One thing after another

I’m taking a moment to moan.

“What’s new?” I hear you cry!

I know, I know, so much for the ‘Acknowledge one positive from every day’ goal in 13 things for 2013 (and I still haven’t told you what I decided to do for #13!)

Must fix the tiny text on that post. And the tabindex thing, as that’s intensely irritating. Anyway, where was I…

I’m just under a wee bit of pressure at the minute. Turns out that trying to raise 2 children, start a new ‘business’ & trying to fit a full days work in to max 3hrs of an evening don’t actually go that well together. Even worse, when something goes tits up as has done day after day recently – teething, cold, teething, another cold, more teething (and that’s just Oliver, let’s not get into Izz & her colds, irregular withholding and now bloody conjunctivitis too) – that tight squeeze, that just-about-grasping-on-to-sanity thing comes crashing down around your ears and there’s bugger all you can do about it.

I am so grumpy lately. Proper shouty grumpy, saying things in front of the kids I wouldn’t normally, and probably shouldn’t be saying (may include words beginning with F). I’ve said things TO the kids I wouldn’t normally say (stop bloody whining, just go to frigging sleep, etc etc).

I should be working now, obviously, but if I don’t take 10 minutes to sit down and ramble tonight I think I may explode. That can’t be a good thing.

I’ve a couple of projects both several months behind, poorly kids, Karl going through a major upheaval at work, I go days without adult conversation, and I can’t switch off at night. It feels quite strange to be complaining about a situation that many wish to be in: too much work. 2 beautiful, amazing, funny children. A partner who is still here after all these bloody years (although after making ZERO effort on Mother’s Day, he’s lucky about that one).

I could take on less work, turn things down, pass things on, but that’s not going to pay my bills, is it?

Still, it could be worse. And I think I’ve learnt more in the past 9 months of self-employment than I did in nearly 10 years as an employee, so that’s nice. Or something.

I guess what I need to do now is find that mysterious work-life balance. What is that again?

Posted on: March 12, 2013 · Category: WTF 6

Consolidation

I’m sat here with Isabel making noises in my face, a half-naked baby under my chair, two work projects several months behind for various reasons, another couple due to start any day now and an ever-increasing portfolio of websites in various stages of completion.

I’ve got a variety of blogs which are taking up time and space & with only 2.5 effective working hours in the day (when you factor everything I need to do in) I need to cut the cruft and focus on things that are going to earn me money. As such, some of my niche blogs will be merging into this one (where relevant). Projects too time consuming to work on properly (rev.iew.me springs to mind) will be found new owners and anything left over will be shut down.

(Unless anyone wants to do my work/pay my mortgage for me? ;))

Posted on: March 8, 2013 · Category: Misc 1

Financial review: February

Before I even look at the figures, I’m feeling a little more confident about this month. There were a few ‘cheats’ but I’ve mostly stuck to a £100 cash budget for everything. Let’s see what that tallies up to…

Joint account expenditure

Non-negotiable outgoings
Mortgage: £412.97
Childcare: £222.00
Energy: £99.00
Internet: £11.49
Phone: £60.61

[Read more...]

Posted on: March 7, 2013 · Category: Budgeting 5

Why are people idolising this picture?

I have seen this picture doing the rounds on Facebook recently, mostly among parents who hail it as the right kind of thinking, not sexist, none of this “boys is blue, girls is pink” crap (which ironically LEGO embrace these days, sigh):

lego

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like LEGO & I’ve talked about how it’s one of the few exceptions to my (albeit half-hearted these days) ‘no plastic toys’ rule. But I am really failing to see how this post is an example of a toy company getting it right.

Yes, it’s clearly a girl in the advert, but look at what she’s wearing. She’s dressed like a stereotypical boy. This advert doesn’t scream ‘gender neutral’ to me, it says pretty clearly that sure… girls can play, but only if they look and act like boys. I fail to see the revolutionary thinking there.

Posted on: February 28, 2013 · Category: Interwebs, Parenting 19

How not to do blogger outreach

I think I’ve probably mentioned before that I get a lot of PR / “blogger outreach” emails. There’s something about having squeezed a baby out of your nethers that makes companies think you’re happy to hawk their wares.

Most of these mails go straight to the bin. Either they’re generic “hi pls link our product” spam from a mass mail program or are from an agency that has picked my email from a list of mommy bloggers and hasn’t bothered to read my contact / PR page (it’s always obvious).

Rarely though do I get mails which, on the surface seem OK, but scratch away a little and you can see that they’re actually bloody awful. Case in point:

bad outreach mail

Let’s count the ways in which this fails:

  1. Misspelled my name – probably my biggest pet peeve (but at least they didn’t call me Jim…)
  2. Address from “Sandra” but mail headers say it’s from Ivan
  3. Empty compliments – since when has my site been approachable? People are usually complaining that my tagline puts them off!
  4. Bollocks about loving giveaways. I think I’ve done 2 over here?
  5. Wrong niche – I talk about parenting and household stuff primarily, not BS nutritional supplements
  6. Wrong side of the planet – why is a US based company wanting a UK based mum to promote them?

Blogger outreach. Is it really that hard to get it right?

Posted on: February 27, 2013 · Category: Interwebs 5