Author Archives: The Busy Mommy UK

Grief is an odd thing….

I have experienced many different forms of grief in my short 39 years but I have to add two new ones to the list. 

I learnt about death at the age of 5 when my paternal grandad died. One week he was at his house when we visited and the next he wasn’t and my dad was sad. Not a full experience, I’ll grant you, but still my first experience. 

Then, at the age of 13, I lost an Aunty who wasn’t actually an Aunty and demanded that I be allowed to go to the funeral to say goodbye like everyone else. I was hysterical at the funeral!! 

Next came my great gran when I was 16. She was 98 and amazing. I was more prepared this time for the funeral but not for the actual loss. I really struggled with missing her and the things we did together (which mainly involved playing gin rummy!!). And my paternal nan died when I was 19. This was an odd experience as she was very ill towards the end and also quite a cold woman so I didn’t feel the loss quite as I would have expected. 

The next big hit was my dad. I was 17 when he was diagnosed with cancer, 20 when it was terminal and 21 when he lost the fight. I lost my confidant when mom was driving me mad, my snack buddy, my holiday lover, the man to walk me down the aisle and the man to sneak my children sweets. He didn’t even get to give his blessing on me and my now husband. I coped with the funeral, I even read at it, and I was signed off sick with depression when the time came to go back to work. Just for 2 weeks and then my mom decided I should go back. She’s very good with everyone else but when it’s my mental health in question, she definitely thinks I should just get over it. Looking back, I should have stood up for my own mental health but I was young. I just got on with it and created a ‘new normal’. But I think it scarred me. 

Over the next few years, I lost friends from church, slightly more distant family members and a couple of closer friends and I just got on with it. Very practical and organised and not at all normally. But I was just powering through as I couldn’t do anything else. 

My first new grief is that of not getting a job that I secretly really wanted but played down. This genuinely hadn’t happened to me in all my 26 years of having a job. Unfortunately, I played it down because it would put a spanner in the works of kids school runs and I knew my mom and maternal grandparents would think it was a bad idea. How rubbish is that? I’ve only realised all of this since not getting it and it really hit home when my mom said she was glad I didn’t get it. I guess this isn’t really a grief of not getting a job but a grief of realising that my family don’t 100% have my back. I know what she said was from a good place of wanting me to be able to spend as much time with my children as I can while they are young, but it hurt. My mom isn’t a monster at all but sometimes should learn to think before she speaks! And I have a wonderful husband and aunt and uncle who were 100% by my side through it all. 

My second new grief comes with the closing of my church. It was inevitable but certain circumstances meant it’s happened years sooner than expected. I have a full life there with being christened at 3 months old, my dad’s funeral, my wedding, the christening of both my children and the friends I’ve made there. And I’m only 39! I can’t imagine what the older members are feeling!! I realised I am tackling this like any other loss in my life. I’m being organised. I am pressing through meetings and ideas to form a new independent church. I’m taking meeting minutes and typing them up. I’m organising people and following through all the actions with those they are allocated to. But I’m not thinking about the closure. I just can’t. It’s like my brain has shut that bit off. Which is new phenomenon for me. I feel totally numb to it and I’m sure someone with letters after their name would have a field day analysing me!! So I thought that I should write it down and get it out of my head. 

I will do a full post on the steps we took to create a new church when we are successful and I suppose that will include my eventual break down about at all!! Watch this space 🥰

New stores!

After being unable to decide what to do with my spare time (I don’t tend to get much to be honest), I settled on finding new and cute things for others to buy!! Hopefully this will mean I can buy new and cute things too when my commission lands!!

This lead to a search for a place to sell them and a what to actually put on there. I obviously did a bit of a google and decided to try a 2 pronged approach.

1. Dropshipping through my own website.

2. Dropshipping through Shopify and finding someone to help.

Number 1 has a couple of chunky pros in that I can pick the things I love and sell them at a price that I’m happy with. The cons of this is that I obviously have to pay for my website and learning the ropes takes time.

Number 2 is still a mixed bag to be honest. I now have 3 websites all set up and looking amazing but it’s all American and I’ve had no input in the current products on there. However it has only cost me $1 for each website for a month and $5 for the support which I know is an amazing deal. And I can add more products on as I please.

So by accident I am running a little experiment! If the Shopify sites don’t take off, I can cancel at any point and I’ve lost very little. If the items on my website tank, I just take them down and we go on like nothing happened.

Which do you think will do better?

Find the sites here 👇

Jewel Envy

Cozy corner boutique

Beauty Haven Boutique

The Busy Mommy UK website

A new home…..

I have been toying with selling my faith based journals, prayer cards, bookmarks and lessons for a while but I have now found the place to do it. I will continue to use this site for the prompts, but most things will go on my new wix site.

Have a look at my first blog post and check out my website.

Thank you for your continued support!

Bank Holiday Monday – a call to all families to argue over everything!

It is pretty standard in the UK that any bank holiday tends to be wet! It doesn’t matter if it is in the middle of summer or winter! But today has been lovely in the Midlands. It’s just a shame that the children have been so touchy.

