Momentous decisions (interspersed with the odd bit of vom)

I am back from my brief blogging holiday. Much has happened since I was last here. In fact I have a surfeit of blogging material which is almost worse than having nothing to blog about. What makes it worse still is that I'm trying to blog to the background strains of the Shiny Show (Give yourself a shiny!) because son 2 is poorly. This means hot and cold running television for him, and lots of being a slave to his whims for me.

So let's start with the aforementioned poorliness. Son 2 woke up yesterday a with a horrible cold and cough. By late afternoon this had morphed into a delightful vomiting thing. In fact yesterday ranked up there with my top favourite parenting days. Those occasions where you really wish there was more than one version of yourself or that you have several sets of long elasticated arms. Son 1 was bored, bored, bored and wanted to be entertained because he is apparently incapable of entertaining himself. Son 2 was poorly and wanted to be held. I had chores to do. It all reached a delightful crescendo at around 4.45pm where son 1 was yelling loudly that he was hungry while son 2 wanted to be held. I tried to make dinner while running back and forth to comfort sick child.

It quickly became apparent why he wanted comforting when he suddenly yelled: "Sick! Sick!" and did a gigantic projectile vom all over the rug. In a less than loving way, I pushed him so that he could continue to spew on the wooden floor instead. I asked son 1 to run and fetch a cloth from the kitchen. On his way to the kitchen he hit his elbow on something. I then had two screaming children, puke dripping off every surface in sight, stir fry burning and rice sticking to the bottom of a pan. It became a war zone triage scene. Attend to the most pressing things first. I raced to the cooker, hauled the pans offs, turned the plates off, grabbed armfuls of towels to mop up the vom, rubbed son 1's elbow on the way past, wiped up small sick child, mopped up floor, grabbed a bowl to catch further sick and sprayed liberally with dettol spray to avoid the rest of us getting sick.

I eventually managed to feed son 1 and get him into bed, I lay with son 2 catching vom for most of the evening and spent a sleepless night next to a small boy wanting a 'brink' (i.e. a drink) every few minutes. This morning he has managed toast, juice and medised and kept it all down. Hurrah. Meanwhile I've returned son 1 back to school and the all powerful lure of gogos has returned.

We spent the half term in Ireland. Thanks to my sister for having us. Ireland was sunny, windy and very, very cold. My children did their best to destroy my sister's house and we enjoyed several days on the beach bundled up in a billion layers of clothes. I used to find going to the beach wearing all of your wardrobe quite bemusing. Now I think I'd find a beach in which you wear only a swimsuit an incredible shock - and indeed revealing all of my copious volumes of flesh would be a shock for everyone else on the beach. So it's a good thing that we live in this less than tropical climate.

Two important things came out of our brief sojourn to Ireland. a) It has confirmed that I need to go on a diet and do more exercise. My sister who is part human, part stick insect makes anorexics look large so I looked like a small woolly mammoth in her company. And the fact that my trousers really don't do up anymore was the incentive I need to de-lard myself before the re-larding of Christmas begins. But this led to the second important thing b) I need to spend less time working and more time living (which includes having the time to exercise).

This is a biggie. And it might get all deep and introspective-like, but I need to get this down for posterity so that when I start to get sucked back into the work vortex, I can revisit this blog post and remind myself of what I'm really on this planet for.

You see since setting up my business, I've been trying to grow it. That's normal. That's how businesses become successful. But I've now asked myself, why am I working? What's it for? Part of the reason is because staying at home with small screaming children didn't hold masses of appeal and I wanted to do something other than wipe bottoms. And I wanted to make a bit of extra cash to spend on the occasional Emma Bridgewater teapot. But doing a good job on a few clients would give me that. Why do I have this feeling that I need to do more? I posted recently that I feel like a failure unless I'm pushing harder to achieve the next big thing. That's because I've been judging the successfulness of my life on how well my business is doing, rather than how well my life is going.

The things that are important to me are my children, my husband, my family, my community, cooking, writing, having time to exercise (even just stomping across the fields behind our house) and seeing friends. Running a global PR empire has never been a goal of mine. I'll readily admit that when I see other entrepreneurs featured in papers I feel pang of envy mingled with the inspiration to be like them. But I now know what it takes to be like that and it means sacrificing lots of the things that are important to me.

