I'm chalking this recent "quietness" up to my trying to figure out what direction my life should take right now. I've been doing a lot of "soul searching" of late, and just haven't really felt like designing a whole lot.
Also, to be honest, our financial situation, while not as bad as some folks' in this area, is not the greatest and it hasn't been for the past 10 years, and we're trying to rectify that.
While I'm thankful that whatever we've needed has always been provided when we need it, I'm also realistic enough to realize that we need to better ourselves, financially... I'm not saying I expect us to some day retire in the lap of luxury... far from it. In fact, at this point, I don't ever see either myself or Brian "retiring"... at the rate we're going, we're going to be working until the day we drop, or just can't anymore. :-(
All that being said, it's been extremely difficult for me to just go out and find a job, for several reasons. #1, our area was hit extremely hard by the recent financial downturn - our county here in northern Indiana used to be the RV manufacturing capital of the world... and most of the companies either went under or drastically reduced their work forces... so any good-paying jobs are pretty much non-existent, or so it appears. #2, while I do have a bachelor's degree, since I was a stay-at-home Mom for the majority of my adult working life, I'm either under-qualified or "over age" for a lot of the computer graphics positions I do see available (and again, in this area... they're just not there, for the most part.) Also, relocating to a better job market just isn't feasible for us at this time... I'd love to move to Nashville, but the earliest I see that happening is in at least a year's time.
So, basically, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I do enjoy the digi scrap designing, but lately, my heart just hasn't been in it. Heck, I'm not even having WDW-withdrawal like I usually do, and we don't have another trip planned... at all! We spent a long weekend in Nashville a month ago (prior to the flooding, which has just been heartbreaking to me, too!) and I'm finding myself listening more to country music than Disney music! (Never thought that would happen!)
So, like I said... I'm just not sure what's up, nor what's going to be going on with my freebies. I will, however, leave everything up online for downloading, so that anyone who happens to stumble upon this blog can get the freebies... I'm just not sure when I'll be posting any new ones, unfortunately.
Don't completely count me out, though. Who knows what will come around the corner next week, or next month!
Again, I do want to apologize to all of you... and I am so very thankful for all of the kind words you've left me here throughout this whole time! You're great! :-)