We had to get some more food for our axolotl so we were up and out at about 10am and we called into Merry Hill shopping centre on the way home to pick up a new soap dish and nail brush. Jonah and Grace had their purses and so we came out with a unicorn backpack bubble gun and a humongous water pistol. I was evil mommy when we got home though and we weren’t allowed to do anything fun until the kids rooms were tidied. This was the first meltdown of the day – Grace wouldn’t get out of Jonah’s room and he got all frustrated and then tried to move her out and hurt her arm. Both in tears. Eventually we got the rooms sorted and had some lunch and they disappeared back upstairs to play. So me and Phil went out into the garden to start tidying, clearing and going through the garage. 4 flexi tubs full of garden waste, 3 bin bags full of rubbish and a mass of cardboard was loaded into my car for the tip. While we were doing this, the children came outside to play with their new purchases. Grace’s was amazing but Jonah’s was absolutely rubbish! So much so that it is going back tomorrow!

Time for meltdown number 2 (and it’s not about the water gun!) – Grace was too cold to play outside with water pistols so she went inside but then Jonah was crying because “just as we are getting into a game the weather changes and I don’t get to do anything I want”. Well. I might, possibly have not been able to bite my tongue this time! Me and Jonah had a bit of a chat and he settled down. Once the car was packed we had time to go to the local park so off they went on their scooters while me and Phil walked behind them.

This was obviously time for meltdown number 4! Grace flung herself down the fireman’s pole on the playground and hurt her groin. Tears. And within 10 minutes she decided to try and jump off the swing she was on……….while it was still moving! More tears! Back home we trundle and I disappear to the tip.

When I got home, the children were back in the garden playing, which was lovely. They had an ice cream and then came in for the rest of the day. It was nice to sit and relax as a family with no tears at the end of the day.

4 meltdowns, a trip to the park, a bit of shopping and a lot of family time – what better way to spend a day off together?

What do you do when you have a day off together?

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

I’m not too sure where to start with this to be honest.

I can’t really think of a time where I didn’t take action but I should have. I’m the sort of person to send an email to a company if their vehicle is parked inconsiderately!

I suppose the question actually asks when I ‘wish’ I had taken action as opposed to when I should have and makes it a bit easier.

I wish I told more people to have a good day, or that I like their outfit or nails or makeup. I wish I was able to do more positive gossip and spread loveliness about people.

There isn’t a specific time that I can think of right now when I wished I’d acted differently but I’m sure it’s happened!!

What about you?

And also – Happy St George’s Day!!

Prompt: What makes you nervous?

What a question to start answering the prompts on again!!

There are lots of things that make me nervous. While I’m quite extroverted, I get nervous about EVERYTHING!!!

Let’s look at the things that have made me nervous in the last week.

16th April – seeing my private tap lesson student again since before Easter. “What if she’s changed her mind and doesn’t want to do it anymore because she’s fed up of me?”

17th April – doing the arts and crafts session in a care home. “What if they don’t like what I’ve got ready for them?”

18th April – a calm day actually!!

19th April – going in to the children’s school to have my parent reader induction. “What if they think that I’m not cut out for this?”

20th April – going to the zoo. How ridiculous!! “What happens if I struggle with my knees or ankles and we have to come home and my family will be grumpy with me?”

21st – doing the talky bit at the front of church and taking the lesson with my 2 slightly wild students. “What if I don’t make sense or the boys are just bored?”

Now that I’ve written these out I can see a clear pattern and I’m reminded again of a tattoo that I’m considering getting. It reads ‘let them’.

Let them have an opinion, let them help you, let them see your light, let them not like you. All of these are ok and as long as your motives are right and the thing you are doing is good, you’ll be ok.

Keep plodding on you lovely lot!

It’s been far too long!!!

Well hello everyone! I’m so sorry it’s been so long. Phil has been quite poorly so we’ve been dealing with that as well as normal life!!

We seem to be making headway though and so I thought I’d pop in here up say hi and leave a few thoughts.

I have been trying to get on top of all the housework again after a spell of anxiety and in doing so I’ve found a new kitchen routine. On a Monday (today), I top up my dishwasher tablets from the huge box in the pantry, sort out my fabric softener (see info below!!) and generally cleaning and tidying the kitchen. It’s working well so far!

For my fabric softener, I bought a HUGE bottle from TikTok and now I dilute it. I have a washed out 500ml coke bottle which I fill about a third full with fabric softener and top up with water. I put this into my machine along with half a scoop of washer whiffs into the drum (can be found here) and my washing is soft and smells amazing without clogging up pipes with thick fabric softener. I love it!!

On top of all the things I’ve been doing, I’ve been working on more printables for my Etsy shop. Have a look through here. There aren’t many on there at the moment but I’m building up more each day.

I think that’s everything for now. Keep on plodding on and I’ll be back soon!!

Today is the day!!!

PROMPT: Do you need time?

This prompt has given me the kick up the bum that I needed. Do I need time? My immediate answer was yes, I always need more time. Then I started thinking and actually, I need to work smarter and not harder. So no, I don’t need more time, just a kick up the behind!

I have just enrolled on a course to become an accredited life coach and I cannot wait to get started! On top of this I have started a Printables shop on Etsy (Click here to have a look – I’m still adding things to it!) and I’ve got my craft business with my mom with I am uploading the Christmas items this morning (The Gift Horse)).

All in all I feel like I’ve got a new lease of life and I’m going to make November my month!

In the words of this amazing woman – what have you done today to make you feel proud?