It was a funny week. Monday started off strong when I took part in a really fun voice workshop with a local singer and voice teacher, and then Tuesday I was back to work. The clients at Horizon weren't back yet, it was just staff in that day, so it was very quiet around the Centre. It was nice though, to have a chance to get my bearings back in the office, before adding in the hustle and bustle of clients to the building.
Then Wednesday morning I woke up with a full-blown head cold. Low energy, congestion, the whole bit. So that day I stayed home from work, and slept and OK, yeah, watched Outlander. (I finished Season 2 - have you seen it?) Luckily for me, I had made a big pot of chicken soup the week before, when Adam was sick, so I had a steady supply of easy-to-heat nutrients.
Thursday I was still under the weather, so I took another sick day. This time around I slept the entire day, waking only to eat lunch (soup again). I always resist doing that, sleeping a whole day, I think because I don't like missing out on a whole day of life, but it seemed to do the trick at kicking those germs' butts because the next day I was mostly back to normal.
I went back to work on Friday, which felt like a Monday, but of course was not. I was glad to get out of the house though, and get back to the office and see familiar co-workers and clients. It's funny - NEST is my word for the year, which I first assumed would mean getting all domestic and working on our home, but I'm already noticing that I need to get out of the nest just as much. Being around others, and working with them, satisfies a part of me I just can't get at home.
The "One Little Word" course I mentioned in last week's post asks you to pick a quote that uses your word, and the one I found and went with is:
"By going and coming, a bird weaves its nest."
It's an Ashanti proverb, according to the Internet. I like it - it says to me that going out into the community, away from your home, and then coming back with bits you find (whether those are actual material things, or stories or experiences), is just as much a part of the nest-building process as working in or on your home. Which is good, because I go a little stir-crazy when I'm home for too long.
So that was the week! Not a lot going on, but that's just fine. This weekend I got out, over to Sydney during the day on Saturday, and helped my friend Amanda shop for her freezer meal workshop. It was actually fun, going shopping with her, and we talked about maybe doing our weekly groceries together, to hang out together and also to spare our partners from having to do it.
And then after that, before I came back to North Sydney, I got to have coffee with a friend who lives in Ottawa these days, but who was home for the holidays, and another mutual friend who lives in town. The fact that I'm not doing client work on the weekends means I have time for these things. For sitting in a coffee shop and losing track of the time, my hands wrapped around a mug with two cold sips of mocha left in the bottom, laughing and catching up on each others' lives. It feels really good.
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So this blog and I, you may sense, are in transition. Over the next month or so, I'll make some tweaks to it, making it less about the freelance design business that I was starting, less about selling me and my services, and more about just... me. My writing. My photos. My design work, yes, but that design work is part of a greater body of work that I've made and want to share. This word I've picked for the year, NEST, can also mean my nest, or home, on the web, which is what this website is, when you think about it. So, like making changes to a physical space, I'll make some changes to this digital space to reflect where my life is at now, and what I want to be making and sharing. Stay tuned!
I'm turning away from having my own business, at least for this year, and to be honest, it feels OK. I had worried that I would feel disappointed in myself, or that I had disappointed others, (especially those who supported my crowdfunding campaign in 2015) but honestly, I don't. I gave freelance-on-the-side-while-working-full-time a decent shot. It wasn't for me. That's not to say that freelance design won't work for me sometime down the road, but for now, for where I'm at in my life, I prefer keeping the full-time job (for a variety of reasons), and then getting rid of a few extra commitments so that I have more time and energy. So that I'm a better worker when I'm at work, and a better friend, partner, and, well, friend to myself, when I'm not at work.
More on all of these things, to come! I want to blog weekly I think. For now, I'll leave you with a selfie of me earlier today, after Adam and I had cleared the driveway of snow, and I went into the backyard to poke around in the snow-covered garden a bit.
With love,
Leah
