Yesterday morning, I was pretty much having a meltdown. I was so tired and couldn’t bear to face another day of work. I knew that if things continued like this, I wouldn’t be doing anything, let alone working in 2 months time. I’d be practically comatose.

But I made a choice – that if it came down to my art or the job, the job would go. I’d find a new job, a job that would make things easier on me. But the art would never go, would never be a hobby. No way, no how.

And sometimes, just by figuring out what you want, the Universe decides to lend a helping hand.

I found out my schedule at work starting next week and it’s so perfect for my needs, it’s almost stupid. I only have to work Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I work 2-9 on Thursday and Friday and 9-5:30 on Saturday. That’s it. I still have 4 full days to work on my art, and half of Thursday and Friday (mornings are my best working time anyways) and I don’t usually work on the business on a Saturday, so I don’t even care that I lost it!

It’s perfect, just perfect. It’s also manageable. Three days a week is no big deal, and for the most part, it’s after I’ve done the stuff that’s important to me. This way, I can devote my energy to the stuff I care about and if I’m tired when I go to work, that’s fine. But I don’t want to be tired when I’m making my art.

And even at 22 hours a week, I’ll still be making enough to pay for the important things while I get back on my feet. It means I can start saving, pay off my debts, and buy things like a camera, computer and printer/scanner. I won’t be able to save any of my pay from the job, but it means all of my income from the business can go towards that, and that’s frigging awesome. I’ll be back on my feet in no time!

Oh, I’m pretty happy about all this right now. I’ll still be pretty tired in a few months, and I don’t think I’ll be able to do both for more than 6 months, but 6 months is all I need.

First things first though, I definitely need a camera. I can’t take all the pretty pictures that I want to, or photograph my artwork or anything. Next – I want to ship all of the nude paintings here so I can repaint them.

Yeah that’s right – I said repaint them. A couple I’m happy with, but the rest, I ran out of time before the show to do what I wanted with them. Now I’ll have plenty of time to pretty them up and put final touches on them.

I also want to start a new series of PEI, and I’ve still got my self imposed art lessons to do. I’ll need to start ordering those books as well, particularly for the painting portion of it.

For the first time in a few weeks, I finally really, really feel like everything is going to be okay.  I finally feel like I can do this.

I also decided to have a conversation with my business last night, because hey, I’m weird like that. I was mad at it because I felt like it’d let me down and it was mad at me because it felt abandoned. We’ve got some stuff to work out, some new plans to be made. We need systems and plans. We probably just need Cairene Macdonald from Third Hand Works.

I’m currently on her site and everything she’s talking about is making me drool. I suck at systems. Especially keeping them in place. I need structure. She just makes all of her stuff sound so juicy and delicious. I’m practically getting excited about systems and time management. Either I’m really sad, or she’s really good.

For now though, I”m going to get ready for work, and then go buy some groceries before tomorrow – Hurricane Bill is on it’s way and I’m pretty excited. I get the day off work and I’m going to sit inside and watch my very first hurricane. (Well, kinda – it’ll be hurricane-ish. Might just be lots of rain and wind for a couple hours. But still! Pretty stoked.)

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!