Happy New Year 2011

To all of our dear clients past, present & future..."We at WeddingsAbroad.com wish you a wonderful new year filled with abundance, joy, and treasured moments. May 2011 be the best year yet!"

Karen 

WeddingsAbroad.com

Surviving the school holidays with your sanity!

Here in the UK we are entering our third week of the school summer holidays. I am very fortunate to have childcare for my children, but some days we stay home, and after a trip to the beach or park I feel the lure of the laptop and need to have a quick fix of "work". I use the term work loosely because my job never feels laborious just completely enjoyable!

On these such days my thoughts turn to those women you work whilst caring for their children, and to them I give my utmost respect.

Many mothers would love to work and be at home with their children, but few know how to do it. Discovering the balance of work and home can be a lot more challenging when your office is your kitchen.

While the roles of stay at home mother and career woman have long been considered mutually exclusive, a growing number of women are showing the world that they can have careers and stay at home with their children.

Here are my top tips for a working mum staying at home:

1.Get dressed. Seriously I always feel I get so much more done when I am showered, dressed and ready for the day. Can you remember the early days and your highest achievement was just to have a shower! Get up before your kids and get a quick shower, it will wake you and energise you for the day. However if your kids can hear a pin drop like mine can, your plan may alter and you find yourself sharing the shower, as I did this morning with my two eldest.

2. Invest in a slow-cooker. I think these are the best invention ever, I love the fact I can chop up everything at 10am and bung it all in and hey presto! come 6pm we have a divine dinner. My husband doesn't agree though as he thinks all slow cooker food tastes the same...overcooked! Hence why he prefers to cooks a scrumptious dinner every night instead...okay so that suggestion might work for some! You could also do as I do on the days I have to make dinner, and learn how to make mince & dumplings in 10 minutes flat and bung it in the oven.

3. Delegate. Delegate to your kids. I say if they are old enough to make the mess they are old enough to clean it up! I also give mine little tasks to do such as stamping brochures or punching holes to file papers. They think it's fun and also teaches them a valuable skill about being responsible.

4. Midnight calls. Identify what you can put off until the evening, and what you need to get done during the day. Email can be checked and responded to at anytime, but calls to clients need to be done in office hours. I am lucky in that I can pick any hour in the day and speak to one of my wedding planner partners somewhere in the world. Often whilst my brood are sleeping I will call Australia or New York!

5. Wireless Working. Make sure you have high speed wireless internet, so that way when you do get to do some work you waste no time. Best of all it can be done in the house or out in the back garden whilst the kids are playing.

6. Schedule. Plan everything before the holidays begin, that includes play time and trips out, don't forget you need to plan into your schedule time out for the kids and lots of fun activities, it is their holiday after all. Also segment your days, activities, downtime, work time and TV time, but it’s a great productivity tool no matter what the ages of your children.

7. Barter. Arrange with your Mummy friends to have play dates at each others home. That way you are guaranteed a few hours off, okay so in return you gain a few more children but it is critical for your sanity.

8. Snacks. Buy loads of healthy snacks and ready to grab food. Prepare cut up vegetables or similar picnic options in the morning, put in plastic containers in the fridge and let them help themselves throughout the day. My kids will play "picnics" happily on a rug on the lawn for an hour or two. Although it does take me an hour to clear the garden before bed, as usually ten dolls and various colourfully clad bears have been in attendance!

9. Creative Combination. Find creative ways to combine your work with your kids. If your client is agreeable, for example, you could hold a business meeting at MacDonald's, or some other restaurant that has a play area for kids. If a client is coming to meet with you in your home, perhaps she could bring her children so your kids could play together while you meet. Take your kids with you when you go to buy office supplies or run other business related errands.

10. Count your blessings. Stop beating yourself up and think of all those working mothers who would love to be in your shoes. Think of the long commutes, no uniform of PJ's and less time they spend with their kids....okay sometimes that's a good thing! Only joking! Working from home means you not only get to work at home but you live there too.....some days to me that is just bliss.....

