This post identifies one of the key drawbacks to having a blog – the fact that rather than just saying things to friends after a few glasses of wine and then forgetting about them, you write them down for the world to see and hence become accountable.

Take New Year’s resolutions for example.

At the beginning of 2014 I came up with two New Year’s resolutions; to grow myself professionally and to eat more dip. Not in that order. (Click on the link to find out more about my dip ambitions.)

hummus

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Like it or not, it’s the time of the year for making well-meaning resolutions. Obviously this year I will be losing weight, getting fit, reading 200 books, donating half my disposable income to charity, that sort of thing.

OK, maybe not, but it’s nice to have a few good intentions, especially after spending most of December eating mince pies and Elizabeth Shaw mints for breakfast. That’s why when I was offered to review Skinny Sprinkles again, and stepped with trepidation onto the scales for the first time in about three months, I thought I’d better say yes. View Post

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When I made the decision over three years ago to become self-employed and work from home I have to confess it was on a bit of a whim.

(I know, that doesn’t sound like me does it??)

It was inspired partly by boredom and the desire for a new challenge*, alongside the need, as a single parent, for more flexibility. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ I said to myself, ‘I’ll become a freelance journalist! That’ll be fun’.

I had no money, no experience and no training, but I did have enthusiasm, a desk I hastily bought from ebay, and an extensive collection of stationery items. What more did I need?

Over the next few weeks I spent many a happy hour perusing the magazines in WHSmiths and organising my pens into colour order and before long I had carved out what one could almost describe as a career. If by career you meant ‘bizarre collection of jobs with no real plan for the future’. Job done. Or in my case, very nearly done, possibly tomorrow.

"Pens in colour order"

Ooh, pretty…

My difficulty, in working from home, comes from my apparent ability to be distracted by absolutely anything vaguely shiny or more interesting than what I’m currently doing. When you work from home, it’s amazing how alluring the washing up can become when you’ve got a copywriting deadline on the horizon. ‘Right,’ I will say to myself at 9am, ‘time to get cracking.’ And then I’ll wander off to make a cup of tea.

This year though will be different. (Aren’t they all?)

This year I’m going to try really, really hard to work more efficiently. Really truly honestly I am. (At the same time as losing weight, getting fit and reading the news more often obviously). This is my plan, my New Year resolutions as a work at home mum:

  1. If I am in the middle of doing something, just do that thing. It sounds obvious, but the number of times I go looking for an attachment, get distracted by twitter, start writing a blog post, bake a cake, and then come back two hours later to find I was in the middle of sending an email all along is just ridiculous.**
  2. Be stricter with my hours. Yes it’s lovely having the flexibility of being self-employed, but I need to focus on working the key hours when children are at school and then enjoying my time off without feeling guilty.
  3. Not check my emails and twitter every 27 seconds fearing that something Incredible And Amazing is going to be happening that I’m going to miss. Seriously, get over yourself woman, your life really isn’t that interesting.
  4. Make more of an effort to create a long-term plan. This is going to be a toughie as I have a real aversion to planning ahead. What if I change my mind? What if something else, something better or shinier comes along? Without long-term planning though it is all too easy to just say ‘yes’ randomly to any offers of work without thinking about how they contribute to your career objectives. Or so I’ve heard.

And that’s it. This time next year and all that.

What are your New Year’s resolutions?

*Not to mention a rather disastrous work fling

**It is worth noting that in the middle of writing this post I left to research and buy business insurance, to look at a recipe book and to eat an apple. You see my problem.

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Firstly – Happy Easter! I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend and have eaten suitably horrendous quantities of mini-eggs. I know I have.

Before I began my weekend of gorging, I was tagged by the fabulous Linda Jones of You’ve Got Your Hands Full, asking me to tell you seven previously undisclosed things about myself. If you haven’t come across Linda before, where have you been? I have yet to meet Linda in person, but I am already in awe of her. Everywhere I go in the virtual world, Linda seems to be there already. She is amazing!

Anyway, I have been thinking about this all weekend and to be honest I’ve been struggling. I think I’m pretty open most of the time and I’ve been having a hard time coming up with things that I won’t have told someone already. Obviously I can’t mention the bank heist, and David made me promise to keep my three way romp with him and Samantha under wraps in the run up to the election. Ergh, I have made myself feel rather queasy even joking about that one. Quick, change the subject.

So I’m wracking my brains here for seven things that you don’t know about me, but that will make me seem intruguing and glamourous. I’m hoping if I just type and don’t think about it, something will spill out onto the screen.

So here goes:

  1. OK, here’s one I’m quite pleased with. In 2008 I made a New Year’s Resolution to read 100 books in a year. I was fed up with having piles of half-read books lying around the house, and needed some motivation to finish them. I managed 104, which I think is pretty good going for a year. Um…ok…now I am stuck. I just asked Bee for ideas and she couldn’t think of anything. Does this mean I am just very honest, or just very dull??
  2. “Have you ever been in prison?” asks Bee. No, I’ve never even been arrested. “Lame,” she says.
  3. “Do you play a musical instrument?” asks the young boy on my sofa who is draped over Bee. Actually, yes, this could count as one. At school I played the guitar and the cello. I had an accordion for a while too. Not terribly glamourous though.
  4. I have never been married or owned a house. (Commitment issues)
  5. I’ve had sex at the top of Glastonbury Tor. (Exhibitionist)
  6. I have a giant poster of Zac Efron on my study wall. It was a Christmas present from Bee, I didn’t actively seek it out and buy it myself. He is 22 though, so it’s fine.
  7. I have a naked picture of myself on my bedroom wall. That was a Christmas present too actually. I’m nearly 32 though – is that still fine?
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