I have been in deep thinkers mode lately; just too many questions in my head. A letter came in this morning from the Lowlands and it ended up unopened on top of the one that has been lying on my desk for at least two weeks now. Both from the same sender. I wonder what is keeping me from opening and reading them. I don’t know the answer but if I had to guess it’s probably because I might be afraid of having to read about someone’s disappointment. Knowing that I can’t be there for her, coz I have my own worries.

Mine are that I don’t understand what I’m dealing with over here and it’s utterly frustrating because I’m in a catch-22 so it seems. So I’ve decided to adopt a different approach to things which basically means I will have to work extremely hard over the next couple of months to get where I need to be after the summer. No more time for faffing but trying to stay focused. It’s not just a personal situation, it’s also the fact that whatever is going on in this country, it ain’t positive at all and not just scare stories…

I don’t watch the news and I try to avoid the free papers. Reading about a recession and how it affects the economy is not very uplifting. It’s ‘just’ another thing that adds up to the list. I’ve exchanged emails with an English friend and told him that I was thinking about moving back and how it would feel like a failure to me. Admitting to someone that those thoughts have crossed my mind was a hard thing to do. But he reminded me of something he wrote last year when we first started to exchange emails.

He said it’s good to always know that I could return to the Lowlands and that I shouldn’t view it as failure. If anything I should see it as England failed me… He is right, giving up is not my style but having to deal with e.g.: negative figures, a credit crunch, people who take their savings out of the bank and a rising number of unemployment etc. plus struggles that I have in reaching my number one goal which is basically related to everything I just mentioned is not that simple and can be really disheartening most of the time.

But I’ve made a decision and I’m gonna stick with it… Next week I’ll be visiting the summer fair and will network my way into more business. I’m gonna prepare a strategy, keep a stack of business cards ready, wear a gorgeous dress and my nicest smile and talk the talk. Because by the end of the summer I want to have at least six showcases online. I have one showcase in already and will start working on it tomorrow. It’s a total redesign for an online shop that sells leather products to high street department stores like Debenhams, House of Fraser etc.

It’s an exciting project because I’ve never used e-commerce software before. It comes with my hosting package as well: so first thing tomorrow will be installing it on my server. That way I can test the redesigned templates and get familiar with the front- and back-end of the software. Sunday I’ll be meeting up with a garden landscaper to chat about a web design. And today I’ve finished a second Flash website for a client in Scotland. Over the weekend I’ll have to finish a gallery to add to the first website that I did earlier this year.

So forgive me if I seem to have vanished, it’s temporary because I really need to stay focused…