November Recap

November Recap

Now that I'm writing less frequently, I find that I have even less to say haha. I thought I would have more to say, but... I don't. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed by the thought of trying to summarize a full month.

A bunch of things happened. Some noteworthy. Some not. Here are a few of the noteworthy ones.

I tried to get an hourly job

I interviewed. The job was mine if I wanted it.  The pay wasn't enough. I found that extremely frustrating. I knew it wouldn't replace the income from my previous full time position, but the difference in income was so profound that it wasn't worth it. That raked up all kinds of feelings around fairness, privilege, and the insane differential between how much it costs to live in the DC area and the amount of money that all of these hourly jobs offer. For me, in this state of my life and my business, it seems as though I have to stick to freelance design work or try to find a full time design job that has a decent work-life balance if I want to maintain my lifestyle. That was an annoying revelation. I'm thankful that I have that opportunity. Many people don't. I've accepted it for now. At the very least, I can stop distracting myself with the "what ifs" of miscellaneous openings I see around town.

My design contracts have slowed

Blessing and curse here. On the one hand, they constituted the majority of my income this year; but on the other hand, I was feeling like I needed a break from them. I'm not sure what this is going to mean for me moving forward but for now, it's a welcome schedule opening that will allow me to address some of the projects that have been collecting dust on my to do list. Including...

Commissions

I only took on two commissions this holiday season. I wasn't interested in feeling like I had to rush through everything again this year. And I'm thankful for it. I have basically finished the first. I will begin the second this week; and then I'll get back to a commission for one of my friends that has been sitting undone for a long-ass time. I'd like to get all of that off my plate finally.

Basically I'm trying to tidy up

I have enough savings to spend the next few months cleaning things up, taking some time off, and preparing myself for whatever comes next. I don't know what that will be. Time-boxed, hyper-focused C&B work? A new full time design job? A few more design contracts? Something else? I really don't know. And that feels pretty weird. But whatever it ends up being, I want to go into it with a clean plate.

Back to blog

Leave a comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.

1 of 3