43 - Growing The Sorting Office

Hello there. Again its been a while since my last post. I'm trying something new you see. I realised that I am in charge. I've forgotten that a lot over the past couple of years (when I've been up til 2am for a self imposed personal project deadline and up again at 7 with the small ones) but I keep reminding myself now that I set the pace and its no longer a race. I'm spending time enjoying the journey of what I'm trying to do rather than race on to the destination and miss the scenery on the way. I'll be posting a roundup of the summer holiday trip rather than a few more posts as its September now and that was July (if only August hadn't been spent being poorly mostly...). First I want to tell you about something I've been working on.

For a while I've been wanting to better my blog. Make it more interesting and serve a little more as a resource and wider reading rather than a retrospective. I'm battling the time demons so I'm still not promising to post every day as I'm starting to realise that rather than getting easier when the boy started school, theres actually more work to be done. At the age of 4 he's already bringing homework back and reading as well as the rounds of play dates and birthdays starting a fresh. I digress... However, I have come up with a couple of labels/categories and already have a couple of posts written and ready to go!

Talking to...  - Other entrepreneurs mostly but lets see shall we?
Take a look  - This is where my jaw drops at something and then I share it with you.
Soul Matters  - Kind words. We all need them sometimes, even if they are from a stranger. Bring an open heart and mind for some occasional philosophical discussion too.
Kiddos - Their world and everything in it.
Word - What it says on the tin. Sharing origins and oddities of the written language.
Real Life - Because sometimes its good to share a bad day and help others realise, that in this blogosphere of perfection and crafted imagery sometimes things are actually a bit crap. Literally when you have kids - a nappy with an exploda-poo that is still exiting your babies bottom, both feet are kicking in it and you have no free hands that aren't already covered and guess what - you're out of wipes. Yes. I've been there. If it helps you to know, then I don't mind sharing.
Wear - Honestly, I don't prioritise what I look like on the school run in the mornings as much as I'd like to. Whilst I'm working late in to the evenings (nights) I'm pretty lax about getting up early enough to pretty up. Have I lost my sense of style? No way, I just defer the time to execute it to extra time in bed.
Make - If you are itching to get started on something to make head on over to my Makes board on Pinterest. I'll be posting my own attempts at some of those projects as well as some new ideas here.

Sound good? Stay tuned.

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42 - Conwy Castle / Catch-up

We visited Conwy Castle on our second day of holiday. It is both vast and perfectly placed and in many ways, quite humbling. The second image is taken from high up in the castle, what a beautiful vista to look out on.

I've been a bit lax lately on catching up on blog posts. Truth be told I've been a bit lax on lots of things business/work-life side and have enjoyed time out and spending summer holidays with my family.

Since Dominic turned up I've juggled babies and pregnancy and work to the point of finishing invites the week before having a baby in one case and having my foot bouncing a baby in a rocker whilst I'm working at my computer amongst others. I've been having a bit of a re-jig lately and am not too sure what my new life and business formula will look like as yet (we are looking at the feasibility of throwing it all in to run an eco indie camp site / venue and outdoors learning centre) but I'm enjoying the flexibility of both being my own boss (being able to take time out as it suits to count my beans and collect what I have together to evaluate it) and having had the foresight to decide to lead a moderate life to be able to take time out. I miss foreign holidays and travelling and nipping out to buy a new pair of shoes or splurge on cd's, I miss eating out more frequently than we do now and the freedom of two sturdy incomes but this past six weeks I've been pretty happy about making do with what we have and having a whole lot of family time and freedom. I've stopped trying to both have and do it all and where life is by no means perfect or without stress, it certainly feels good to not be trying so hard to live a double (sometimes triple) life all the time.

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41 - Holiday

We spent a week in North Wales at the beginning of the summer holidays. Its taken me this long to post about it. I have been laid up with a pretty savage chest infection for the best part of a month and am only just starting to feel better. Violin music moment over, I just wanted to add a foot note to the absence of new posts lately.

