Signs of Life
Here's a quick snapshot from the office computer! I look so sad! And I need a haircut! A HAIRCUT! I don't mean to look so sad though. I confess the minute I saw my reflection on Photobooth, I retracted in horror and didn't bother posing. It's like I resigned myself to clicking because I have no gift in styling my bangs, extending my neck, and looking sultry. I was planning to revert to cheesy smile and squinty eyes, but I really didn't have the energy for it -- (plus I had to ninja-mode this shit!).
It's that time of the day where the deadlines are pressing and I find myself incapable of putting my head into work. So, it's this. This. So how have I been? I think the last time I bothered to unload stories of my life was to my friend in the States, and here are some snippets from my Facebook message (omitting all the girlish and potentially libelous details):
I'm so tired! I would usually say I'm stressed, but it's really just
exhaustion. To paint a picture of how my days look like, I'll tell you
both about last night. My phone got lost (it fell out of my pocket when I
took a trike to work last week), and I finally applied for a line (can
you believe that this will be my very first postpaid account?) last
night. It took us two hours and we ended up going home at 10 pm.
We had dinner, and at around 10:30 pm, I was doing design revisions for
two clients I'm handling now. One is for a tea house (I might
be brokering a retainer contract with them this weekend, please wish me
luck!) and one for an.... (Note: The next few lines are me bitching about
a nightmare client. Moving along...)
Anyway! I ended
my work at around 12:15, and Joel was typing on the computer till
12:30-ish (I have no clue because I was passed out and drooling already)
trying to seal a deal with a new client -- a road works company, should
be fun.... I hope.
Then today I'll just be cramming an article on
this NY illustrator named Sophia Chang for Status Magazine. I have 900
words to go, and after this... (Note: Then I proceed to gripe about the
publishing industry in this country)
I'm tired! Joel and I are so tired. Aside from our day jobs, we finally got our design company up and running. We spend every other evening meeting clients and most nights working on revisions and sending out costings and corresponding with them. I do everything design-related and Joel does everything client-related.
It's going great, actually. Sans the nightmare client (we all need one, I suppose, it's from them that I get a wealth of horror stories to tell my other designer friends), we've been having a lot of fun and we slowly and steadily reaching our goal of saving up for our trip to the US next July. If we close the deal on these two potential clients, we'll reach our quota by the first quarter of 2012. Good stuff!
I just wish that there were more hours in the day because it's not like we don't like our day jobs, we love them! What we make during the day is enough for our day to day expenses, savings, and little goodies here and there. But with things like this US trip where we intend to be gone for a month, we really had to explore alternative means of income. This is it and we're having an amazing time learning the ropes of running our own business. Whenever we go home after a long day, Joel and I touch base with how we're doing with our clients and how much revenue we expect to see this month (and if there are payments to be collected).
In short, money, money, money takes center stage in our life and we have to remind ourselves to ease off because even when we get home, the first thing Joel does is gather our receipts and take note of our expenses, then plug them into this nifty iPad app that organizes our budget. If I myself don't ease off with the money talk, I think I'll be filling entry after entry just analyzing where we can make money and how to improve the state of our finances.
So, I'm stopping. I miss having an outlet and making things, so I think that's why I still accept writing work when I'm swamped with two jobs. Alice has bought a domain for our company as a wedding present (http://naturalselectiondesign.co -- any guesses why we got this name?) and I'm hoping to sync it with the design blog I put up last month. It's over here, but even updating it regularly takes too much out of me but I'm chalking it to the fact that I need to tweak the layout. I'm still scouting for a web designer because I feel like a joke having a design blog with not-so stellar design. I would do it myself except that my HTML/CSS knowledge harks back to the late '90s.
Natural Selection is my baby and it's the first thing that has taken over my life in a good way. Joel and I attended the first part of co.lab's Going Pro series and excited for part II tomorrow. I really want to formally launch our company next year complete with our business registration, a fully-functioning design blog, an updated portfolio, and our business cards. I never expected our lives would shift towards this direction. We started getting design referrals and as we finished each project, more came to take its place, and it seems like we got something sustainable going on now.
We also need to look for our own place (we're renting my grandmother's annex now) and our car is on its last few legs. I try to ignore money as hard as I can, but far too many big things in my life keep plunking it down in front of me, ass naked, usually. In a way, I can't really blame myself looking the way I do (see: picture above). I believe our lives happen in seasons and I just found myself smack in the middle of the busiest season ever. I thought things would slow down after the wedding... eh, wala eh. Haha!