It's going to be hard to realign my brain so that I don't continually feel that I need to do more, and instead, do the things I want to do without feeling guilty about it. But I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to continue to work - and hopefully do a great job for my clients - but I'm not going to take on too much. I'm not going for global domination anymore. I'm going to attempt to reclaim my life. And that's quite a big goal for a grey Wednesday morning.

I only have one other thing to add to this convoluted blog post. Hooray for the American people finally getting it right! I've had my children glued to BBC News 24 (in between snatches of Cbeebies) as the US Presidential Election has run it's course, trying to explain to them the importance of Barack Obama being elected as the first black president of the USA. I've never explained the concept of race to my children. It's quite a tricky thing to do as children don't seem to see different races. People are just people to them. Which is lovely. And I feel awful for even making them aware of the differences. But one day they will be able to say that they watched as the first black man came to lead America. OR perhaps they won't remember it anymore than they will the delights of the Shiny Show. But at least I can tell them that they did.

Crisis of confidence

Disclaimer: Morbid navel gazing follows. Feel free to send me a virtual slap.


I would say that about once every two weeks I have a complete crisis of confidence. It's very annoying. It's even more annoying for my husband who doesn't understand why I don't believe in myself and why I can't just make a decision and carry it out. He feels that I dither. I do. Decisions are not my thing. By making a decision, you're effectively bidding farewell to the alternative, and that bothers me.


My most frequent crisis of confidence is about my business. Almost daily I feel as though I'm hanging on tight to the pendulum of a large grandfather clock as I swing back and forth about what to do with my work. Something good happens - like a fab piece of client coverage - and I feel as though I can conquer the world. I see my business being the next big thing. Possibly resulting in me being on the front cover of the Time magazine (probably not but it's good to have stretch goals).


And then the pendulum reaches its zenith and it swings back again. This usually coincides with me opening up a magazine and seeing one of my competitors quoted or a big feature that one of my clients should have been in and aren't. OR, I have a particularly bad day trying to juggle work and kids or I see friends skipping off to a keep fit class and coffee and I think, sod it all to hell in a handbasket, I want to jack it in and become a lady who blogs.


There is very seldom a middle ground. I regularly think that I would be infinitely happier if I just accepted that I should simply do a great job for a few clients, stay small, keep my brain ticking over, make some money and have time for life outside of work. But this just feels so stationary. So ordinary. So under-achievery. In every job, you get performance appraisals and goals to work towards and things to achieve. By just doing the same old thing year after year without trying to do more, I feel as though I'm not trying hard enough. And therefore am a failure.


This is a ridiculous way of thinking. I need to give myself a good shake and stern talking to. I need to view my life as a whole, with work just being one part of it. But it's always there, this feeling that I ought to be trying harder, that I'm not pushing myself, that I'm coasting.


Why can I not view the fact that I have run a successful business for two and three quarter years, that I've taught myself a vast amount, that I've made as much money as many main breadwinners make and that I've done this all while looking after two very young boys, having a house flooded, moving house, running a home and having a husband who's seldom here - as a worthwhile thing? Why does it still feel that I need to pull my finger out?


I don't know the answer. If anyone has any pearls of wisdom, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise just send me my slap and send me on my way.

Empty bins and face painting. So quite a good day really

Today was a good day for many reasons. Firstly, the absolutely rubbish recycling company that the not-very-intelligent West Berkshire council selected to pick up our recycling stuff (as part of their new, improved going green initiative), finally managed to pluck their heads out of their butts and collected our stuff. Hoo-bloody-rah! We haven't had it collected since the end of May. Four calls to the council later and finally, our recycling bins are empty again. Just as well as my efforts to be green were going seriously off the rails. However, I can now dutifully wash out the sticky peanut butter jar again. Lucky me.

I also had a remarkably successful day at work. There are some days when the term 'fannying about' springs to mind when you work at home on your own with just the snack cupboard for company. But today was not one of those. I powered through a mountain of stuff, had a number of press clamouring for a client story with very little effort on my part, got asked by a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BIG company if I'd like to be considered in their search for a new PR agency (yes please but also oh shit) and feel as though I am finally starting to feel as though I might be able to make some money to pay to Sainsburys soon.

