Things have been a little ‘off’ lately.  Our sister is getting married(!) next week and life is busy.  It’s a good busy though.

Remember a few months ago when I was spending time re-evaluating my life and the things I am involved in?  Yeah…that’s still happening.  After that post, I realized that a huge part of what I was re-evaluating had to do with my freelance design work and whether that was something I really wanted to pursue on top of my day job and other avenues of work.

At this point in my life, it’s really not.  Don’t get me wrong, I love design work…it’s a great creative outlet for me and I am still doing it on a regular basis.  I don’t want to fully stop – but I do need a break.  I’m just not sure if it’s something I want to do to make a living from, and honestly – if I’m not making money from it, I don’t have the time.  As horrible as that sounds, my time is just too valuable to always be doing design work at the cost of other important things in my life..lately I am realizing I can’t keep up with that while still pouring as much as I want to into other things.

Anna Dorfman of Door Sixteen is pretty great.  I definitely have home envy and want my house to look like hers.  A couple of week ago she wrote a post entitled “Lessons learned.” where she shared about freelance design work and why she is taking a much needed break from it.  As I was reading her post, all of my concerns and questions and doubts finally made sense.  She put into words what I have been feeling and I think you just need to read her post to understand what I mean.

{photo from Door Sixteen}

So for now, I am saying no to freelance work.  I’m sure different projects will creep in here and there like they have been the past few months (I mean…you can’t say ‘no’ when your sister asks you to design her wedding invitations, right?!) but for the most part, I have to decline extra work in my life to focus on the things that are truly important to me.

I bought a house this year and I want to spend time decorating it and making it feel more like home and also be able to just be when I’m there and not constantly working.

I got a dog…and since she is a German Shepherd, she needs brushed constantly and I want time to take her for walks everyday.

One of my favorite things to do right now is work with students on music.  Really just working on music in general…I want to push myself.

I get to work with my sister, Stephanie, on our vintage Etsy shop and when I get too caught up in freelance work, there are just not enough hours in the day.

Thankfully, I live really close to my family who are all married and have children.  They are what is important to me and the people I want to spend the most time with.

If you are in a similar spot with balancing time, let me just say – it is most definitely okay to say no.

It doesn’t hurt for people to still ask (because I know you will…you know who you are:) and I may just make an exception)…but don’t be offended if I say, “No, please.”