Bank Holiday Drivel

Even though I technically had nothing to get up for and an empty house to wake up to, I still set my alarm for 8am because I didn’t want to waste the day! I’m getting used to my morning cuppa in bed mind you and I may have to keep that tradition going!! Anyway, I needed to get into the workshop early because I had eleventy hundred emails to reply to, orders to make & package, my stock boxes to unpack properly … plus a 3 hour round trip to collect some wax from a supplier who took pity on me on a Bank Holiday Monday! It felt good getting up early and it felt good to clear some backlog at work.

For very selfish reasons I have thoroughly enjoyed my freedom and I am now almost gutted that it’s the last night before they all come home! It has been good being able to plan my day and what I want to do without worrying about it fitting into somebody else’s schedule. Selfish yes because life like that doesn’t exist when you have a family!

I think I have made really good use of the time with work and with my clean up at home too! I’ve made some huge major decisions that I have procrastinated over for far too long and I’m feeling positive.

Now this is weird …..

Hub left with the kids at 10.30 this morning. I got straight on with cleaning the house, had a luxurious long shower with absolutely no interruptions, got dressed at my own pace without tripping over children, had a quick flit into the supermarket to get some bits & pieces and went into work. Bliss …

And then I came home after work to an empty house.

Even before I drove around the corner I was thinking I miss them. I actually miss the lot of them. Normally on a Saturday afternoon when I get back from work, before I have even put a foot through the door, Nathan calls out HELLO (without looking up from his computer but he’s the first to call out!), swiftly followed by Megan’s HELLO buried somewhere in the depths of her room … then Hub will come trundling down the stairs from where he’s been up there on his computer and come and say hello.

Today it was quiet. It was weird!

I’m going out for a meal with my mother and her friend tonight. I’m looking forward to it – no time pressure, no stress or hassle … and trying not to think about coming home to an empty house again later. I’m not sure I like all of this uninterrupted peace and quiet after all!!

So near yet so far

Number One news – Megan is coming home tomorrow! I pick her up at 7pm … I’m sure it will be 7.30pm by the time we’re out of there after she has done all of her goodbyes … and then she’ll have excitedly told me about absolutely everything by the time we’ve driven home!! I’ve missed her! It’s been nice in a way to spend so much solitary time just me and Nathan and he’s been great – hardly had to RAAAHHH at him at all this week!

Number two news – well it’s not news as I mentioned it yesterday, but OMG I am so looking forward to it that it’s worth re-iterating!! Three days and three nights of sanctuary when hub takes the children down to Cornwall to stay with his family. 72 hours of complete and utter sanctuary and pure unadulterated ME time! Ooooh thinking of it as JUST 72 hours makes me not want to waste time sleeping!! Too much to do!!

72 hours of solid …

• Me time. Nobody else to worry about, dish out ADHD meds to, make meals for, force to brush teeth/hair or wash or anyone else to even remotely consider. Totally selfish time for ME ME ME.
• Nobody hassling me about whether I have eaten today or not. Yes people I eat, I just don’t restrict myself to set mealtimes and don’t always feel hungry at 6pm when the rest of the farm my children demand feeding! Yeah okay so Mum will probably phone and ask, but that’s also probably why she’s taking me out to dinner on Saturday night too!! I eat when I am hungry and I drink a butt load of water - it’s how I’ve lost weight recently too (well, that and stress!)
• CLEAN HOUSE! This will be the most noticeable thing of all I think! I’ll scrub the house top to bottom when I get back from loading the car up on Saturday ready for Ford market on Sunday… and it will then STAY clean until the masses descend back here Tuesday late afternoon!

Anyway to change the subject … well, actually, it IS the subject – or, the title of my post anyway. So near yet so far. It seems to be the story of my life right now. I feel like I am constantly battling and constantly struggling for so very little in return and my emotions run so high on a day to day basis that it’s almost like I am THRIVING on the stress and like I can’t function without it.

I need to change that – and soon.

Life is a rollercoaster? Yer not kidding!

I need to be somewhere I can let rip, break and smash things, and above all just SCREAM and CRY and throw things that will land with a satisfying S*M*A*S*H as they shatter into eleventy hundred pieces. I need to be somewhere where it doesn’t matter if I look like crap with tears streaming down my face, where it doesn’t matter if I can’t be bothered to get dressed or brush my hair and where nobody knows me … well apart from my friend Lou. I need her to be there. She and I haven’t known each other that long really, but she tells me the truth – not just what she thinks I might want to hear.

