I'm not actually missing, really.

Yes, I have been missing from here for a couple of weeks. And, yes, I should have seen that coming. After all, I started a new job and also had a long weekend of travel. But I guess I wasn't thinking very clearly when I assumed I'd be able to keep up with my jewelry schedule without any difficulty.

The whole thing started when a pendant I was working on went horribly wrong. Instead of cutting my losses right away, I disassembled it and tried a slightly different approach. By the time it became obvious that it was simply a doomed project, the week was gone and it was time to get ready to make the transition back to traditionally employed person.

By the end of my second day of work I realized that I would need to put my jewelry projects on hold for a week or two while I found my footing. In addition to learning my job and developing relationships with my new co-workers, I was also learning my commute and trying to figure out how to budget my evenings to fit in the essentials and still find a little time. A weekend of travel and celebration with family was wonderful, but meant there was not a break between week one and week two of work.

So now I have a weekend, and I'll begin catching up. My muse has not been missing, and I've been sketching and remembering ideas. It may be a few weeks before I'm back to posting jewelry regularly and on time, since I can't make jewelry on the bus and I'm still not to the point where I am finding much free time in the evenings after work, but that is also moving in the right direction. I expect to post a little something tomorrow, and we'll just go on from there. I may also do some non-jewelry blogging since that seems to be a better fit on weeknights.

Just to be clear -- I will complete this year of jewelry, I will do Secret Santa, if that is offered this year, and I will continue to blog right here about jewelry and other things.

Meanwhile, please do remember to give your love to the wonderful artists of the Year of Jewelry.