1. TV sucks! Rogers Whole Home PVR is only good if it [...]]]> Being stuck in bed while sick with pneumonia has allowed for lots of thinking, and lots of boredom. There are a few things that I have realized and wanted to share as a reminder to myself just in case I am here again.

1. TV sucks! Rogers Whole Home PVR is only good if it works. Investing in the movie channels for the sick period is a smart idea.

2. No matter what people say having a tv in your bedroom is a good thing!

3. Make sure you always have a hidden supply of saltines and red Gaterade for when you need it but can’t get yourself to the store. But be sure it is hidden cause if your house is like mine your kids and husband will eat and drink it if they know you have it.

4. Having someone change your sheets daily and fluff your pillows without disturbing you seems like a dream. Maybe hospitals aren’t so bad.

5. Take your robe off before you go to the bathroom. It is long and there is a very good chance it could end up where you don’t want it to go.

6. Be thankful you have 2 robes in case the above happens.

7. When you finally do start feeling like you want to eat watching the Food Network isn’t the best idea. stock to boring shows that won’t make you wanting to get into your car and drive 30 minutes to your closest deli for a smoked meat sandwich!

8. Don’t get out of bed, and if you do, close your eyes so you don’t see the mess that your house has become.

9. Forget about how your kids look going to school, most likely they know you are down for the count and won’t hold it against you if your kids have messy clothes or crazy hair. Just be happy they got there.

10. When you finally feel well enough to get up, stop. Hire someone to come and clean the house so you don’t feel the need to do the sink full of dishes.

11. Thank your wonderful husband who has been doing it all for you. Taking care of you and the kids is work. But don’t allow them a day off until you are 110% better or else you might end up right back in bed.

EDITED TO ADD:

12. A mini kitchen in your bedroom isn’t a crazy idea. Being able to get a cold beverage or heat your tea when stuck in bed is a luxury.

13. Be thankful for the stack of magazines that you haven’t had a chance to read but have recycled yet. 6 days in bed requires lots of excitement!

14. Having an iPad and iPhone is a positive. Because you will spend a lot of time on them and they will need charging. Always make sure one is fully charged while on the other.

15. Kittens think that you moving in bed is a game of attack. Wiggling your toes can keep them and you amused for at least 10 minutes!

16. Commercials that automatically turn the volume up really loud aren’t enjoyable. Why do companies do that?

Note: I am lucky to get the words out without falling asleep. Please excuse any bad spelling and grammar!

This is a new job for him, while he travelled in the past it was nothing more than a night [...]]]> So my husband travels for work, a lot. He travels all over the world which is really amazing for him (yes I am a bit envious!) but not so much for the kids and I.

This is a new job for him, while he travelled in the past it was nothing more than a night away a couple times a year. Now he is gone for weeks at a time and seems to be traveling at least once a month. It is hard because I am not use to this. I am happy for him and his amazing job doing something he loves. He really does have a cool job!

It is hard on the kids and I. For 7+ years we have had daddy around and now we might go days or for the kids a week without talking to daddy. He goes away for a night or two and the miss him dearly. Although it isn’t as hard for me I do still miss him.

I miss not being able to pick up the phone and call him during the day. Sending him a text message about something I need his input for. Or seeing him at the dinner table with us. We have been together for 17 years and this is the first time I have had to really have to do it on my own.

Don’t get me wrong, I already got huge flack on Facebook for posting about how taking care of my kids on my own is hard. I understand I am lucky to have him even if he might not be around. But he is such a big part of our family and a huge help for me with my business that after he is gone for a couple of days I am exhausted and stressed. We don’t have a nanny, a babysitter or family close that is there to help when he goes away. It is all me 24/7. There is no girls night out, taking a trip to the mall at the end of a long weekend. I don’t have my late nights working as I am so exhausted I go to bed when the kids do.

So yes I still have a husband and partner to help me raise the kids. He brings home the bacon. But when he is on the other side of the world I am not able to just pick up the phone and call him. If something happened I can’t call him and he hops on a plane and is home in a couple of hours.

The first time he went away to China I had someone take a personal attack on me online. It was 10:30pm and I sat down at my computer to find it unfolding in front of my eyes. I was hurt, scared and angry. But worse I was alone. He was on a plane and had been for the entire day. His flight still had another 5 hours before he landed.