Nowhere is sacred right now. It used to be that work was my escape from the daily monotony, and then the twenty minutes I had before picking the kids up from school once I got in from work was always such bliss! I’d have enough time to watch a bit of Jeremey Kyle (just to prove my life isn’t as bad as theirs because at least I know who the father of my kids is!) and have a cup of coffee in solitude before the masses descended on me!

I don’t get out of the house often enough to have a real “social life.” I have friends sure, but their lives are just as busy as mine, and to be truthful, even if I take a day off work… I don’t ever feel like I achieve anything at all because I always have too much to do.

The bath used to be a sanctuary too … but far too often H will knock on the door and ask “mind if I come in for a pee?” despite me checking prior to running the bath whether anybody needed to use the toilet.

“YES I F***ING MIND, GET OUT!” – Sanctuary ruined and cue soggy exit from bath.

Plus today finances took a dire turn for the worst. I can’t go into too much detail, but lets say cash flow has been a huge HUGE enormous problem thanks to middle men not doing their frigging jobs so I can’t do mine. That’s all I can say without going into a huge enormous rant here and getting into too much detail.

I am worried. I’m worried sick that it is all about to come falling down around my ears and that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I just hope that my children learn from my mistakes and don’t make the same ones I did. My Dad was a fantastic role model as I was growing up. He was a solid family man and a good provider – what every guy strives to achieve, right? What I missed out on from him though was quality time and hearing the words “I love you”

I KNEW I was loved, don’t get me wrong, and mum said it often enough for the two of them, but I never realised it until after he was gone. One thing I try so hard to give my kids is love. No matter what … no matter how bad it gets at home or how hard it is … they will always know they are loved.

A quiet house

It’s so weirdly quiet in my house right now. There’s no yelling or screaming, no yells for “Muuuuuuuuuuum s/he is hurting me” and only half as many requests for food and snacks.

Megan is away for the week at Brownie camp until Friday afternoon.

But it is so QUIET! Nathan has been quietly doing his own thing without interruption in the lounge with me and Hub is upstairs doing whatever it is that grown men do behind closed doors with a PC, computer games and an internet connection (I don’t ask too many questions!!)

And me? I’ve had almost uninterrupted time to get caught up on some emails and do a bit of work!

The wolves are beginning to bite at my heels though. If something major doesn’t happen soon then I’ll potentially be too far into a hole to pull myself out of it. The WORST that would happen is that I’d have to close down my workshop and move the business back into the kitchen & garden shed whilst circumnavigating Hub’s motorbike that lives out there too! This would immediately squash the vast majority of my outgoing costs and mean that I could operate on a lower figure to pay off the business debts.

On the downside I lose the only space that is my ONE sanctuary from the world (well, when I switch the phone ringer off anyway!!) and home becomes work and vice versa. I moved the business OUT of home 5 years ago – it would be a huge step backwards, and honestly the last thing I would want, but I may not have any choice.

The thing I found when I worked out of home before is that I never ever stopped working. I had a work phone line and I was out the back until all hours cooking up smelly stuff in my back garden, and I was then permanently on the computer. Hmmm not so much of a change there other than the location of the main operation. Maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad after all!

Surviving school holidays (just)

It’s not like my kids miss out on anything – after all they are fed & watered, clothed and loved and I don’t lock them in dark cupboards or hit them with big sticks. Even so, all kids like to have a summer to look forward to, but  but finances have been so tight that it wasn’t even possible to muster a 3 day camping trip let alone a big holiday somewhere hot for them to look forward to.

Combine that with the fact that the British weather – as usual has been so frigging unpredictable … well, we’ve only managed ONE day out in the park for a picnic since school broke up and my plans to compensate their lack of big holiday by lots of “fun free days out” (beach, park, picnic in the woods, water games in the garden etc) have all been completely quashed by the rain. There’s only so much scrabble and monopoly they can face before they are itching to get back to their computers!

Consequently I’ve had my “I’m a bad Mother but I have no choice” hat on. You know the one. The one that allows you to let your children sit in front of their computers for most of the day, checking on them periodically to dish out drinks and snacks and force them to take a break for at least two minutes to go to the bathroom or come for lunch … all in the name of crappy weather.

The work / life balance

Someone said to me recently that I needed to make more adjustments with my family / work / life balance so that I didn’t find myself so stressed and burned out. It’s always so easy for someone looking in to suggest ways to improve yourself, but life just isn’t that simple!

My children are the most important thing to me in the WORLD! Yes, work is important and because I OWN my business … well, if I don’t do it, then nobody else does … but still, I make damned sure that I spend quality time with both my kids every single day.

