if I can't break a personal number I have in mind in terms of a paycheck. The motivator? We still have 5 boxes sitting at my sister's house, in her garage. It's small stuff...books, DVD collections, knick-knacks like a Halloween porcelain candle holder my mom got Evy, random coffee-table and wall decorations from our apartment back in Colorado. Stuff we didn't "need" when we moved, but couldn't afford to ship at the time because back in 2007/early 2008 the shipping rates were outrageous. I checked the USPS last night and the prices on shipping have literally more than halved in the last 18 month, so I'm going to try and make an extra thousand bucks (it's about 200 USD per box to ship at present rates, vs. the nearly 500 it was costing 18 months ago) above and beyond in July and finally get those things shipped over here.

That's it for my Monday morning post. I've got a pretty solid week's work of worth ahead of me that I'm going to see if I can't get done in 3-4 days, to get an early start on that "last half of the month off". See you on the flip side!