Running your own small, flexible business from home, to fit in with still being a full time, stay at home mum should be simple, shouldn’t it? Having biggish ideas to expand the business and be able to afford that extra caravan holiday in the summer as well as at Easter shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

Unless, of course, you have five children and a husband living at home and constantly demanding your attention, have a house that still hasn’t learnt to clean and tidy itself, dinner that hasn’t learnt to cook itself, have commitments to the PTA and the church, and are still trying to sort through the boxed remnants of a past life destroyed in a house fire two years previously (possessions only-fortunately no loss of life).

Ok, maybe then it’s not quite so simple…

Monday 9 February 2015

Getting Back to Normal



It’s a beautiful day out, the birds are singing in the sunshine and it almost feels like there’s a hint of spring in the air. It’s only the last stubborn remains of the snow on the top of the hills that still shows just how cold it’s been this last week. I’m getting very frustrated now with my lack of energy, and I realise how glad I am that while I was so poorly last week my mind was also away with the fairies!

I managed to get up and down stairs a few times yesterday afternoon, so now I’m left alone in the house today at least I don’t feel totally trapped. I’ve already been down and put the shirts in to wash, and made myself some toast, and by the time I got back upstairs I was well and truly ready for a sit down!! I’ve got a fair number of bits I want to get sorted on the computer today, which I can do sitting on the bed, I think I’ll concentrate on those today rather than spending much time downstairs as I know I’ll just be tempted to start cleaning up the bomb-site that’s waiting for me down there!

I’ve taken a photo of the emerald green polka dot fabric I bought for my St. Patrick’s Day dresses, and now I need to get this one added to the site too. The photo doesn’t do justice to the lovely colour of the cotton, so I may have to play around with the colour before putting it online, as at the moment it comes across as more of a sort of khaki colour- not very Irish! One of the auto-correct options the computer suggests when I click edit seems to match the fabric perfectly, so I change the photo and get the description written up and onto the website.

With my new dress added to the site, I take a look at the outstanding orders I’ve currently got. I’m not very far behind in terms of turn around times, but having just lost an entire week I’m aware that there will be people expecting parcels to pop through their doors any day now, and I’m just not ready to get any sewing done yet. I managed to get my head together long enough to email a couple of customers on Friday as they had specifically asked for their items by the weekend- fortunately they’ve been very understanding and haven’t asked for refunds, but now I need to keep ahead and just warn the other customers of the delay caused by my having been poorly.

I’ve got two other jobs lined up for doing today- one needs more thinking about, and that’s a re-vamp of the website. My current design is looking a little dated, even to me, but more importantly it’s a design that the website hosts no longer offer. I found this out at Christmas when, having had a nice Christmassy background for the festive season, I then had trouble changing to something plainer for January, and thought I was going to have to show my Christmas tree all year round to my customers!

The website hosts have a nice modern range of designs to choose from, all with exotic sounding titles, and none of which look like they’ll suit something as small and insignificant as a doll’s clothes online shop. I manage to narrow the possibilities down to three or four, but I really need to see my store on them to see how they’ll work. I’m worried that even trying one will block me from going back to my original design, even only temporarily, so I decide it’s probably best to leave this for today and go back to it tomorrow when I have more time.

By now my eldest daughter is home after a shorter than expected shift at work, and its nearing time for my littlest to be brought home from school- the secretary’s sorting her out a lift today as Mike can’t get home in time to pick her up, and I still don’t have the strength to get all that way and back!

With my afternoon rapidly disappearing, I need to get on with the second of my two jobs, and this one is probably most important of all- wrapping my littlest girl’s birthday presents for tomorrow! Half an hour later there’s a nice temping pile of pretty pink presents hidden under the bed, and I’m all set for my family to start arriving home from work and school- something I really missed being a part of last week, and which I hopefully won’t miss out on again for a very long time!
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