Work life balance

After spending a couple of days working from bed while recovering from the previous week, I got up on Thursday determined to catch up with everything and be relatively straight by the weekend.

It started well, and by 10am the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer were running; and I was showered dressed etc., the overnight emails were answered and the kids were doing their lessons. Life was good :-)

However, a few minutes before 11am, I received a phone call reminding me that I had an 11am appointment at my office! Thankfully, I was both ready and in work mode, and live 3 minutes from my office, so I was only a couple of minutes late.

This is the first time I have forgot a meeting. It happened because I received the request on my mobile phone while we were on holiday last week. I was on the way to swimming at the time, and meant to note it when I got back. Needless to say the trauma of swimming with 6 children and having my brain in holiday mode made me for get the appointment. Maybe I need to carry my ipod touch at ALL times so I can note everything straight away and sync to ical later? I'm really looking forward to our current mobile phone contract ending, so we can swap to iphones. This will save both of us from having to carry ipods AND Blackberries around. Currently we are with T-Mobile, and iphones are only available with O2, so an upgrade or exchange isn't possible.

The meeting was with the local Chamber of Commerce, who wanted to explain member benefits to me. Its given me something to think about. I can see how it could be valuable to traditional businesses, but I am not sure how much we would get from it, being an online business with mostly overseas customers? There are a few networking events that look interesting, but we hardly have a minute to spare at this time, so I don't know if we would actually make it to any! I popped into another office in our block to see how they were finding the Chamber events since joining, and found that no one there had yet attended any. However, I did find that I had been quoted FIVES TIMES the annual membership fee they had!! I think an email is in order to find out the actual cost before I spend more time pondering the pros and cons.

The rest of the day was spent in with Dave trying to work out dates to book his flights to Dubai for March and April. This was complicated as we are trying to fit four clients into a couple of weeks to save time and travel. Its cheaper for the clients too, as there are less expenses, so should be the best option. However, there is one new client who we feel has an unrealistic view of what could be achieved on a three day shoot planned at the beginning of the dates, so we need to negotiate more or drop it. We have a happy regular client in the middle, followed by a seemingly straight forward commission for a one day shoot from a new client, and then received a referral to another new client to possible fit in at the end! As its the potential new clients at either end of the fortnight that are still under negotiation - so I can't book flight or hotels yet!

The flights are always problematic on a photo shoot, as the amount of kit in the Pelicases take us WAY over the luggage allowance. Last year the same journey cost £180 each way in excess luggage (!!), so it takes a while to compare the airline luggage allowances as well as the ticket costs. We have found American Airlines MUCH better for luggage allowances, but they don't fly this route.

This morning I woke up to two emails pointing to the same breach of copyright. Oddly enough it was a photo Dave took last time he was in Dubai http://tinyurl.com/bxmqwh and the online paper using it has the cheek to put a copyright notice at the bottom of the page!

Hmmm....back to the Chamber of Commerce again, and wondering how it would help my business?

Rhowan and Harmony have just finished a fantastic story book they have been working on this week. They have written the story themselves and illustrated every page. There's is not one spelling mistake - I am so proud of them!

Tesco are due to deliver the shopping in a hour. Just time to get check the emails, skype and twitter, make a couple of calls I really should have done yesterday then rally the children and get their school stuff put away. Its usually a delivery of 50 - 60 carrier bags, so its a call to action stations to get everything away!

Then a trip to the vet for the pets vaccinations. They need to be up to date for their passports!

work/home/work/home/clients/ hubby/children/work/sanity

Will it ever balance?