Alright, so I said I’d write about things I know about. And then pretty much gave you the exhaustive list of things I know about.

If you missed that one, here’s a hint: It wasn’t very long.

But since the furthest I’ve managed to get in categorizing my blog is “lifestyle and, uh, books?”, I suppose I do need to talk about my life. Lifestyle. (Which will eventually involve processing what my lifestyle… even is.)

And a big part of my non-sleeping, non-food-eating life right now is this frightening, intimidating delving into the broad wide world of designing for fun and freelance.

Graphic design, to be specific, because my attempts at interior design crash and burn when all I want to do when I’m at home is nap and watch Scandal.

I started freelancing for my old high school last year, based on my experience in, you know, one graphic design class and having fixed up their semi-annual newsletter for an internship there. Most of what I do for them is website sliders, along with a few posters now and then.

I’m far from being anywhere near good. I rarely know what I’m doing, and I’m usually learning some fairly basic technique along the way each time. But then, I’ve also had a decent eye for what they want, and since what they want is often simple enough to land within my range, it’s a quite pleasant working relationship. (Oh, and here’s a fun secret: one of the two women I work with on projects there is my mother. So you know it gets interesting.)

Working with people who know me and like me and don’t really want to pay someone with astronomical fees has been the perfect amateur entry point. Sliders are simple: it’s a rectangle. Fill the rectangle. Include what they want. Make it look halfway respectable. Then have ideas at the last minute, right before throwing up your hands in agony, that bring it above respectable and into, “We like it!” territory.

But past these simple projects? It’s a brave new world, baby, but you can’t clock out on a soma-induced holiday.

All that to say, I’m beginning some new projects that leave me both terrified and excited. A freelance project involving logo design skews towards terrified, while two different blog design personal projects for friends skew towards exciting.

I might talk about them later. I don’t know. There’s still a lot of new involved in all of this, and like I said: I’m still a ways away from good. (And even farther from experienced.)

But in the meantime, I’ll make weird little sayings designs, like the ones below for my mother, in exchange for love and plane tickets to visit home.