He was my go to person. He was the head of reason and saw things clearly when I had emotion wrapped up in it. I remember sending him an email hopeful that he would turn his phone on the second his plane landed. I didn’t sleep that night, I was worried what else could happen while I slept. I was worried for my kids and my safety while we were alone. I was hopeful he would get my email in the middle of the night and call me.

I waited all night and I never got a response to my panicked call for help. How could I fault him, he was on the other side of the world on business. He had just flown 15 hours, hopped on a train for hours and whisked right into working. I did finally hear from him the next evening.

I was lucky that the next day after I safely dropped my kids at school that my mom came and took me to the mall as a distraction. She stayed that night. Still I wish I had him.

So yes he is still there but if something really serious happened and I needed him right away. It would take a day at least for him to get home.

I don’t feel bad saying that it is hard parenting by myself when he is gone. What it really is, is hard not having him around. If we didn’t have kids and he left me for a week I would still miss him.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some nice benefits to him being gone. The kids and I get nice one on one time. We go out to dinner and do fun things. We try to make the best of it however we can. We enjoy cuddling on the couch and watching movies together. We make a big mess of Lego and leave it all over the living room for days at a time. There is less laundry, less food to cook, less mess to clean!

I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to travel the world with him. But for now I fear the next trip where he goes to the other side of the world and the kids and I will have to miss him.

At times I think about how I didn’t sign up for being the wife of a husband who travels like he does. But he loves what he does and he gets to experience these amazing adventures that without this he wouldn’t experience. And that makes it all worth it!

Does your spouse travel? How do you get through? Do you have any tricks or tips? Please share as it looks like it is only going to happen more.

At the end of October my husband went to China [...]]]> I have been sick just like any other mom, we push through still doing what we have to and don’t often get a “sick day”. But last fall was something I have never experienced before, not even the winter of strep was anything like this.

At the end of October my husband went to China for work for a couple weeks. The kids and I actually did really well, we were excited to pick him up at the airport when I got the call from the airline asking me to come alone. My husband had a blood clot and they were worried that something might happen to him. He arrived home safely but had a hard time adjusting back to our time and he became sick. So although he was home he really wasn’t.

Within a couple of days I started with a nagging cough that just came on out of the blue. I wasn’t sick before so I just figured something has irritated me as I’ve become sensitive to some irritants. After a couple weeks it was getting worse and sounded horrible. One afternoon I started coughing up blood so I made an appointment to see my doctor, something that I barely do. He said my lungs sounded fine but put me on an antibiotic anyways. Something I would soon learn was a good thing.

I finished the antibiotic and was still coughing, not as bad during the day but the nights became horrible. I woke up one night gasping for air. I started to panic. I coughed and coughed and no matter what I did I couldn’t breathe. I got out of bed and headed right outside into the middle of cold night in hopes that the fresh air would help. This went on for weeks.

My husband threatened to take me to the hospital as seeing his wife struggle like that over and over every night was “too much” as he said. I refused but after 2 weeks of no sleep I was becoming desperate and went back to my doctor. He said that it just seemed viral so there wasn’t anything we could do.

After 3 weeks of no sleep I started to research in the middle of the night coughs and came across pertussis also known as the whooping cough. The symptoms sounded just like mine and I listened to an audio file of what the cough sounded like and my husband immediately said that was exactly me.

Desperate I went back to my doctor who gave me a little information. He said that the antibiotic he gave me weeks prior was would be prescribed for pertussis but that it has to be given within the 1st week to be helpful or else the patient suffers from what is called the “120 day cough”. He did the swab test to see if I was still carrying the bacteria as it is highly contageuos and sent me for an X-ray as he knew I was really suffering by this point.

Immediately we got the X-ray which showed I had pneumonia in my left lung. I told him I wanted more drugs, crazy coming from me the homeopathic queen, but I was getting really tired of it. The middle of the night attacks were waring on me. I was told I needed to take it easy and get lots of rest. Something easy for someone who cant sleep because of the coughing and a workaholic who was in her busiest season.

I went home and my husband forced me into bed where I spent 4 days. I received a message from my doctor telling me that the swab didn’t work and did I want to do another, but also that the radiologist saw that my left lung with the pneumonia had partially collapsed. So the pertussis coughing cause my lung to collapse which cause the pneumonia.

