4th of July

The thing about holidays, forgetting the day is a holiday is sort of an occupational hazard of mine.  I do have the discipline of a 9-5 (technically 8-6) schedule so that I will get my work done.  Even though I could work in my pjs at 3am, I attempt to do the responsible thing: get up at 6am, workout, shower, and get dressed in the morning, pretend I'm off to work (because really... I kind of am), etc. 

I take scheduled breaks and a lunch; everything thing you would expect from a job at an office I do here in my home just so that I'm productive and don't fall into bad habits... bad habits resulting in me feeling like crap.  Not to mention, my schedule wouldn't be in sync with any of my friends or, more importantly, my husband.

I'm beginning to realize I'm not even as nice to myself as a real boss would be.  I let myself go back to work after dinner and I'll work on weekends, but the most diabolical thing of all: I never give myself holiday breaks. 

For the first time in the history of my etsy store, last Christmas, I set the shop to vacation mode and closed up, but not really.  Behind the scenes I was still answering inquiries (concern expressed over orders placed for x-mas gifts, etc.), and it was only a 3 days vacation to start with.  At any rate, it feels like a lie to say any kind of vacation happened.  I was still making jewelry on those days off because customers shop that time of year, not only for gifts, but for sales; I was getting orders up to the 22nd and the orders resumed immediately when I opened on Christmas day. 

So you may have guessed, I'm not shutting down for anything less than Christmas.  If I actually closed my shop and turned my back on it for a week I think the world explode.  So when I was out to dinner this past week and there was a lot of excitement expressed over Friday it took a moment for it to sink in: I knew Friday was the 4th and that we were all going to the same cookout, but the excitement seemed a little excessive... then I realized everyone else at the table was escaping their job and had the day off.  I work at home soooo... I guess I can at least sleep in.

To say things like this make me sad makes me seem unappreciative of how good I have it, and then a little obnoxious.  But just the same, I wanted to experience the same rush of escape.  So while I'm sure I'll do a little work tomorrow, I'm definitely turning my alarm clock off (now I'm hoping I remember to do that when I finally get into bed).  I plan to wake up when I wake up, lolly-gag around the house, maybe do a chore, do little work here, and finally, go get some wine in me at that cookout.

What I'm not going to do is stress over getting those pieces of jewelry (featured in Tuesday's post) listed in my store by tomorrow.  I'm not going to tell myself I failed because I didn't meet the deadline this blog is meant to set for finishing new jewelry (this blog can do other things.  I mentioned I might change it up a bit.  Stop being so hard on yourself, Julee).  The 4th of July has thrown a monkey wrench into my plans so I'm just gonna go with the flow and start over again Monday:)

Next time I'll be on the lookout for a holiday just so I can work with it and not have to worry about working against it.  I'm gonna take a "kind of" holiday.
Happy 4th!! go enjoy you friends and family, some grilled food, and fireworks^.^

~Julee