Creating lasting memories....

I was all dressed and ready to go at 6:45 am on Monday. I'd been up since 4:00 am. Was I a little eager? Of course, it was to be our first girl's trip away just the two of us.... my daughter Georgina and I and we were both incredibly excited.

We decided we would visit London in the school summer holidays, but a "secret" business meeting was requested and I decided to combine both. I know it's all a little cloak and dagger, but I am very superstitious and don't want to tempt fate! As my PR guru Claire would say, this meeting was stratospheric for me and my business....and it went exactly as I wanted, Georgina sat at the boardroom table like a little angel!

The commuting time is approximately three and a half hours but it is three and a half hours of heavenly solitude. No baby wriggling, no argumentative children (Gee was on her best behaviour!) and no husband questioning me on my inability to travel light! Nope, it's just me and Gee – and yes I brought everything but the kitchen sink, but hey I'm the one carrying it!

During the nice leisurely train ride I see families heading to the capital for their holidays, and I think "my kids would love this trip but THANK GOD I don't have them all with me." My mobile rings I look at my caller ID. It's my husband, ALREADY!!! He just calls to wish me well and he says he misses me. How sweet eh? Then he reminds me to remember I have Gee with me, and not to absent mindedly leave her behind, whilst my attention may be drawn to a pair of Cesare Paciotti's!

On arrival at our hotel, Radisson Edwardian Mountbatten we quickly checked in, here I was reminded it was actually 9 years since I had stayed in this hotel.....it only seemed like a year or two, considering in that time my life has changed beyond recognition, then I was "just" one half of a couple now I am that and more...throw into that 3 kids and voila! Gee was very impressed, she thought the receptionist had remembered me personally!

We quickly located the nearest stop for the Original Bus Tour and off we went, we spent the next few hours in the glorious sunshine atop of the open decked bus viewing all the sites. These included Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Shakespeare's Globe, Tate Modern, London Eye and more bridges than you can count. When we had done the full circle of this tour, we dashed through the streets of the west end, quickly glancing through the crowds awaiting the arrival of the celebrities, for the London Premier of the latest Batman movie The Dark Knight. We had arranged to meet my Australian niece, currently living and working in London, for dinner. After a rather swift dinner we went to see Hairspray at the Shaftesbury Theatre, no wonder this show has received rave reviews and Olivier awards...one word BRILLIANT!!!

Next morning, off in a taxi to my "secret" meeting, that's all I can say except it was very productive, watch this space. Then we headed for Madame Tussaud's, and thanks to the wonderful lady black cab driver we had, she assessed the queue and said that it would be a 2 hour wait!

So off to the Westminster and a river cruise instead, then onto another bus tour, then to the London Eye. Where I had forgotten I was afraid of heights, only to remember after the pod door had been closed. Those 25 minutes seemed the longest of the entire trip.....once off the London Eye we had a lovely walk along the embankment then onto our final bus tour of the trip.

We arrived back at the West End in time for afternoon tea and some retail therapy, well it was a girl's trip! Once again we were joined by my niece for an early dinner, we then said our goodbyes and then headed for the station for our train home.

Once we had slipped off our shoes and relaxed as the train pulled out the station, Gee asked for some paper and pens. Then she began, oh my word did she begin. Here was I thinking at my "secret"meeting earlier in the day, she had been quietly listening to her Ipod, when in fact she had been taking in every word that was said. She suddenly proclaimed that now going to be a wedding planner, just like Mummy.

Gee then proceeded to spend the next two hours writing down and discussing loudly, every miniscule detail as she planned a wedding aboard a luxury yacht moored at Sydney Harbour. I had to persuade her that stretch Hummer's are not de rigeur for a sophisticated wedding in Sydney. She wanted to know which were the very best local flowers suitable for the bridal bouquet, which location she should look to book the honeymoon hotel, she even drew a carriage and a table plan! This was all to the amazement of fellow passengers within earshot, but everyone seemed to enjoy her stories!

So watch out Georgina may be planning your wedding in the not too distant future :-)