STEPPING OUT OF THE CUBICLE

Well it's been a little while since I have done an update just for updates sake. As you can tell I've been super busy... (same old story!)  I have a ton to tell you, but where to start?

I was lucky enough to have the majority of the summer off. Kaleb's cousins came and visited and then with the transition to the new school Kaleb has been out for over 2 months! This is the first time in his whole life that he has had such an extended period of time out of school. He had a blast! It was so nice to get to bond with him and spend some quality time together.

With that though, the summer for my jewelry has just not gone quite as planned.  It's amazing to me how fast the days go when you have "nothing" to do! Last Mother's Day rush put me at a 2 - 3 week turnaround time on custom orders UGH!!!!  I thought for sure it would take me less than a month to get that back down, but the orders have kept up pace (YEAH!) and I haven't had any more time to devote to them.  It's very frustrating for me and I'm sure for those of you waiting on orders.  Being the sole owner and employee of the business means I have to wear a lot of hats. It's always hard to make sure you're spreading your time evenly around all aspects. This means that even though I hate being at 2-3 weeks I realistically still need to be devoting time to the new shops, new products, keeping people excited and interested, ordering, planning, accounting, and much much more. I'm learning that every aspect of this business is requiring lots of balance! Balance has been a tough thing for me to learn!

Although I'm feeling frustrated now, I'm very hopeful for the next few months.  I am so blessed to have such an amazing supportive family.  My parents have given me the opportunity to be off a majority of the time and work solely on my jewelry.  This is the absolutely most amazing gift that anyone could give someone... time. I'm so thankful to have time to put into the business and realize my dreams.  I'm so very, very lucky.

With all this support, and so many eyes on me to succeed I do feel a lot of pressure to make this work.  A year ago I decided this is what I wanted to do. Six months ago it became clear that there was a possibility it could work.  Three months ago it seemed like there was no way I could fail if I kept working at it, but now it's a reality. I have one year to make it work. I really don't have any back up plans, it's now or never.  It's scary.

At this point I have plenty of stuff to fill in my extra time with! I'm still in the process of listing my shops on my own website (see links above "Shop J4JCharms" "Shop Jonesing for Jewelry" "Shop J4JVintage") These now take you to the shop within my site instead of to Etsy. Although Etsy has been a great options for me, and will continue to bring in customers, I have a big enough following now that I think my own site is in order. These are huge undertakings for all of the shops.  I thought I'd need help with this and even posted on Facebook to family and friends about hiring someone part time to help list.  With all the extra time off from my day job, estimating how much work I can get done during a "normal" week is something I'm still getting used to. Actually, I haven't had a "normal" week yet, so I'm still  unsure how much I'll need help.  At this point I'm still just staying up late, working hard, and trying to get as much stuff done as possible all the time!

On top of that I have the J4JVintage shop to get up and running, a show coming, a new shop to get up and running, I'm developing the handwriting/silhouettes/footprints in sterling charms rather than set in the bezel settings, plus realistically Christmas is COMING SOON! I've realized that although I don't like being so busy like this all the time that no matter how much time I have off, I'm just one of those people that fills every second with something then get frustrated with how busy and stressed out I am all the time.  This is something I want to work on, but fear that I shall procrastinate on it again..... Maybe after Christmas time!