What's more, today I tried my hand at face painting. I'm not particularly good with my hands. Which is why I leave doing the edging of walls when painting to my husband, the cutting of our children's hair to my husband, the sewing of name badges on clothes to my husband and indeed the making of our wedding programmes many moons ago, to my husband. Yet, in the privacy of my home with no-one to laugh at me, I painted my children's faces. One was spiderman. One was a tiger. Admittedly, spiderman looked like he had been mauled by the tiger, but my customers were happy. And now I feel virtuous and in need of a shiny good mother badge.

My children ate their vegetables and actually chose fresh fruit for their pudding. They managed to bath without soaking the entire bathroom. And by the sounds of it, have actually gone to sleep without asking for a drink, another soft toy, a bowl of cereal, a song, a book or to do a poo.

I should celebrate this glorious day with a bottle of champagne. Except that I do have to work tomorrow and I'm not supposed to drink during the week (although ever since husband has been away, I've been slightly less strict on this particular rule). And I need to iron. My ironing pile is a teetering, wobbling mess that will collapse into chaos any second now. And ironing and alcohol are not brilliant bed fellows. Not unless scorch marks are in fashion. But perhaps a glass won't hurt...

I need wine.

I am gagging for a glass of wine. I can imagine the sound of icy cold pinot grigio or chardonnay or to be honest any damn thing being poured into a glass. The first sip. The cutting coolness of it. Aah. But it's Tuesday. That's a day of the week. Not the weekend. And we're not supposed to be drinking during the week because

a) it costs too much
b) it's fattening
c) you're not supposed to have a million units of alcohol a week. Something to do with gout and liver disease.

So we have supplemented wine for tea. In my case, rooibos tea. And quite frankly, caffeine free tea is not a very satisfactory wine replacement.

I know that if I don't have any wine tonight, tomorrow morning I will wake up feeling clear headed (well as clear headed as anyone waking up before the birds can feel) and I will have the warm glow of satisfaction that I didn't succomb to what are worrying alcholic tendencies.

But it's been a not brilliant day. Not awful mind, just a bit out of sortish.

Firstly, I'm definitely having a career wobble. I shouldn't be surprised. I have one about once a month (hmm, I wonder what the cause could be?) I am my own worst critic and the slightest thing tends to make me question my abilities. Right now I am grappling with the 'do I scale up or do I stay small' dilemma. Both have pros. Both have cons. Both require me to remove my butt firmly from the fence which I've become quite comfortable sitting on.

Secondly, I have two small boys. Yes, I may have mentioned them before. Today, the younger son was apparently tired. Very. That means an awful lot of completely irrational behaviour coupled with loud yelling. And that's just me... ba boom. But the older one wasn't on fabulous form either - and given he currently sports a black eye from his younger brother head butting his cheekbone - he looks more thuggish than usual.

We had the fight over who was going to have the orange cup, for something new and completely different. Then we had the fight about who was going to play with which of the 4,000 plastic cars we own. Then we had the fight about who had said 'Snap' first. Son 1 hasn't quite mastered the art of losing so playing a game like snap is dangerous ground. Then son 2 refused to go for a pee. And then promptly peed his pants. Then I had to get dinner going and son 2 wanted to help. By that read, I peeled the potatoes. He used the peeler to lacerate my cookery book. I chopped the potatoes. He 'helped' by putting them into the pot of water .... dropping them from about 15 feet up so that the entire kitchen was drenched by the end of it.

Broccoli, a firm favourite in our house, became the world's most evil vegetable during today's dinner and son 2 also refused to eat the mashed potatoes he had helped make. For pudding, I offered yogurt. Cue major screams as yogurt doesn't include ice-cream or chocolate. Finally resigning themselves to boring old yogurt, they proceeded to fight about who was going to snap the tubs apart. Eventually the both pulled, ripping two of the tubs in half resulting in a yogurt explosion and cries of: 'That one's oogy. I don't want that one.' Obviously. So much for Gordon Brown saying not to waste food. Does the man have children? Real ones?

Anyway, I could go on about bathtime antics and the fact that the younger son caused the older son to smash his head into the toy box just before bed, but I won't. Because I'm going to go get some wine. I'll pretend it's Saturday. After all, it's Wednesday tomorrow which means I'm not working. Hurrah.