How many mums do you know who can say they feel they have the perfect balance with work and being at home with the kids? I fall into that completely blessed category.
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| A day out at Chessington, thanks to saving Tesco vouchers! |
I work in the office for 2 days a week from 8.30 - 5pm and I work from home for 2.5 hours per week. So in total I do half time- 18.5 hours a week. This is enough to earn us the money to go on holiday (UK holidays admittedly) and buy take aways, the odd night out and nice clothes. We are not by any means flush, we can not afford to blow £150 on the theatre and have to think before spending large amounts on the house but we we get by, comfortably.
My life is a million miles away from my big earnings of pre-children but I am so much happier for it. I see blog posts and tweets from mums working 12/16 hour days, having problems with childcare letting them down, having to commute for an hour or two every day and I think Why? Do you really need all the money it brings? If so, then of course you have to carry on but dh and I choose to simplify our life and forget our Caribbean holidays and flashy cars for a few years and to have time with our kids. You often hear that, those with the money to spend do not have the time and those with the time, don't have the money, but so what? We have love and loads of free stuff that we can do together.
My girls have now started afternoon nursery for 3 days a week. One of these I work and the other two I have time to myself. Today I did a charity shop drop, bought some shopping, got myself some lunch and went home and did some work with the music blaring (all in 3 hrs!). It was superb, I could have done with another hour or two to myself but I must not get greedy.
Tomorrow I plan to exercise to my new DVD and then spend a couple of hours blogging, writing up some reviews I need to do and maybe pitching for a cybermummy sponsor. It feels so decadent to have this time to myself.
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| What JJ thinks of Mummy! |
My cup is half full - I have the best of both worlds; I get to lunch with friends, be an adult and eat cake when I am at work and I get to keep my home, cook meals for my family, play with the kids and meet mummy friends when I am home. Not a boring moment. I can honestly say I look forward to each day at the moment. How amazing is it to be able to say that about your life?
I am not writing this with the intention of being flash and showing off what I have. I am just being honest and wanting to say to people that if you do not like your lot - change it! What can you do to make things different and more enjoyable? Are you willing to give up the costa coffee every day and the expensive iPhone to have time at home with your family? I was. and for me it worked!
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| I love my family of 5! |
I went to an amazing conference at work a couple of weeks back and one of our keynote speakers was Dr Richard Wiseman and he is a Psychologist and one of his specialist areas is looking at the psychology of luck. He basically gave firm research based evidence of something I already knew was true - that those who have a cup half full attitude and feel blessed are and count themselves as lucky. You make your own luck.
He gave an example of a millionaire who described himself as one of the most unlucky men alive. This was because he had won the lottery, £4 million, h felt he was unlucky as he had to share the £8 million jackpot - that ia not unlucky that is ungrateful in my opinion!
So have a think about what you can do to feel just a little bit more blessed. Wake up in the morning and repeat to yourself, nothing will stress me out today, I am lucky. This was what I started doing back in 1998 and my positivity had increased bounds since then.
Have a wonderful weekend, I fully intend to.
Mich x
