"Busy"

It's been a hectic month - a fast-developing 9/10 month old, health issues, family visits, general lethargy with the inevitable winter... but I'm actually making progress on the 'make money' scheme.

I narrowed down what I want to do to make said cash to doing what I do 'best' - design. I'm going to (and actually am in the process of) designing gift tags, book nameplates, notecards and placecards for sale on Etsy once I get a store set up. I'm also looking at selling prints of some of my photos and eventually branching out into calendars and 'party kits' for kids.

And if I get going a good clip (and make some decent cash), I'm going to try expanding to also produce shoes/slippers for babies/toddlers and if that goes well, start making jewelry for children.

How successful do I think I can be with all of this? Marginally. At least for the first year. I want to be a stay-at-home-mom for my daughter until she goes to school, but that does not mean I plan on eating bonbons all day while watching soaps. I like being busy, and if I have the skills, why not use them?

There's still a bit of fear behind all of this, but there always will be, I think. This - the whole 'half-assed self-employed' thing - is a very different direction than I thought I would be going in. I had been looking into doing something along these lines a few years ago, but gave up due to boredom. Now that my life is completely different, thanks to a little monkey, why not keep heading down this different path and see what happens?

I still plan on having to work part-time for the first year. There is no doubt about that. Bills have to be paid, food has to be bought, etc. I don't want to be working for anyone but myself within the next 18 months though. I don't have a business plan or a set-in-stone time line or anything like that yet, but once I start doing the heavy planning work, I plan on contacting this man to find out what he recommends I do (and hope that he responds).

So, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, I'll have an Etsy store full of products just waiting to be purchased. Or collecting dust. Either way, it's nice to be finally on the move.