I need your help...

Last week was kind of rubbish. I have been feeling so frozen. So stuck in the headlights of the future. I have so much that needs doing but nothing driving me forward because I don't know which way to go, and thus I'm stuck in procrastination and pottering and I hate it. So I just thought: I'll write it here. You readers tell me what to do. Please.

The dilemma is my career. Or the lack of it, and the need for it. I'm sorry but this may end up being a long post! Stay with me if you can. I'll try to be concise (says one of the least concise people ever) but I need to set the scene (bonus material: you're kind of going to get my adult life story)...

Seventeen years ago I had my first born. I sat my A-levels while half-way through being pregnant with him. I turned down my place at Cambridge and decided to focus on being the best mother I could be, despite being young and single. I spent two years just mothering him and they were two of the best years of my life. I found myself and who I wanted to be. And I really loved being a mum.

Then, belatedly, I went to university to do the Geography degree, two years later than planned. The eldest and I lived with my parents, he went to the nursery where my mum worked and I commuted into town and what was, luckily, one of the best universities in the country. I loved my degree. I have always loved learning (I'm a bit of a swot). I worked really hard and got a First.

I had planned to stay on and do a Masters then a PhD and finally become a lecture. But some work I did in my final year got me a job offer and, with a child to support and no means of getting our own home otherwise, I had to do the right thing and accept it. I figured the Masters bridge was burned.

I worked for five years in town, in a variety of transport/sustainability/streetscene type jobs. I was pretty good at it and I enjoyed it enough (though not all the time), but it was never what I really wanted to do with my life. During this time I met and married my husband, a northerner, and we realised we'd need to move north at some point to be nearer his mother. The move would mean we could just about get by on his public sector income while I looked after our future children.

That's what we did: seven years ago we moved to the Peaks, I gave up working, and we had our second and third child. Being a stay-at-home mum was a very conscious decision, something I did for them as well as me. I have loved it. But the youngest has just gone to school, our finances are pretty dire, and I have to go back to work. I want to work. But I want to still have as much time with the children as possible.

I have worked a bit in the meantime. In the early days up here I did some part-time admin work for a year or so. For about six months between the second and third boys I was a childminder - I love working with children, but being pregnant and looking after three under-two's was tough. And this last year I've sewn curtains, cushions and blinds half time. You know me: you know I love to sew (and discovered sewing before our last boy was born).

So here are my choices (in current order of preference). Or yours, since you're choosing for me...

1. Perhaps that Masters-PhD-lecturer career path wasn't burnt down all those years ago? I would really love to do this, but there are the finances to consider, I'd need to do some admin work (ideally at the university) part-time, and there would be an impact on the children as I'd need to commute into (probably) Manchester to do it. How would I pay for it? How would I earn at the same time? My husband is usually home from work by 4pm (he starts at 7am) so they wouldn't need too much childcare but I'd have essays and reading to do most evenings. But I think this option is what my heart, soul and brain most yearn for.

2. Teaching. This has always been my back-up option. I know I would love to teach and would be really good at it. But I also know it feels a little like settling. And, most importantly of all, it's a highly time-intensive and stressful career. I want time with my children but the typical teacher does a 70 hour week for the first few years. I would hardly see them. Teaching gives you the school holidays but day-to-day it really isn't a parenting-friendly career any more.

3. Stick with the sewing. This was certainly the plan a year ago. I love it. I could work from home and fit my hours in around the children, so it's certainly the best option for them time-wise. But it's never going to bring in much money, certainly not enough for the eldest starting university, the mortgage, blah blah. It's increasingly looking unviable for these reasons. And my academic brain is pretty dormant.

4. Just find a regular admin type job that fits in with school hours, brings in extra money, and maybe the boys have to do a few days in after-school clubs. The first 3 options involve bringing work home with me but this would not, and that's a benefit to them. But I really, really want to be able to do a job I love for once. And this really wouldn't be it.

5. Go back to the transport world. I'd earn much more than option 4, though I'd be working full time and that would impact on the children. I'm experienced though out-of-touch, so I'd probably have to start on a much lower level than when I left seven years ago. And when I left I was so relieved! I really never wanted to go back to it. But maybe needs must?

