New Year Blues

I think I have the new year blues.

The urgency and the determination to become better, more productive, more organised, fitter.... and about 3000 other things that I feel I should be, seem to be slipping away faster than I can say "Latte please".

I am still trying to eat healthily. Most of the time succeeding apart from a few slip ups. But I am finding I'm snacking just as much just on "healthy" things. But I don't feel like I'm losing any weight. If anything I feel I may even have put some on.

Our plan to not drink during the whole of January has now dissolved. While I'm not drinking excessively, or even that regularly.... (I had one drink during the week and a couple on Friday night and then half a bottle out on our night out on Saturday night. Oh and a glass of wine at the pub on sunday... maybe I do need to cut down again). My resolve to quite lattes has now become "not drinking them everyday". Which is good as its saving me money but I still get to have a treat occassionally. I have also given up sweeteners in my coffee which was my husbands request as he says they are horrendously bad for you and also make you fat (some science stuff about making your body think you are having sugar even though you aren't.... I shut my brain down a few words into the explanation).

I'm feeling a little down in the dumps about things. About this whole slog that is working full time. About the house being a total tip and the realisation that if we do want a nice house with us both working full time it is going to involve a cleaner at least twice a week (4 hours or so) which is going to cost a bomb.

I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing. I'm not sure my plan to become a project manager so that I can be freelance or have flexible hours and maybe work from home so I can be around for the kids more by the time Lala goes to school... I'm not sure how its all going to come about. My confidence feels a little shattered if I'm honest. My confidence about most things - about my blog (I seem to have lost my mojo a little where that is concerned), about my life choices and my choice to work full time (is it worth it?), about myself and my looks and my worthiness as a person.

I'm aching for a slower paced life. I'm not sure its possible to have a slow-paced life with small kids, but its got to be easier than this!!! I'm tired. Permanently tired.

Musings of a working mum

I am not a happy bunny today.

It took me 2 hours to get into work today (45 mins on a good day but 1 hour normally if I have to drop kids off first). I left the house at about 7.40 with the kids. Dropped my son at nursery (5 mins round the corner) then drove across town to drop my daughter at childminder number 2. Then headed off to get to work. I have TomTom on my iPhone and it was already indicating an 11 minute delay on my normal route so I clicked reduce delay button. However, this route seemed as bad if not worse than the normal route was indicated to be (of course I only found this out when it was too late). The route also tried to take me down a road that was closed (probably for flooding) and by the time I arrived at work, 2 hours later, I was ready to kill someone, or myself. OK slight exaggeration. No, not really.

The whole palarva has left me feeling quite angry. About what, I'm not even sure. Well, I guess I am. As I was driving (after dropping my son who has overnight developed a really nasty cough and my daughter who was being extra cute - both instigating the usual guilt about whether I'm really doing the right thing working full time or not) I was thinking about lots of things. I really don't want to be a stay at home mother. And doing a job 3 days a week that I hated didn't do me any good either. I like what I'm doing (mostly anyway) but I'm not sure how long I can cope with the long commutes. It just adds so much more pressure to you on top of all the usual working mother stresses. This is what I was thinking about, while fighting my way through traffic:

1. Why shouldn't I be allowed to work from home. We are in the 21st century. We have iPhones and skype and Wifi and Shared storage. All I need to do to use my work phone is plug my USB headphones into my laptop and I can make and receive calls - although I very rarely use them as most of the communications are done via inter-company online chat. We are trusted to sit at our desks pretty much unmanaged, but it is still generally frowned upon to work from home unless you have a good reason (a delivery or a sick child - even that at my last company my previous boss told me that if I had a sick child at home I couldn't work - which I guess is a fair comment some of the time but it is possible to field emails and deal with some queries and sometimes its quiet and you would be doing not much more than surfing the internet anyway!). Why should it not be possible for some employees (other than high-ish level managers) to work from home - even be BASED from home. Maybe my thinking & the technology currently available is just too far ahead of general corporate thinking.
2. I do want to spend time with my kids. I miss the chill time that I used to spend with them on a non-working day when I worked 3 days a week. I worry that I'm being selfish - wanting a life outside of kids - even at the weekends sometimes I wish the time away - that they could suddenly be of an age where they could just go watch TV in their rooms without constantly needing my attention. On the other hand I enjoy being out of the house. I just wish I didn't have to endure such stress to get there.
3. I also do want to progress and have a career. Either that or work for myself but to be honest, right now I'd rather work full time and be paid well, than work full time (trying to fit working hours around the kids) working for myself (which I would love to do one day) trying to make ends meet. I spent over 10 years working as a PA/Administrator for Senior Directors and I want to move on from that. I have great skills that I can bring into Project Management (currently an administrator in that capacity) and loving it. But if I want to do this somewhere else I probably need to stay here for at least a year before I can move on somewhere else (closer). Plus there isn't really much around now anyway. I was lucky to get THIS job.

My ideal job would be:

• Working for a tech company - tick
• Working in Project Management - tick
• Working from home - sometimes but got to be careful not to do too much (have done twice in last 6 weeks I've been doing this job)

Or working for myself. Not sure how. Thought about doing an events planning business. Thought about professional organiser. Done making bath bombs but decided was too much effort for not enough return & rules & regulations are very complex. Done handmade card making. Again. OK for pocket money and is something I enjoy but not exactly going to pay the mortgage.

Well, I'm going to post this and go get some lunch as its that time already. At least this morning went quickly (it did have a 40 minute head start on me).