Bit by bit. Little by little. The art of re-shelving head space!

About six months ago I can remember putting my two babies to bed and returning to the kitchen to sit with and chill with my husband as he cooked dinner. We got chatting and I ended up in tears realising how sad and very much lost I was feeling. As a result, I tried to justify to him what a good idea it would be for me to leave my job and stay at home to look after our boys until they both started school. This would have been in two years time. The sinking feeling that I had made a HUGE mistake going back to work when I should have been at home enduring every possible moment with them was eating me up inside. My job wasn't satisfying me and the pay was poor, why would I want to stay when I could be at home with them instead? Perhaps if I was fulfilled and saw a future in it then things would have been different but as far as I could see straight, it wasn't worth the sacrifice of being without them.

Knowing me too well, not working didn't seem like a sensible option for my other half and I was encouraged to think seriously about handing in my notice without anything else to go to. A little while later I did anyway (WOOPS!!! MY BAD!!!) and promised I would dedicate myself 110% to setting up a small business which I could manage from home, allowing me to have a much better work/life balance. Something that I am fully aware many parents strive for every single day. It's an ongoing battle which we struggle with constantly BUT a battle worth fighting for because we want to GET IT RIGHT! It wouldn't be right for me to not work, as I explained in my first blog post, I do need to keep motivated and active. If challenged and creatively stimulated I love to work and looking at the bigger picture, to step away from work altogether for 2 years would probably be damaging to me as an individual. I have learned that there is no harm in admitting that as much as my children are my number one priority in every aspect of EVERYTHING, my self identity is crucial, not only for me but for them as well.

Pumpkin Pie Face

Whadda a guy! :)

Everything has been going very well. In summary, I had a client pretty much straight away and I am delighted with the strong relationship we now have, I believe they are happy with my work and I am really enjoying it. Doing the general marketing on and offline for the Pelican Fish and Chip Restaurant in Barnstaple, pelicanfishandchips.co.uk, (website soon to change!). I have created my first Marketing Strategy and a rolling Social Media Plan. I have negotiated a weekly radio competition giving them excellent coverage and there are some events coming up too. Brilliant. Some beautiful artwork produced to entice the little customers produced by my incredible friend Dora Wright too, you must check out her work (honeybunnyandpumpkinstationery.blogspot.co.uk).  I set up my office on the top floor of our home which became my 'Hive' for concentration, it was a godsend and I felt like it was all ticking along nicely!!!

Absolutely love this happy Pelly! By Honey Bunny & Pumpkin Stationery, commissioned by the Pelican Fish and Chip Restaurant in Barnstaple. 

NOW what happened next was entirely circumstantial. Plans that were made prior to my deciding to start a business have caught up with me basically! Alas, I should have known it wouldn't all be plain sailing! A holiday with my mother to Sorrento, Italy came just as things were picking up. Which was totally incredible and I enjoyed it so much. We had the best time together, what a laugh! I'm very lucky to have a friend for a Mum. However, finding my feet after I returned was harder than I had anticipated. Obviously wanting to catch up on family time and embrace my 'abandoned by mother' children with all the love and time that I could give. Despite that actually they didn't even really care, they loved having boy time with Daddio. Next, during my absence my office space became a building site, something completely unavoidable. Yip, my savior space is under dust and furniture and grubby mess and my concentration just doesn't engage in there anymore. So, somehow with that my inspiration had taken a thump in the face.

Me and my gorgeous Mum. 

WAIT THERE IS MORE...Earlier in the year I committed to directing a musical for the amateur dramatic society I belong too. Atlantic Coast Theatre. I am so excited to be taking on this role and to have the opportunity however it is a big task. It's moving speedily towards auditions now and the weight is getting heavier and heavier. FINALLY last week I travelled up to Edinburgh to attend a weeks training course, a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing. Very very intense and before I went I didn't feel prepared at all. In fact I was experiencing the most horrendous headaches...probably from that weight on my shoulders getting more and more significant!!! Now that it is complete I am so pleased that I went, but with an exam to sit in a few weeks, I have some serious graft to do!

To cut a long story short, this morning I hit a hard place. Life is obviously full on with two small children at the best of times, especially with  a husband working away frequently. If I am honest it's bloody lonely as well. Really lonely. Today was nursery day and I am ashamed to say that walking the two happy chappies down the road I was hiding tears beneath my sunglasses. Everything was crashing down from inside of me. My head space collapsing. Still excited from last nights Halloween activities, my eldest who will be 4 in February couldn't stop asking questions and jumping for glee every time he spotted a shriveling pumpkin on the neighbours doorsteps. I could barely muscle the energy to answer him. I felt very much like a sinking pumpkin myself.

Super sad pumpkin face.

When I got home I decided, this is OK, it was never going to be easy and there are things that should have been done differently. I have an exam to revise for, a house to keep together, a business to grow., THE SHOW MUST GO ON...BUT most importantly, I have two humans to take care of. This just won't do!

So what did I do??? I mopped...I tidied, I mopped some more, I cleaned the windows and unpacked my suitcase from last week which has been left abandoned on my bedroom floor for the last few days. THEN I went to my dear friends workplace where she had offered me the use of an empty office, here I could concentrate. What a difference. I actually focused, made lists and crossed things off lists and made some more. I SPOKE TO FRIENDS and said..."I cant do this without help" and they reassured me...Thank god for friends. I cleared space in my overly cluttered mind. Bit by bit, little by little I re-shelved. The grimy floors in the house were taking up space so I put them in a box and shelved them. Then I found a new hive and put my drifting mind into another storage container and filed that away, unpacking my suitcase...consider it archived. Making lists was like erecting shiny, new, very much needed storage space inside my tired head. And getting some work done was like putting clear labels onto all of those things. Cuddles before bedtime and having them fall asleep on me was me switching off the storage cupboard light and saying..."Good night, sleep tight, tomorrow is another day!". This is what I like to call the 'art of re-shelving ones head space'. Something that I think Ikea should be taking me up on!

