The One Where We Are On A Break

We have seen all the 2020 memes. We have had the jokes and the tears and the chocolate and the naps. We’ve supervised home learning, while continuing on with all other jobs in life, whether it’s running a household or working from home or a combination of both. The relentless global events, with the bushfires here in my country and state, threatening friends and family since before Christmas last year, and no break since then in the heartbreak and horror.

When you add in the various personal issues we all face in our daily lives anyway, regardless of global events, I feel like I’ve aged a few years in just the past 7-8 months. For me personally, the pandemic has affected several work plans, especially in regards to the running of the QAL for my book, with many US-based businesses closed and/or short-staffed, and all the shipping delays. Plus classes and workshops being understandably cancelled. Each one minor on its own, but the emotional and mental toll adds up.

For our family, this year’s hits kept coming when just two weeks ago, we found out that we had to move. The economic effect of the pandemic had effected our landlords, and they would be moving in later this year. We could have taken a couple of months to take our time finding a new place, but when the perfect place came up, we pounced. And tomorrow, we move. Just a short 20 months after our last move.

Now, our new place is beautiful and so perfectly suited to our family’s needs – a large studio space for me, a second living room for the kids and their friends now they’re getting older, very close to public transport for my husband to get to work, and the kids to get to high school in a couple of years. Close to shops, etc etc.

In any other year, this too would be a minor blip, and we would tiredly but happily settle into our new home.

But on Tuesday, we found out that Melbourne was going back into stage 3 restrictions for six weeks from today. This means an extra week of school holidays, with no playgrounds or play date again, and it probably means that we are returning to remote learning again (we’ll find out more next week). We had eight weeks of it in term 3, and we survived, but it was rough.

Let me be clear – I 100% support the lockdown, and it’s not a complete surprise, as several suburbs were already in lockdown. But still, Tuesday night was spent with a couple of big glasses of wine, alternating between tears and commiserating with fellow Melbournian mum friends via Facebook.

So why am I sharing all of this? Because I need a break. Effective immediately, I am taking three months off.

I love running my own business. I love the freedom and flexibility it affords me to pivot and adapt when kids are home sick from school, or to slow down during school holidays… or when they’re learning from home for eight weeks! This is absolutely a privilege of running the business that I do.

However, running your own business also means that there’s no sick leave or annual leave to take when you’re struggling, where you still get a salary and someone else will make sure the work still gets done. There’s no boss to tell me to take some time off when I need a break. If I stop working, if I stop “putting myself out there”, if I don’t create content… there’s no one else to do that. And that is why I’ve never taken more than 2-3 weeks fully off from Blossom Heart Quilts, and that was always at Christmas/New Year’s, when everyone’s quietened down too.

So, this is truly bloody scary.

But this time around with lockdown, my emotional and mental resilience is almost depleted. If I don’t take action now, I will definitely burn out during this lockdown.

What does this mean in practical terms?

The main thing that this impacts is the Mini Masterpieces QAL. As July and the Simple Curves chapter has already started, with some makes already popped up on Instagram and in the Facebook group, I’ll still honour this month’s timeline – winners and prizes still announced at the beginning of August. The remainder of the QAL will pause and pick up in November with Complex Curves.

The newsletter and blog posts will also be on pause.

I have hired a virtual assistant to help administrate the Blossom Heart Quilts Facebook group, so my friend and fellow quilter, Alison, will be admin-ing on my behalf. I may pop in from time to time, but she’s taking that off my plate.

My shop will continue to remain open, with PDF patterns and signed copies of my book, Mini Masterpieces, still for sale.

I will triage my email inbox once a week, purely just to not have it explode on me, and I have set up an email auto-responder saying as such.

Instagram will continue on as the mood strikes and as I have things to share, because Instagram isn’t just about work for me. I will be diving head first into setting up my studio space and getting into sewing just for fun – something I have not been able to do guilt-free for a long time. And so I’ll still have things to share! All those WIPs and UFOs I just packed up in tubs… I really do want to finish some of them. I finally have space to permanently have a design wall up, and I fully intend on making the most of it to get some long term projects finished. You can follow me on Instagram if you want to stay up to date on what’s happening.

I also have a box of things to destash on Instagram soon – @bhq_destash – things that I found as I was sorting to pack, and I’m sure there’ll be more as I’m unpacking!

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I will finish this by saying a huge thank you to each and every one of you, whether you’ve been around since early days in Japan (or before!), or just recently found me and my quilty passion. Your kindness and support and friendship mean the world to me. I pray that you are all safe and well, and while I’ll still be around on Instagram, I’ll “see you on the other side” xx