This summer's got me making some plans. My lovely three and a half year-old will soon be starting "big" nursery school five mornings a week, so I'll have a little more time on my hands. I'm hoping to use this time to do more writing, some book-selling, studying, teaching and swimming! Ambitious maybe. Especially for someone like me, who is slightly better at planning things than actually doing them. But I'm hoping that committing my plans to blog might help inspire me to achieve them...
Writing. Writing is still one of my passions. It allows me to be creative, gives me some me-time and helps me to balance out all the child things that we do.
And recently over on HubPages I wrote what I consider to be my favourite hub so far. It's called Wimbledon, Grass Soup and a Randy Dog. I wrote it all in one go in a sort of manic outpouring of thoughts and words after a sound from outside my daughter's window brought back all sorts of childhood summertime memories. Each time I read it I get goosebumps as I'm transported back in time!
I seem to be specialising a bit in pregnancy and baby related articles. I hadn't planned to do this, but the whole pregnancy and baby thing still fascinates me, even three and a half years after experiencing it myself. Here are my baby hubs so far:
- Early Pregnancy Symptoms - The First Month
- How do dogs know when you're pregnant? And what are the other behavioural signs?
- The First Three Months of Pregnancy - Keeping the Secret!
- Natal Hypnotherapy, Effective Birth Preparation CD
- Essential items for bringing baby home
- The Things we do for Sleep
- Are Second Babies Cost-Free?
My next hub is going to continue the theme of second babies, (something which has playing on my mind a bit recently). It's going to be called "Am I evil if I don't have a second child?"
A lot of hubbers have taken part in the recent "hub challenges", where you write 30 hubs in 30 days. Or for the more ambitious (or perhaps crazy), 100 hubs in 30 days. I'd love to be able to do this, as I do really enjoy challenging myself and writing about a whole load of different things, and it would probably also help to boost my google earnings. But I don't have enough time.
Typing this much in one morning has been challenging enough for me, and I've only achieved it by sitting my daughter in front of the TV, intermittently tasking her with jigsaw puzzles and tidying projects, giving her copious snacks and me doing much simultaneous typing, talking and singing - which isn't really an ideal writing environment!
Another writing project in the pipeline (well, currently in the pipeline of my mind), is setting up a website all about my local area. Because I absolutely LOVE where I live, and want to share it with other people who aren't lucky enough to live here! Actually I'm hoping that the main point of it will be to let the people who do live here know about all the things that are going on in our neighbourhood.
Bookselling. For a while now I've been thinking of setting up as a bookseller with a children's book franchise. If you're a regular on the mum websites, like netmums, mumsnet and mum and working, you'll know that there's a whole plethora of franchise opportunities.
You can sell almost anything, according to your interests. Many involve holding parties in your house or selling to schools and playgroups. Well, I'm not a natural seller and don't find it easy to be persuasive, so you'd think that I would stay clear of such ventures. However, there is one children's bookseller that fascinates me so much that I might have to put aside these apparent obstacles. They sell such lovely books, and the ethos of the company is so close to my own that it's just been luring me in. I'll write more about this if I actually take the plunge and do it!
Studying. My foray into the world of the teaching assistant has whet my appetite for more. And if I decide that working in a primary school is for me then I'd really like to get properly qualified. You don't have to have formal qualifications to become a teaching assistant, but I think that if you want to find a paid post it's always best. So I've been looking around at courses, and the most useful one that I've come across so far (in terms of course content, support and flexibility) is the ICS Teaching Assistant BTEC, which I'd be able to do from home in my own time.
Swimming. As well as booking B. on a swimming course, I really want to swim more myself. In my pre-mummy days I used to belong to a gym and swim regularly, before or after work. I've been longing to get back to it, as to me there's nothing more relaxing than moving through the water, (albeit at a rather clumsy pace). My first swimming session is tonight at Finchley Lido.
I hope that my other ambitions will soon follow!