What do you think? When I say decide for me, obviously I won't just do what you say, but your opinions and votes will, I hope, help me decide. 

I am a planner, and this is the first time in my life that I can remember being so stuck on a major life decision. I always need to know where I am and where I'm going and I just don't know what to do here. What's best for everyone, not just now but five years down the line when the kids are all older. And while I thought I could do the groundwork on several options at once, running them concurrently for much of this year and then deciding, it turns out that the lack of a plan instills a horrid, self-defeating inertia in me. So I think I really need to decide on one, and maybe keep another one or two as back-up options. You should know, also, that the list in 'order of preference' is a new thing: a week ago, I wouldn't have been able to rank them at all I was so stuck.

PS Option 1 and 2, and maybe 5, could seriously impact on my time to blog and read blogs. Does that matter? I love to write and I love this online world that's just for me. But perhaps the writing element of those three career paths would satisfy my writing needs anyway?

Right. Go! Answers on a postcard (or, for convenience, below in the comments section please!)...

On winning, instagram, and the pursuit of popularity

I resisted Instagram for several years but, in an attempt to get better at mobile photography, I started using it last summer. I'm such a convert. The photo (below) I took of my Thursday Breaktime  won a spot in Little Maldod's #mythursdaybreaktime roundup a fortnight ago. And I like to think I'm the sort of person unaffected by popularity or awards of any sort, but it turns out I am. It put a skip in my little heart that day.

I also published this picture of our winning May Queen window on Instagram. Our village has the longest lasting uninterrupted May Queen procession in the country (since 1928), and each year we enter the 'best dressed residential window' competition. Last year's won second prize, which was nice but didn't seem to affect me. This year's, on a space theme and featuring my sewn star garlands and the boys' homemade rockets, alien pictures and various space toys, won first prize. And again, to my surprise, I felt a swagger in my step. As a child I needed validation and as an adult I once turned my nose up against it. But it turns out that need is still there.

I'm working on some cushion covers for a competition, and it's my opportunity -although through random chance - to give someone else the feeling of winning. But I know, deep within, that it's also designed to validate me too - exposure, the number of people entering, eyeballs on this blog or my business site - all these things will be totted up in my head. Is this a bad thing? I'm not sure it is. As a writer, lovely though it is to write just for yourself, you have a symbiotic relationship with your reader. Can you really be a writer without a reader, or are you just a literary version of Schrodinger's cat? And as someone who sews for business, I do not exist without customers, and satisfied ones at that. I think it's possible to seek validation without decrying it as vanity, because it's an independent judgment of the value of your work, of the strength of the effort you've gone to and the result you've toiled for. And I can't deny that on a very basic human level, hearing someone else tell you that what you're doing is good, lovely, liked - or whatever - feels good.

And I originally planned this post as a quick one to let you know I can't actually take any photos at the moment as my phone's broken!

costume change

Hi-di-hi readers. Just a little message to tell you I'm all fired up on the blog front again, pinning and reading blogging tutorials like crazy, taking beginner's courses on html and photoshop (hence the above!!) and even going old-school and buying a book. Please bear with me for a week or so while I do some redesigning!

I have to tell you I'm so fed up with the design of this blog and I feel like I'm writing for me, the writer, rather than you, the reader. It's time to take things up a gear.

Motherhood and me-hood

Gosh, isn't this frosty photo just beautiful? My lovely husband took it. I think he's all kinds of talented.

 

It's kind of unrelated to this post, because I am going to have a grumble. Well, not a grumble per se, more a rambling, complaining bit of verbal vomit at the computer page, and then leave it there for all to read. Because sometimes it's better to spew it out and then just get on with things.

 

What I really love to do, wanted to do, revel in, is be a stay-at-home-mum. Oh I wish there was a better, grander name for it because however you word it, it always sounds a bit like that box you tick on a career list - at the end - that says 'none of the above'. But it's the biggest, greatest, most important job on the planet. Think how many grown-ups ruin their lives or other peoples' because of how their mind was messed with in childhood. Think of all your happiest, largest memories from childhood and how your parents helped make them.

