It is a good idea to start your own business, right? Make a little side money doing what you enjoy? Right??? SOMEONE AGREE WITH ME HERE!!

Ok - I’m calm.

Chris and the kids went skiing without me tonight. Not because of my ankle. I was willing to give it the ol’ college try with the ankle and all. No - I didn’t go with them tonight because I’ve waaaaaaaay tooooooo much work to do for some new clients that I’ve obtained over the past week.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the hell outta doing graphic and web design! It’s my hobby that I’ve turned into a nice little side business that I really enjoy doing. It just seems that lately (read: past 6 months, or so) - I’ve been SO busy with it. Which is an incredibly GOOD thing.

Tonight is just one of those nights where I’m swamped with it. I have issues with multi-tasking and paying attention to only one thing at a time. Not always, but sometimes - and tonight is one of those times that I can’t seem to focus on what needs doing!

Alright - I should be using past tense with that - - because while the kids and Chris have been out skiing — I did get done what I needed to tonight. And actually, once I sat down and just really concentrated on focusing on one thing at a time - - I got through it a lot sooner than I really thought I did.

I do it to myself. 90% of it is work I do for paying clients — the other 10% is work I’ve either traded out for goods in return, or for family and really close friends to whom I owe favors to. This hobby turned business of mine works for me on so many levels. Quite honestly, if it steps up a few notches - - I’m seriously considering cutting my hours at work down to part time . . . maybe 24 - 32 hours per week. This month alone, I’ve billed over $6,000. That’s just an estimate - to give an idea of the volume of work I’m doing over here.

Any small business owners out there? I mean, really, really small? Did you start your business while you held down a full time position somewhere else? At some point did you make the decision to give up your regular full time job and venture out into being self-employed 100%? How scary was that? At what point are you confident enough to make that decision?

It’s not like I’m making widgets over here. The service that I provide is tangible - but, it’s fleeting. The business keeps getting busier and busier - however, my biggest fear is the minute I make the leap into exclusive full time self-employment . . . well, that’s when the requests and orders with new clients stop coming in. I just am not confident it’s consistent enough work to base a living off of. Except for the fact that I’ve been crazy busy consistently for the past 6 months. By what bar should I measure it, I wonder.

I talked to my mom about it because she went to work for herself and did just fine, quite honestly. I asked her those same questions and she was of absolutely NO help. Her reply??? “Well, Chris makes plenty of money - if the two of you would just get married, you could afford to cut down to part time or even quit, in order to give the business a try without worrying about health benefits.”

Arrrgggghhhh! Not exactly the response I was looking for there.

Anyways - the ski bums won’t be home for another 2 hours, or so. Now that I’ve wrapped up my work for the night, it’s time to make a nice hot mug of java and sit back to relax a bit.

Really. I’m ok.