Trying to Say No

I know I haven't written in some time. In part, it's because I got a cold. Then there's the part that involves my inability to say 'no'. It's such a simple word, but I just can't do it sometimes.

So, here I was, working on 7 portrait commissions, trying to do a painting a day, listing new auctions daily, and trying to blog every day. That was a full plate. But, I just about had everything under control.

Then I get an email from an alpaca farm about custom knitting. Email is followed by large package and insto-presto I'm in the knitting business. Now, I've knitted for people off and on for a few years and I have taken on small projects for non-knitters here and there. But this is a bit more serious. I do admit -- alpaca is pretty fun to work with.

But wait, there's more. Roughly at the same time, I get an email from another alpaca farm about designing a logo and building a store and website. By 1 Nov. Surprise! Now this isn't quite as bad as it sounds since I had originally done some preliminary designs back in April, so I just had to redo one. The store is just a matter of filling out things and editting. And the website doesn't have to be done by 1 Nov -- just the logo and store.

I have nothing against doing either of these two new things, but the timing is bad. There's a part of me that wishes I could just say 'no', but then I look at the checkbook and say 'yes'. While I'm doing pretty well on eBay right now, I feel like I need to take advantage of these opportunities. I'd like to take over some bill-paying from my art so we can use hubby's pay to pay down the credit cards and house, so he can retire (and make me lemonade).

So, until 1 Nov (thankfully that's only 2 days from now), I'm a knitter and logo designer. Once I get these two things done-ish, I'll go back to a painting a day and working on the portraits.

Oh, like I had promised, here's ACEO in oil which I did last week:


It's a spray of delicate pink phalenopsis flowers on a near white background. This is really a terrible scan, but I played with it for over an hour -- adjusting the brightness and contrast -- and this was the best I could get. It has another 3 weeks to dry before I can sell it, so maybe I'll be able to figure out how to get a better image.