 

Once upon a time I was a stay-at-home single mum to a lovely little boy. Then he went to nursery and I went to university, and fast-forward a few years and I was the full-time working single mum of said boy. He had a lot of family around and he didn't miss out too much but I dreamt and dreamt of being able to take and collect him from school every day. I dreamt of more children, happy families and a life spent immersed in the joy and wonder of their childhood. I knew there would be tough days, exasperated days, but I knew it would be the greatest pleasure of my life to be there with them as they grew, and one of the greatest pleasures of their little lives too.

 

Here I am living it. Husband, two little ones, and the big one too. We moved away from the big smoke in part so that we could live our dream of me bringing up our babies. I love it just as I thought I would. I am fulfilled by it just as I thought I would be.

 

There's a but. Oh, you just knew there would be a but, didn't you?!... In the time I had to stay at home with these little marvels, I knew I had to search for the vocation that would fulfil me once they head on to school and don't need me at home as much. I'm just not going to be one of those ladies who lunch while their primary children are being schooled elsewhere, even if it wasn't for the fact that I need to earn my keep.

 

I found it. It's sewing and writing. Ta-dah! But I found it too early, as I'm still three or so years away from my youngest going to school. And I still love the mothering just as much. I don't want to stop doing it in order to sew or write. I want to do it all! Oh, frustration!

 

I'm not sure how some of these other bloggers out there, mothering and crafting away, are doing it. I'm pretty sure a number of them have children who don't wake until at least 7am and they get up at 5 for a good bit of sewing first. Well, my boys wake around 6 and I need my sleep. I've tried the 5am thing. Within two days I'm running on empty. Some of them have children who are all tucked up in bed by 7pm and then spend their evenings stitching. Well, my boys are usually settled by 7.30 but then I'm really tired and my husband wants to actually see and interact with me, and I'm lucky if I have the time and motivation to spend more than two evenings a week sewing. I get some sewing done in the day most days, but I'm forever stopping to soothe arguments, put visors on toy firemen, remove toy horses from the sewing machine or, usually and eventually, resorting to sewing with a child on my lap who really likes the look of that sharp, sharp needle.

 

I've written about this before - I'm getting déjà vu - but with Christmas approaching and a mountain (I am not kidding you) of sewn gifts to complete by then, while the ironing pile becomes its own mountain and the children bounce off the walls... well, it's really coming back into focus.

 

This is all very ironic as I'm spending what could be a sewing evening writing on the computer, but sometimes you just have to spew it out before you can get on with things.

 

And look at lovely photos your husband shot in order to remind yourself of what really matters in life, of the simple beauty of it all, and of the outdoors you're missing while revelling in that sharp, sharp needle working its magic.

 

And hope that someone out there has some fabulous advice to impart that doesn't involve a lifetime of exhausting 5am starts or never seeing your husband. (Shameless plea for useful comments)

Return to sender

Remember me? Yes I was the one who was blogging then abruptly stopped.

 

It was summer. We were busy with (very) occasional sunshine, holidays, children whooping it up (usually in opposite directions).

 

Plus there are some other reasons.

 

I have this sort of thing which is like a variation on post-traumatic stress. I don't want to write about it, certainly not here (which is my happy place), but it rears its ugly head every now and then and my life shrinks down to the very basics. Blogging is not a basic. And so I disappeared for a while, and climbed back up from the blip, and now I'm back again.

 

Also, I started blogging because, in my naivety, I thought it might be a route to getting my writing back up to scratch and getting published. Writing is embedded in my heart. I have to do it. And I also want to be read and paid for it. But in the blogging world I'm learning that that ship has passed. When the blogosphere was less crowded you really could get noticed this way, but now there are thousands upon thousands of blogs. Being so late to the party, I don't think it's going to pluck me from obscurity.

 

So when I stopped blogging, I found it hard to find the motivation again that sent me here, to my little obscure corner of blogland. I'm not naive enough any more.

 

I've decided to blow a raspberry at that original motivation. I just like writing. I hope you read it but it's got to be about the journey, the process of writing, rather than the end of getting published. Just because dreams don't usually come true, it doesn't mean you should stop dreaming.