So here I sat very sick and forced into bed in what was my busiest season. I am so thankful that i have some really amazing people working for me who took care of everything for me. My husband drive the kids to school, came home from work and made dinner (something big from the guy who doesn’t cook) took care of the kids. He did runs to the printer, packaged up orders and shipped them for me. He wouldn’t let me do anything which was a good thing as just going downstairs caused me such difficulty breathing.

My poor kids missed me, but they understood that mommy was sick and needed to rest. they thought that I was funny because I had the whopping cough. Daddy explained to them that when I had an attack I would start singing “whoop there it is” which always got them laughing. Love him for making the bad turn into something good for them!

The second round of antibiotics and strict regimin of homeopathic remedies started to finally help. I was no longer having these horrible attacks all night long. It was once or twice a night and for the most part I was able to control them.

By the end of January I was finally feeling almost normal. This mom who always puts herself last was forced to put herself first for once which I think was the universes way of smacking me upside the head! I spent the holidays with my family and reminding myself of how I was never going to put me last again.

I learned many valuable lessons over those months. One of the most important is that sometimes mommy had to take a sick day and that the rest of family will survive just fine!

I think one of the biggest challenges of any mom and mompreneur is that we feel like we can do it all. I know I could for the most part do it all, well do [...]]]> The one promise I made to myself for 2012 was that I was going to get my priorities in check.

I think one of the biggest challenges of any mom and mompreneur is that we feel like we can do it all. I know I could for the most part do it all, well do it all for everyone else. I would make sure all work was done and gave it 110%. I cared too much about what others thought so I would go above and beyond to keep my friends and people around me happy. I would try to keep my kids happy and healthy. Make sure my husband was okay and last and sometimes never was myself.

By putting myself last I was also putting my family last. At the end of the day there wasn’t much left, so when they needed me most I was sometimes already shut down.

As you know the end of 2011 taught me that I could not continue like this any longer.

So like anything I set forth with my plan. Spend more time on me, work more effectively so that I can focus on spending more time with my family and not be worried about what work I need to do. The biggest plan was to disconnect myself from my computer, email and phone while I am with my kids to allow them 100% of me.

One of the main reasons I started my business was to allow me to be there for my kids and I started to realize while I was there physically I wasn’t there emotionally and that is what they needed. My two aren’t babies anymore, my youngest turned 5 last week (insert tears here) and I have realized that I have missed lots of fun family time. I know that soon enough they will be older and need me a lot less. I want to be there now and enjoy them now.

I don’t want more regrets about how my kids grew up while my head was tucked in my computer working on making my business into something big.

So like all plans I have my idea of what I want to do and I don’t always follow through properly. I get sidetracked by something exciting to do like working on new products or designs, or some new web site sucker like the fun known as Pinterest.

Just as I seem to lose focus something reminds me of the plan and I get put back on track.

For me my family comes first. If my kids need me I will be there for them. My kids are both in school from 8:45am to 3:45pm so I have a good solid time that I am able to work. I might have a week where I have things that pull me away from my perfectly scheduled time for working.  I try not to put anything else in this time because it isn’t easy to makeup the missed “work time” because I went to the doctor, did some shopping or met a friend for lunch.

If it is for my kids I am now okay with taking the time. So maybe this month I take extra time taking one of my kids to some very important appointments. We take a short trip as a family to celebrate a birthday and I tag along with my husband on a business trip to California.

At the end of the day working myself into a ball of stress won’t do anything for me when I am no longer here.

Focus on enjoying life is my plan and doing it while enjoying running my business just seems like a bonus. I do love what I do after all. As long as I do it under my terms all is good!

I decided one day that I wanted to have kids. Big change since for a long time I didn’t know if I was cut out [...]]]> Today is one of those days where I am faced with questioning the choices I have made in my life, more importantly the choices I have made as a mother.

I decided one day that I wanted to have kids. Big change since for a long time I didn’t know if I was cut out for motherhood. It was more of a fear over the unknown that held me back and I am happy that something changed in me and that one day I wanted a baby. I went into getting pregnant as an entrepreneur, I had my own business and I never really thought of what would happen after kids. Well 30 weeks into the pregnancy with my first I had complications and I wasn’t able to continue working. I had to help most of my clients learn how they would get along without me. I was lucky to have a few who stuck by me, one of my favourites was a local interior designer, Lisa Worth. I remember fondly visiting her office with my baby in tow, working and having fun.

