So a few months ago, I started talking about my 1 year plan to transition to working completely independently as a freelancer and independent business owner. I have talked quite a bit about all my plans and strategies on this blog, but I haven’t done it in a few weeks now, so I thought a bit of a re-cap of the past few weeks would be in order. In fact, I am thinking I will try and do a monthly re-cap from here on out. Recording my progress, and listing my plans and challenges.

When looking back over my time since announcing my plans in July, A lot of changes have taken place for my family and myself. While most of my ideas and strategies remain in place, a key change has been in the resources available to me and the time I have to work on them. These changes in resources have opened up  lot of opportunities, and its starting to press in on me.

The major change has been in acquiring a new living space. Last month we moved into a new home here, and are slowly but surely acclimating ourselves to it. Whats great is that we now have a lot more space in which to spread ourselves out and work on projects. We will  now also have space to separate our work lives from our personal lives, something we haven’t had since returning to the US 2 years ago. So, that’s pretty big for us.

At the same time we are now homeowners, and are coming to terms with all the issues and problems that will involve. The time, and our sense of perfectionism makes this a bit of a challenge, but we are learning to figure it out. My studio space remains under construction, and we are still waiting on a few contractors to finish up their projects so we can really start living in the space fully.

Also of importance, was my participation in the Doylestown Art Festival. This 2 day event happened in mid-september and was really successful for me. I did a lot better than I had hoped, and I was  really pleased with how folks responded to my work. It felt like a really good sign for the future. So I am hoping to build on that going forward.

Elsewhere a return trip to Japan at the beginning of the month gave a total recharge to my outlook on life. It was a time to focus on the things that I believe our important for me, and I returned home with a lot of renewed energy to get moving on things.

So all of these things have combined to make for a good bit energy and enthusiasm. I know when I started this blog, I laid out a schedule in which I would fully transition to working independently by July 1st of next year. At the time, the idea of having 1 year to focus myself and lay out a nice conservative path to a big life-change seemed like a really good idea. But lately I have been feeling less and less confident in this plan.

This isn’t because I no longer think the plan is a good one, I still believe it is a totally good one, rational, calm and measured. I think it is just me that is the problem. I am becoming more and more aware that I thrive on completing projects. I am not good at just hanging around at a day job and doing the same things over and over again. Basically, I am getting more and more tired of my day job, and am thinking of jumping ship quite a bit earlier – say within the next month or 2.

This is a decision I am grappling with a lot lately. With a new daughter, a new house, and who knows what around the corner it seems rather daunting. But I don’t see myself gaining any more valuable experience at my day job that will aid my transition, and I am continually seeing little work opportunities dangled in front of me that seem like roads I want to jump on. All of these options seem at the moment to be tremendous opportunities to push out into the world of freelancing, and I don’t want to let them get by me.

With all the responsibilities I have taken on this year, a part of me says stay the course, roll with the punches and make a lengthy more calculated change. But another, increasingly noisy side of myself is growing impatient. It has all these plans and is feeling the pinch of a limited schedule of time in which to get it all done. It craves –more than anything– a little time to get things done.

It will be hard to hold this latter way of thinking back. I know myself, and I know this thought is spinning around my body like poison ivy up a tree. its holding on tight and thirsting for the sun. I am more than certain I will be giving into it over the next month or 2, depending on how everything shakes out.

So that’s where I am as of the last week in October. Tons of new resources gained, positive reinforcement at an art festival, revitalized in my devotion through a trip to Tokyo, and wittling down my transition schedule to something that could pop in the next few weeks as opposed to months.

And now I take a breath. Update to come fairly soon.