it's beginning to look a lot like where the hell has the year gone?

I've done it again, neglected this blog.  So what's been going on these past few months? Well, it took forever but we've finally moved and are now settled in our new home in Elwood.  I could talk endlessly about how much I love Elwood but I'll save that for another blog post.  Now I'm practically obligated to update this thing again!

our new living room

I turned 41 in September.  That just seems surreal.  Now I know what adults were on about when they used to tell me that they didn't feel their age.  What is 41 meant to feel like anyway? Maybe your 40's are meant to feel like denial.  I got an iPhone for my birthday and I can tell you right now, I opened that sucker with the sheer joy of child at Christmas, well, one who didn't get crap gifts.

I fell off the fruit and vegie eating wagon and have paid the price.  I feel sluggish and ugh.  But this week have jumped back on board and can't wait to start feeling great again.  Again, I'll save that for another post.

Right now, I'm in the middle of having tests to find out what this vertigo is all about.  A month ago, I fainted.  Felt fine, felt fine, fainted and threw up.  A week later, I fell down some stairs.  Days later, I crashed my car door into a pole at work.  It has been a month of headaches, dizziness, nausea and I've kept telling people I'm ok, just writing the symptoms off as tiredness.  CT scan was normal (fyi, I do gots a brain!) and blood tests didn't show anything abnormal....but my doctor wants me to take three more. I hate her.  That's the needlephobe in me speaking.

falling down stairs is every bit as painful as you would imagine

Finally, I have started production of my handbags again.  Mind you, production has been painfully slow thanks to the kooky head issue.  As you know, I'm now working with leather as well as fabric and although I've been playing around with different designs, given there's only a few short weeks until Christmas, I have decided to ease myself back into business by making wristlets.  I just don't have enough time up my sleeve at the moment to nut out any hiccups with producing the other designs.  So I will start off with a soft launch next week and then in late January, I will relaunch with new handbags, new website and new blog.  

I know I have promised a relaunch many times but this time it's for real, I promise!  Trust me, it is hard work to start from scratch again, it's really not as easy as people think.  I can sense other self-employed artists and crafters nodding their heads.  You can just sit down, nut out a few designs, slap a price tag on them and you're good to go.  Then there's life getting in the way, when I stopped making full time, I still needed to make an income so I've been working for the last couple of years and it's hard to factor in  time to create....even though I've been yearning to do so (man, that sounds corny).  And things happen, good things, bad things and they both take up brain space.  I know, it all sounds like excuses and maybe in part it is but I'm about to dip my toe back into the water before diving in later this Summer (Winter to my Northern Hemisphere friends) and that's a pace I can handle right now.  In 2013 I'll be stepping right out of my comfort zone and that excites me.

some of the leather for my new handbags