Bit by bit. Little by little. 

SO why oh why have I written this despairingly awful post??? Because, like the mopping, and the unpacking and list making, It feels good to clear space in ones head. I needed to vent! Apologies! It is OK to hit hurdles during the startup process of a business and it is OK to not always have your s*** together. Nobody said this was going to be easy. CRIPES it is OK to hit hurdles and find life hard even during general day to day stuff.  This morning was crap, but I've bounced back, and I will continue to do so, because I am the eye of a Tiger!!!...OK...TOO MUCH!!!

Social Media Dependency...#hashtaghashtag

On Saturday night I dropped my phone in my old office, the bathtub. As it slid under my tired mass I admit retrieval was not as swift or as graceful as it should have been. Alas, by the time I airlifted it from the depths of epsom salts and frantic ripples...it was too late. The words of Monty Python legend John Cleese seeped into my frustrated head "It's passed on...It is no more...It has ceased to be...". Never mind, It was going to happen at some stage. Since then I have rekindled a relationship with my old phone which is absolutely useless so I am spending a lot less time on social media than I normally do. I'll admit it's been tough but i'm coping OK. I'm definitely doing better than I was at the end of last week...

I love my Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp etc etc...With a husband away a lot and family and friends across the globe, it makes staying in touch easy and fun! I realise that I have become a bit of a social media "whore" for want of a better word. Staying connected is a part of my life and actually fills my evenings with company, albeit digitally. This week, practically phoneless, I have realised how my life involves a lot of storytelling. I love to tell stories and to engage people in them, making people smile and ultimately making them laugh. AND yeah...OK, i'll put it out there, it makes me feel good when I get a healthy response from something I've posted! I feel like a numpty admitting that, but I do! I am not one of those that uses social media to offload how I am feeling, I don't seek attention through people feeling sorry for me. If i've had a crappy day or if someone has upset me I wont turn to Facebook to be a shoulder to cry on. That's not how I tick... There are people who treat social media as a means to express their Eastender'esque life dramas by revealing fairly personal content about themselves and situations that are occuring, in their lives. That's fine, knock yourself out! Personally I tend to back away from that...However, I do like to entertain. Or at least try to entertain and create small, positive and when possible, meaningful narratives...

This is Social Media GOLD...It's a baby...on a Skateboard! People go mad for this kind of material! Ultimate 'like' magnet!

Over the past few weeks I have been talking to a lot of people about how my new company eHive is about helping businesses to tell stories online about their product or service which will engage with the public. Stories which entice, interact and ultimately sell! That's business! But it's about me helping people to build their work into online communities that stand out within a much larger online community being the t'internet! It's no easy thing. There is no avoiding the fact that life, for so many of us,  is jam packed, it's against the clock and it's online. Whether on our phones, our smart TV's, iPads or computers...The world has become, and continues to become even more so...DIGITAL! We have become a culture in which we can't go to the loo without glancing at our phones to see if we have missed anything despite the fact that we checked it 30 seconds before. Sitting down and watching a film from start to finish without glancing at our mobile devices 100 times is a thing of the past! Because we have forgotten the fact that it is OK to not 'like' or reply immediately! Our attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter and short...INSTANT INSTANT INSTANT...EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE INSTANTLY AND SPEED IS GOOD!!!FASTER INTERNET, FASTER DOWNLOADS, FASTER BATTERY CHARGING...I wonder if to save time we will evolve to start talking in hashtags. #goodtoseeyou #mustdash #PMme...But seriously, what are we afraid might happen if we turn our phones off for a couple of hours... DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN... Will we miss the latest trend? Will we become social outcasts!!! #OMG #itsnotevenworththinkingabout!!!...I digress...my sincere apologies...

SO, for business, engaging with people with short, snappy posts using lots of imagery is a really effective way to interact and advertise your product or service. The fact that we are using the digital world to advertise our lives as well...a social fusion of likes, shares, hashtags, selfies, dating... BLOGGING and all the rest of it is something which, when you think about it is really quite odd but ever so addictive. I would even go as far as saying that we are becoming dependent on it. The irony of it being called 'Social Media' when actually it is probably taking us further and further away from being social. I choose whatsapp/snapchat to communicate with my friends and family over picking up the phone to call them 90% of the time. I actually hate speaking on the phone...is that because I have evolved this way? I was 14 years old when I got my first mobile phone...16 years of text communication must have impacted on me somehow. I wonder what is next...transportation from one device to another...how cool would that be...

JIMINY CRICKET!!! I am not saying that any of this is bad. Heck! I am in the midst of setting up a digital marketing business! This post is more of a self observation, I am in the web of social media in a very BIG way just as millions and millions of others are. Social Media is life as we know it and there is a very fine line between online advertising (business) and social media. No wait, let me rephrase that, Social Media is business!...To some of you, you will find that comment quite depressing, to others you will probably just think..."Yeah? And?".

An example of the classic Selfie! I was sat in the car waiting for my husband and for some reason felt it was a good opportunity to take a photo of myself...waiting for my husband...in the car...???