As time went on and my son turned 1, I felt like I needed to do more. Although I enjoyed what I was doing, I only really had a couple clients. So I set out to start another business and Grace Announcements was born. I loved being able to work while my son napped and not having to leave my home to visit a client. I never had a concrete plan of what I was doing or where I thought it would go. I just kind of took it day by day working more and more. I was lucky that there was a great need for what I was offering as the business kept growing.

Years later and another baby added into the mix I had my hands full. A thriving business, a 2.5 year old and a newborn made for crazy days. I worked when I could, challenging both kids to sleep at the same time. At 3 I put my son into Montessori school part-time and I enjoyed a little time every morning working. Not enjoying 1 on 1 time with my baby girl. Don’t get me wrong I did the odd mommy and baby music class but the majority of the time I was working. What was I thinking? How did I not enjoy the time with her more? This makes me sad but I deal. I love what I do, I love my business and I love being a part of all of my customers special moments. That makes me smile.

The joys of a mompreneur is that we sacrifice.

I sacrificed my time with my kids. I know I am not alone. So many will agree that we start our businesses to stay home with our kids. But it gets to a point where we are forced with decisions about how we will manage. Some put their kids in daycare, others pull back on their workload. We all carry guilt over the decision we make. I put my son in school part time so I could work, then I put my daughter in school full time so I could work. I tell myself that it is what is best for her. But is it really?

Is what is best for my kids to have a mom there for them? To help guide them and teach them. Or is it best for them to see their mom doing something that she loves. Seeing her working hard.

I am selfish with my kid’s school. They go from 9am until 4pm. The local public schools get out at 2:30pm and I wonder how I would manage if that was when my kids were getting home. They don’t have homework which means less for me to deal with and more time to work. Can’t believe that I just admitted that! What is wrong with me? What am I doing as their mom? I sit here feeling like I have cheated them in some way.

So with a new year [...]]]> Months ago just before I got extremely sick and started into my busy season my orginal “the mom behind the designs” Blogger blog was hacked. I have still not been able to get back into it. Mind you I have not had a lot of time to fight with it.

So with a new year I thought I would just start again. I had been meaning to switch this blog over to WordPress and thought that this was the perfect time to do it.

This blog is all about a behind the scenes look into my life and who I am. I love writing about being a mom, I love writing about things I know other moms would love to read. This is my outlet and I am happy to start 2012 here. I hope you will enjoy reading.

I am going to end with one of my favourite photos. This is my daughter and I when she was only 3 months old, she was such an easy going baby. I use to think that I was lucky because her older brother wasn’t such an easy baby. Well she is about to turn 5 February and she is anything but easy now. But she will still melt my heart the moment I look in her eyes.

I learned that I am going to blog again and I am going to write about what I [...]]]> I just finished a jam packed 3 days at Blissdom Canada. And although I didn’t leave there getting as much from the sessions this year as I did last I did get some other very important things.

I learned that I am going to blog again and I am going to write about what I want to and not care what people think. For years now (after our world fell apart) I have held back. Worried about what people will think, but not anymore. I need to share, bottling everything up is only hurting myself.

I learned that keeping it all to myself makes me feel like an outsider. I walked around Blissdom wondering who I was and who were all the people around me.

I learned that it is time to take care of myself. Stop caring what others think, care what I think. I just found a post from a year ago where I stated that I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. WOW if that year ago me saw me now…

I learned that it is going back to basics. I found that in the rat race I lost what it was all about. No more and that excites me!

I learned that I should be darn freaking proud of myself for growing Grace Announcements from nothing to something in 6 years all by myself. October 19th is the 6th birthday for the official website launch.

I learned that I have some amazing people behind me and the ride to the future will be an amazing one with them by my side.

I learned that my kids and husband are the absolute most important things in my life. Without them nothing else matters.

So as I gain my thoughts, and there are so many floating around (I think I probably have 100 blog posts right now) I will start getting them out.

No more wishing I just had someone to talk to.