Back to business.

As a stay-at-home-mum you can sometimes feel that you spend your entire time cleaning and tidying and shouting at the children.  Of course, we sometimes enjoy the idyll of craft activities, baking and lazy days in the garden that working mums assume that we get up to, but sometimes you really feel that you are just there to clean up and be ignored.  You sometimes feel that you aren't doing anything to contribute to the family bank balance either (though in many cases the amount you'd actually keep after you've paid the childcare bill would be very low even if you were back at work), which can be especially hard if your spouse is working hard at a job that he doesn't enjoy.

So...
time to try and make some pennies.  You never know, it might just make me feel less like a glorified slave to two small tyrants, and more like the talented goddess that I used to think lurked within.

Not easy though.  Firstly, the cleaning still needs doing, and no matter how I harangue gently encourage them, they are still a bit little to take on the bulk of the housework.  Secondly, they still require a lot of attention.  Thirdly, I still want to be doing all those domestic bliss things like baking and gardening and craft activities, both on my own and with the children.  Fourth, well... I'm just out of practice!  It's going to take some self discipline.

So those are some of the areas I need to tackle first.  Here are some things I'm trying to make happen:

1. Straight after breakfast and teeth we start doing the housework - together - up until no later than 9.30am.  If it isn't done by then it won't get done that day (unless Hubby takes it into his head to do it?!).  That way I don't feel like the cleaner, and I get to teach the children how to do some of these chores.  Happily.
2. From then until lunchtime is children time.  We'll do the crafts and the baking and the playing.
3. After lunch, while Bug is napping and C is playing quietly in his room is "work time".  I must not spend time doing things for Scouts.  I must not do laundry, ironing, surf the internet, get on with the gardening or anything unless it's work-related.
4. Later in the afternoon I can spend a bit of quality one-to-one time with each child, and then get them out in the fresh air - time to do a bit of gardening. 
5. In the evening I go for a walk with the dog - time for thinking and me-time, and then do Scout tasks.
6. From 9pm both Hubby and I down tools and head for the sitting room - time for something good on the TV and some crafty hobbies.

Since returning from holiday I've been focusing on the after lunch slot.  I've not done anything to earn any money yet, but have been trying to reinstate some discipline by working through an outdated Writers Bureau Creative Writing Course.  Hubby signed up for it at least a decade ago and never got further than the first assignment, so I'm working my way through the self study.  Today I've been learning about writing letters to the editor and filler material for magazines.  The time slot isn't always available though.  C sometimes still needs to nap, but will fight it every time, so if I think he's desperately in need of a sleep the only way to achieve it is for me to get into bed with him and give him a cuddle, which invariably leads me to drift off too.

In the next few months I would ideally like to start making a bit of cash through both crafting and writing.  So those are the two strands I'm going to be working on.