taking a break

My poor little garden has been so neglected this year. Despite all my best intentions I just haven't seemed to be able to make time to get to it, but I was out on the balcony the other day and noticed that the lavender had bounced back and started to bloom. I was so excited to see these bright bursts of colour amidst all the piled up planters, bags of soil and concrete.

Standing out there and itching to get to work on making it into a space we'd actually enjoy using, I realised that I needed to rearrange my priorities a little and take stock of everything. I feel like Ive been a bit of a broken record lately, constantly talking about how busy I am but it has just felt like all I have been doing lately is running around, going to meetings, staying up late and generally feeling overwhelmed. Then on Tuesday I read the latest post in the Biz Ladies series on Design Sponge, all about maintaining confidence and keeping calm in a competitive market I couldn't believe how timely it was. I'll admit that I usually bristle at most business advice type writing but this one was so relevant to how I have been feeling lately I can't wait to implement some of the suggestions made in the post. One of the key things that spoke to me was when she mentioned that it's often when she is feeling overwhelmed that she starts second guessing and comparing herself to others. Oh boy do I hear that. That feeling of no longer being in control, the things that you're working on are no longer fun and that you're trapped in this cycle of always working on something or another with no end in sight, surrounded by people who are doing it better and making it look easier than you are? Yep, totally there.

So with that said, I'm going on a little bit of a break. With the beginning of July and (hopefully) more summer weather, I'm giving myself a summer vacation. One of the suggestions mentioned is a media diet (which, had me freaking out a bit at first. Ok, it still kind of does) for seven days. For those seven days I will completely avoid all non-fiction media, and limit my intake of fiction media like movies, tv, etc. No reading blogs, no twitter, no idle surfing. You can still write posts and the like, but I've actually decided to also take a two week break from the blog to truly be able to step back and recharge. A few really great people have very kindly said they'll step in and guest post here with lots of summery photos, ideas, words and the like. I'm so excited to see what they've got up their sleeves, and I'm so very thankful that they're allowing me to take this break! When I realised I was going to be able to have two whole weeks without feeling like I should be blogging, I was so happy. Not because I don't like blogging, I actually really love it, but I don't like not having the time to fully deal with it and maybe at the end of these two weeks I'll actually have a studio I can walk into and a patio with pretty flowers to sit in.

Have a wonderful two weeks, enjoy all the visitors and I'll see you back here on the 19th!
xo