I have lots that I want to share. Lots of adventures had considering we only had a week and two of us were poorly (Dominic had the same thing I've had and coughed himself sick every night, I had the same trouble minus the sick, that an average night it's been taking around 40 mins for the coughing to settle when trying to sleep - yuk). I actually burst in to tears and had a melt-down on the beach of all places, it was that kind of poorly (anyone else had a melt-down in a public place they'd care to share?). Despite all that we found some really beautiful moments and have started to find a narrative that is more fitting of the life we want to carve out for our family than the one we have been living lately. It was always the plan to continue to adventure when we had kids but one thing and another has led us away from that path. We are slowly finding our way back home with it all. Some of the highlights are shown above and I'll be featuring more detailed posts over the coming week or so.

A couple of posts lined up for the coming week or two as well as holiday narrative - an interview with Andrea from Baker and Bell and some pictures from my birthday adventure getting to be Katniss Everdeen (even if only for an hour, sigh).

Hope you are all having a great summer holiday and managing to get the back to school shop out of the way without too much drama.

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40 - Explorers

We are heading off to the coast tomorrow for a week. I feel very fortunate that the weather is holding out and that our not very long at all drive to Wales may take us to a holiday that feels a little more further afield. This past week or so I've loved doing the school run and feeling like I've been exploring foreign lands (seriously, the dusty ground is a novelty round here). On the theme of exploring we are planning to tackle Snowdon whilst we are in that area (3,560ft alt) and I'm looking forward to that as its been a long time since we had any real adventures on our own (we'll be leaving the children with their grandparents for the day). I'm also looking forward to having mini adventures with the smalls each day too and have come up with a field explorer kit - which Dominic can't wait to get his hands on.



Feeling fully inspired by Moonrise Kingdom (seriously in awe of the list making and organisation skills of Sam and crushing on the style of Suzy) to be prepared for an adventure, I've curated a kit full of items that are great for camping (or a camp themed holiday) and exploring in natural surroundings. I have to say all the while I was also thinking "Adventure is out there!" and wanting to get a leather pair of aviation goggles on and put my thumb up (Up style).

You can have a go at compiling your own kit with a bug viewer, note pad and few other essentials or you can save yourself the trouble and buy one here.

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39 - Dream collaboration

mmm... skyscraper i love you - Tomato/Underworld

I featured in a post over at iamthelab.com (link here) on Monday and one of the questions posed was do I have a dream collaborator. I wanted to elaborate on my choices (having skimmed my answer for the post down significantly) and have written and re-written this post several times over.

I have gone over loving William Baker for his pure awesomeness, my long term love affair with Karl Hyde/Underworld who has provided for me on several levels for over a decade now and given me everything from typographic goodness to the soundtrack to my life and a few AMAZING festival/concert performances that have literally rocked my world. My respect for Victoria Beckham for standing for what she believed in/wanted and destroyed any stereotypical notions of herself to carve out a pretty great career doing what she loves and knows best to Vivienne Westwood. Who I love for creating one of my favourite dresses, for creating THAT dress in S&TC, for leading the way for so many years but mostly for her ethical views on fashion and the environment.

After a particularly awful day (two weeks) with my boy who seems to have turned in to someone else (and the baby who is no longer a baby who wants to be potty trained but just can't seem to muster up enough notice not to end up weeing on the chair/stairs/floor) it occurs to me that my real dream collaboration is my family, or at least the dream vision of them.

I want to make the transition from the daily grind to the stuff of dreams. To begin to write a better narrative for my home life, to work with my family at building the dream vision of having a family I had before I had children. I have no idea how to begin shaping this dream collaboration and life for myself. Every day is a lesson and an adventure.

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Do you work from home to enable you to look after your children? Have you managed to shape a dream scenario out of being a stay at home mama? I'd love to hear from you...

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