It does feel like I am constantly working at the moment … if I’m not in the workshop pouring candles, packaging or packing up boxes then I’m working at home … I’m doing the accounts, getting the numbers done and trying desperately to cut out the middle men. That’s a whole other post though! I don’t have a choice but to take the children into work with me during the day for a couple of hours, then I head back there in the evening as soon as Hub walks through the door!!

I HATE the fact that money has been so tight that we haven’t been able to afford a summer holiday for the kids for the last 3 years. They want to have nice things, they want the latest this and that – and because they ARE good kids (most of the time!!) I’d love to be able to treat them and reward them more often.

Yes I know, it’s not about money and materialistic posessions – it’s about growing up in a safe and loved environment … but c’mon, when all your friends have really cool clothes and you are wearing school trousers that are too short and tops that don’t fit you anymore – then the materialistic stuff DOES matter.

I’ve felt ashamed and embarrassed some days when I’ve sent the kids off to school because their uniforms have needed replacing for so long and there just hasn’t been the money for it. Both of them have so few clothes in their wardrobes that fit properly and let’s not get started on the shoes that are falling to pieces!!

THIS is why I do it. This is why I work hard! It’s so I can turn around a flagging business, bring it right up to exactly where it needs to be and for my kids to have the benefit of it, because ONE day … ONE day I’ll be a millionaire earn enough money to be comfortable.

It is hard though … I know my family resents the time I spend out of the house, and because business has been slow recently, I’ve had to throw myself into it even more, yet I’m not even bringing in an income right now. One thing I’m NOT though is a quitter! I even talked to the children about the possibility of closing down the business.

“But what else would you do?” was the reply. Good question!

It IS a daily struggle I will admit that, but I’m not prepared to give up on my business and it’s not like I can give up on my children, so until thenI just keep on keeping on and I just live in hope that the world stops spinning for long enough that I can get off ………. eventually!

insurmountable mountains

I’ll admit I have been deeply buried in paperwork recently, especially during the day. I am trying to split my time so that during the day I am home and around with the children because I HATE dragging them into work with me and they hate being there! I’ve been doing the numbers, designing flyers, working on the website … ohh and cleaning the house during the day, and then as soon as hub is through the door at 6pm I’m off to the workshop to pour and pack orders!

It hasn’t been brilliant … but I guess that much is obvious or I would have posted about anything fabulous eh! The business is still ticking over and that is just about it. It’s very disheartening to know that I have such great products – not blowing my own trumpet, but I DO … yet people just aren’t buying. It’s the same whoever you talk to and whatever business they are in … it’s slow everywhere.

I am just hanging on and hanging on because I am still convinced that ONE day my hard work will pay off and the business will generate me some serious money!

Right, hi ho, hi ho it’s off to work I go! With a bucket and spade and a hang grenade hi ho, hi ho!

A funeral, a 6 hour drive and a new melter! YEAH!

Well finally I am getting somewhere! When my melter packed up and died last night it was all I could do to not wallow in self pity because it’s been the way things have gone recently!! It’s seemed that no matter how many steps forward I’ve taken, I’ve ended up behind even more!

It seriously had me questioning whether it is all worth it because it really is just one thing after another and for a nano-second I considered shutting it all down!!! How can a candlemaker make candles and get ready for two market days with no wax melter? LOL

Anyway after some late night surfing and research last night, I tracked down a local bee farm and they had the melter I use in stock! YEAH! Soooo this morning, on the way to Wiltshire for my Uncle Bill’s funeral, I drove 20 mins out of the way to pick up the melter. It cost more than one I could have bought online and had delivered, but I was able to get it TODAY and that makes a huge difference! I’ll take time over money any day!!

The funeral went okay … the weird part was being in a room full of family and not knowing half all their names. The last time we all met up was at the last family funeral. In a morbid sense it made me wonder who would be next. The last funeral was my uncle Ashley and before that it was my dad.

Anyway, after I got back to the workshop and plugged in the melter I had a big smile on my face!!!
FINALLY I have … (in no particular order!!)

• A working phone line
• A dead PC but a laptop that can be used instead
• Working broadband and an internet connection
• A functional wax melter
• No excuses not to be working!!!

It feels good! It feels goooooooooooood!!

When it rains, it pours

The last few days have officially all rolled in to one! Today has been a day from hell but it’s too late at night and I am too tired to get into it right now – it’ll have to wait! UGH I am busy, stressed and there is too much to do and not enough time to do it all…

I have SO much to write … it will all just have to wait.

Plus my wax melter died … yeah don’t ask!