Forcing Myself to STOP and Smell the Pine Trees!

It is that time of year again…I have come to both dread it and love it, but it was not always this way.  Five years ago, before kids and before running my own business, it was a fun time of year because I got to get out all of the lights and decorate my house to the hilt and had no worries.  Gift shopping was easy because I could just go out and get whatever for whoever and not have to think about it too much.  Then came kids… the first year we didn’t do much with a little person dominating our lives, the second year I think there was no tree at all for fear that the tiny terror would pull it over on himself, the 3rd year we had baby #2 and quite frankly I don’t much remember that one at all, the 4th year had a mostly naked tree that was securely tied to the stairs so tiny terror #2 would not topple it over, this is Christmas #5 with kids (now aged 4.5 and 1.5) and I am ready to go all out again!  Or so I think, because somewhere in all of that insanity, I decided to start my own business making handcrafted silver and copper jewelry.  Don’t get me started on holiday shopping,  it has been reduced to sitting at 3am in front of my computer and cruising Amazon.com.

The jewelry making has been something I had dabbled in off an on, but with the advent of Etsy, it became feasible to make a little business out of a hobby.  And as a new mom I needed something that I could do for myself as a time out from the kids.  So my jewelry business was born.  It has been great don’t get me wrong, I am sure I would be insane if I didn’t have it.  But the only problem is this time of year puts quite a demand on any retail based business as one would expect.  And since I make all of my items as the orders come in, I feel like I an in a mad frenzy trying to get them finished rather than taking the time to enjoy the holiday and its preparations with my family.  I felt the frenzy fever kicking in just before Thanksgiving when I noticed that each time I went to check my emails I would have a new order there….great for business but stressful too.  It just happened at the same time one of my facebook friends posted that she was going to do an online photo workshop.  I decided to look into it and it sounded like it was what  I needed to force myself to take time out and focus on family. 

So the workshops have officially started and I will be posting the photo results from my “assignments” and sharing them with you….hoping that you can extract a little extra holiday joy in your life as a result!