 

So I've returned. Hello again. And it's an apt time, because September is known as the return month, the time the summer's frivolity is left behind and routines are returned to. I know winter comes at the end of the year but I think summer is the true end. Once that peak has been reached, we're all ready to turn the page and settle back into the earth.

 

I really, really love autumn. You're going to be hearing a lot about it on here soon!

 

Thanks for having me. x

Baby steps

What's new pussycat? Well, the Tiny One went from these...

to these...

Yes, his first pair of shoes. Time's just rolling on by, and I feel like a twig in floodwater some days. Whoosh.

The Tiny One also had his first swim at the weekend (tears to smiles in five minutes) while the Little One went in for the first time in over a year (and finally likes it). The Big One wouldn't come. He was having a teenage moment. Usually I just let those moments roll over me, but this time it was sad. He would have loved it. He used to love it. And the two littlies would have loved him there. So I say, "next time" (or else!)

In other news, tonight was a sewing night, but here I am still at the computer. So much for rolling back the blogging stuff: I feel sucked in again. And I don't seem able to stop writing, thinking about writing, reading, searching for inspiration and being inspired. It's hard to roll back on something that feels like it's doing you good. But the balance is better this time round.

I've got a blog redesign up my sleeve but I need the lovely husband to give me a hand with the photography and the design side (he has a good eye, and I need a sounding board). Watch this space!

In which I tell the truth

It has been very quiet around here lately...

Too much to do, too much mess. Random, metaphorical messy straw photo above to illustrate this.

Are any of you still out there? I have a few truths to tell you...

• My husband has been on crutches for several weeks. It has been like having another child to look after, only worse as I've had no one to help with the real children. Things are getting better now, but it was such a full-time job that the blogging experienced an emergency stop.
• I hated it at first. I missed the writing for the creativity and for the moments it gave me to feel so truly myself. I missed the reading of everyone else's blogs to feel inspired and to feel in touch with a community of like-minded crafters and writers out there.
• But then something changed. I had been feeling so overwrought with things to do each day. I had been feeling that each role in my life was hitting a ceiling of 80% success and I didn't have the time to devote to anything to do better. I hate feeling unsuccessful. I hate not feeling on top of things.
• I think that maybe, with showing you the best of me and my life on the blog, I neglected to tell you the truth of the neglect in my real life. Maybe that's a bit of a calamitous way to put it. But some days I was fighting so hard just to get the breakfast things washed and tidied up before dinner time. I'm not kidding. And it wasn't rare. Don't even get me started on the ironing mountain, the dust graveyard on all the shelves, the dinner I didn't defrost in time, and the constant, constant forgetfulness and breaking of promises.
• Without the reading and writing in the blogosphere, suddenly I've been having some really good days. Some on-top-of-things days. Some 90% days. It's been so good.
• One day I made a banana cake, gardened with the boys, tidied the house, made time for my friends, and made a batch of chutney. In one day! I suddenly felt like I fitted into my skin. I had stopped drowning in all the things I had to do and could never catch up with. I started to swim. Heck, some days I even started to surf!
• But I do still miss it, this writing. In an ideal world, I would be able to do it all. I think that ideal world might come into being once the Little One is at nursery part-time. And then, knowing me, I'll probably wish I didn't have time to do it all and instead had him at home with me all the time, living back in the chaotic glory of having two darling little ones around.

So here's what I propose... no more posting most days, or even every other day. How about once or twice a week, a big newsletter-style catch-up? It's only a few months until the Little One goes to nursery and then we'll reassess. What do you think?

And as to the reading of all the other blogs... well I'll get back to that at some point. I like to read them for their own sake.

Obviously reading and commenting around the blogosphere helps generate readers here. But I don't want to be a salesman any more. If you happen to find me and like what you read, please do read on, please do come again. I will try to be good to you; I will certainly be welcoming. And I can promise you I prefer the quality of faithful reader-friends to the quantity of capricious reader-acquaintances.

Things are changing around here. That 80% ceiling is coming crashing down.

A list for 2012

I am a little list-obsessed. Having written one for what I'd achieved (or otherwise) in 2011, I feel I ought to set myself a bit of a plan for 2012. You could call these plans resolutions, but they're a little less stern than that. Intentions, maybe?

