what

I’m pretty sure that’s what most of you are wondering, especially those of you who subscribed to my blog during this period. The fact that the number of subscribers increased from about 500 subscribers at the time of my last post to a whopping 690 subscribers only a couple of days ago means that I must have done something good in 2008 in terms of blogging. ;)

But most of all it means I have to get back in the blogging saddle ASAP and continue producing good material. The pressure’s on me now, so to speak. I will give you a bit more detail below about what you should expect from this blogger in 2009.

For now, I’ll just say I will probably focus more on freelancing articles (real ones, straight from the trenches), talk more about my personal online projects, but also try to deconstruct some of my client projects for you. I always love reading similar articles from David Airey or Jacob Cass, and I’m sure you do too.

But first… What have I been up to?

Freelancing change of plan

Some of you might know (if you checked my web design portfolio) that in last year or so I worked closely with the guys from London based Net Communities, as part of bigger team of designers and developers. I had the chance to work on some cool projects, learn new things and meet new people. All in all… it’s been fun! But as they say, all good things come to an end. In this case, it was my choice to leave the team and was entirely for personal reasons.

When I decided to go on the road of full-time freelancing, I had financial reasons too (although at the time I had some savings set aside for “bad weather”), but they were mostly related to the fact that I’m not the type of person who can sit still for too long. And I mean that from a geographical stand point as well. As some of you might know, my dream is to travel the world and be able to fund my journey by doing my web design work remotely.

So long story short: my gut feeling told me this is the right thing to do!

Was this a good idea?

Considering I had a long term working relationship with a respected company that sent pretty constant design work my way, the fair thing to ask is “Was this a good idea?” (or as some freelancers might put it “Are you f***ing nuts?”).

I think it was and I also honestly believe that sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone and take some chances in life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be having the resume that I have, I wouldn’t be having the experience that I have and I definitely wouldn’t be doing what I do.

So what have I been up to?

As you can imagine, December was a pretty low month, with the holidays and all, so I only worked on a couple of smaller projects and tried to set the ground for some future projects. My wife and I spent the XMAS and New Years Eve at home and I had the chance to cook a nice Christmas turkey for the whole family.

While that might sound depressing at first, it really wasn’t, because the only thing we could think of was our dream vacation to the Dominican Republic. This was my birthday present for my wife and I used pretty much all our savings for this one. But, boy, it sure was worth it!

So after spending much of January sitting in the sun and drinking cocktails, in February I was back, facing the hard reality of unpaid bills and canceled projects. As if it wasn’t good enough that my stock portfolio was severely shrunk last year by this never ending economical crisis.

You could say the last 78 days had highs and lows. Right now things are starting to look good once again, I’m involved in a couple of really interesting projects and I will hopefully be busy for the next couple of months.

What next, any plans for the future?

You bet! I’ll continue to do my freelancing thing and I will hopefully be on my way out of the country soon. ;) Last year I was fortunate enough to see Vienna, Prague and Halkidiki in Greece. This year I already saw London and the Dominican Republic. Now I’m hoping to raise money for other trips, preferably in the summer time.

I already took advantage of a really cool Valnetine’s Day offer from Lufthansa (100 Euro – round trip for two – that is crazy!) and booked a flight to Milan for August. I have the travel bug and I can’t get rid of it (not sure I want to either).

Of course one can’t travel the world on dreams alone, so I have to work as well. Besides the regular freelancing work, I also have a couple of ideas for new WordPress related projects that should help me not only fund my “need for travel”, but also leverage this crisis somehow and turn it into something useful for a change.

As you can imagine, there will be lots of things to share on this blog as well. Plus I definitely have to update my Portfolio with some recent projects and some of the ones that I’m working on right now. Then there are some other blogs and websites that I really want to update / launch on a regular basis. And did I mention photography is my newly discovered passion? We all know passions are fun, but can be expensive as well, right?

So yeah, definitely a busy, busy year for me, from a professional, touristic and personal point of view (got some personal “projects” lined up as well). I can only say thank you for subscribing, thank you for joining me in my journey and who knows… my trips might take me to your city someday and then we’ll meet for drinks! ;)

And don’t forget: work smart, work less, earn more, live more!