You know the saying time flies when you’re having fun?  Well, apparently time goes into friggin warp drive when you’re working on a business plan.

Oh bloggy friends, I’m so sorry for my long absence, but believe me when I tell you, I’d rather have been here, writing to you about jewelry and art and posting cute pictures of animals, than doing industry research and charting out cash-flow projections for the next twelve months.

I’m actually couldn’t be happier with the course.  I’ve picked up so many practical skills, focused my ideas and even got something out of the hippy-dippy self-esteem-building and visualization-type stuff.  Moreover, I’ve gotten to know a bunch of creative, entrepreneurial women who totally inspire and excite me and who I look forward to continuing friendships with long past graduation.  (There’s already a post-graduation potluck in the works– super yum!)  Running your own business can be an isolating endeavor.  I treasure my online crafty business friends and virtual creative communities, I really, truly do.   But it’s also nice to have some friends and colleagues who live in your city for those times you just need to break out of the studio for a face-to-face conversation and an excuse to order cocktails with lunch.

So, yay business course!  But I’m also feeling very ready for it to be done.  I miss going to my studio every day and staying there a good long while, and I have a lot of projects in the wings that I’m just itching to throw myself into.  Also, something about writing a long researchy paper just brings out the worst in me.  Well, the worst habits anyway, the ones that I’ve been trying ever so hard to repress since leaving University.

See, when it comes to paper-writing and all things academic, I’m kind of a glutton for pain.  My most unpleasantly-psychedelic memories of foggily wandering the Quad  were not the result of too many ’shrooms (though, there was some of that, too) but from staying awake 72 hours straight during exams or sleeping in three-hour chunks, alarms set and lights a-blazing,  for who even knows how long in the run-up to the day my honors thesis was due.  It’s not that I didn’t know when to stop; I did know; I just kept going anyway.  I couldn’t stop, or I felt like I couldn’t, anyway.  It was a compulsion.  I wasn’t even that interested in my grades.  I just couldn’t walk away from something until I felt ‘done’ and I never felt done until I acheived a sense of mastery over the material.

I’m not quite as bad now.  For one thing, it’s a lot harder to stay up all night when the fridge isn’t stocked with Diet Cokes and Red Bulls and when just one room away a sweet-smelling man and soft, snoring cat are curled up and dreaming on a big soft bed with a Joanna-sized spot to crawl into.  I tell you, I can’t stay away.  But all the stretching, socializing, healthful eating I’ve been so good about lately– whoosh, right out the window.

Well, only a little longer and then I’ll be able to give my attention back to all the non-school things I’ve been neglecting– including you, bloggy friends.  You know, I’m sensing it’s time for a  kitty-cat cuddle-break right about now.