• Family - They are always top of my list. And though there are eight other items below this one, I will try to remember not to resent the time I spend giving to my family when I may have had hopes to be working on one of my other 'intentions'. My husband is my rock, my heart and my home. I am still giddy about him, eight years in; and so I hope to still have butterflies this year. My boys are my joys and, as we struggle through adolescence, potty training and emerging willfulness with each in turn, I hope to keep counting my biggest blessings, one, two, three. Last but no means least, my parents and brothers. Absence has made the heart so much fonder. They have given so much to me, and I hope to rebalance the scales in 2012.
• Writing - My soul is type-written. 2011 brought me back to it, and I hope to take it for a long walk in 2012. I'd like it to be read more, for my voice is not mute. Hence the blogging. Will I write anything else than the blog this year? I hope so, but I'd like to let that idea jiggle around in my mind for a while before I set any specific goals.
• Sewing - I was in the flush of new love in 2011. In 2012 I'd like to build a long-term relationship with my sewing machine. Sew, sew, sew more. Sew gifts. Sew for others. Sew for me. Sew for the house. Sew quilts for the boys. Sew to sell. Learn, learn, learn more. By the end of the year, I'd like to have had my own stall and opened an etsy or folksy store. We can but dream.
• Cooking - Well I've always loved this, but I want to make more myself (especially since the revelation of processor-made pastry) and more for the littlest boys. And I'd love to delegate the stove to the Big One one night a week, since he shows the kernel of such enthusiasm. But I have yet to ask him!
• Baking - The problem with cake-making is it lead to cake-eating! So I hope to bake more for others to eat, and bake more savoury goods (I have dreams of a breadmaker, since my tiny hands and wrists are too wimpish for regular kneading). And gosh darn it, I will get my piping bag out of its packaging and decorate a cupcake before the year is out!
• Making - Keep making my cards, and actually get good at it! If I could make them on time, well that'd really be something. Make more decorations to mark the seasons, celebrations and patterns of the year. And of course I'll be making my gifts, but that's covered under 'sewing'.
• Nesting - This house, just over a year in, needs some window-dressing! It was home from the moment we first turned the keys in the door. The painting can wait (no time). The rotting window frames can wait (no money). But the odd cushion, quilt or curtain will, I hope, have the same effect as a blush of red lipstick on an un-made-up face.
• Nature - Get my footprints in more mud, paths and trails. Get my head in more wind, sky and weather. Convince the Little One to walk in the rain! Bring the outside inside more - my vases look embarrassingly naked too much of the time.
• Nurture - I will nurture my family (see first point!). I need to nurture my friends more. There has to be time to pick up the phone. My close friends are like sisters to me now, and, surrounded by boys as I am, I need more of their oestrogen in 2012. And to nurture myself? Is there time?! If there ever is, I hope to use it wisely. And to read a book, what luxury!

I hope we all make it to the end of 2012, and that I can look back and above all else find I was happy and I made others happy. And if I've found my vocation (sewing? writing?) and found a way to make a living from it, then so much the better.

A few words

I feel I am holding something back from you. All my primary-school years I wanted to be an artist. All my secondary-school years I wanted to be a writer. All my adult years I've thought the writer in me was a dream, and I had to live in reality.

This year I've been dreaming. Who says your work has to be a 9-5 that pays the bills and slowly drips on the fizzling-out fire of your hopes? That work stays in one box, and your talent, your joys and interests go in another? I want to have a vocation. I want to find the things I love to do, get better at them, and then find a way for them to sustain me through life - and not just financially.

So I ought to tell you that when I write this blog I'm letting the writer out of me. She's a little rusty. She's a little war-torn. But she's a dreamer.

Post-script: I have to say though, I read quite a lot of other blogs (see list, right), and they're all talented word-smiths. The writers field is as crowded as the flower meadows at this time of year, and I'm not sure if I'll ever grow tall enough to show my head at the height these other blogs reach. Still, I have to be true to myself and so I'm going to keep typing and see where it takes me.

Photo courtesy of my lovely brother