in between

I’m 40. And pregnant again. Which means I don’t quite fit with my counterparts in their late 20s and early 30s who are at the same stage of parenthood. And I don’t fit in with the 40somethings who have tweens and teens.

Where am I, exactly? I’m looking for the over-40 mom of a new baby who still wants to stay connected, and young, but isn’t interested in being 20 or even 30 again.

And that’s a hard admission. I don’t WANT to relive my 30s. Or my 20s. They were both about work, and hardship and difficulty. They were also about world travel, building my business and my portfolio and being involved. What do I want now? Right now? exactly what I have: a quiet house alone.

But alas my job tonight is to clean bathrooms while everyone is out. And I’d rather NOT be doing that but they so need cleaning. Maybe I can whip through them, with the stereo on full blast and drink a cup of tea afterwards.

Moving ahead the agendae

Handbags – this weekend, plan, revise latest pattern (s), draft diaper clutch and purse organizer on paper.

LLL web – sketch design

Hoping – archive site, install wordpress and repost content

House: clean

health: swim, walk, nap, plan out a Bradley schedule for every day. (On calendar)

fabric: cut

That’s a lot to accomplish. Of course, it’s wednesday night, the weekend stretches before me not of 48 hours but 48 deeply productive hours. To be sucked up by the usual weekend stuff. And it’s all good stuff, it’s just stuff.

Part of my goal in life right now is to keep some things moving that are important to me. We have much uncertainty in the world right now – the big world and my little world. So to keep things moving ahead is a positive thing. There ARE yet things within my control.

dessert dish

Missed lunch. But we are getting rid of the problem client.

This really freed me up emotionally to focus on other clients and other projects far more deserving of my attention. I’m trying to get my peanut to sleep (she’s outside the doorway, finally quiet after an hour of up and down and up and down).

this weekend I need to push ahead some sewing projects. go to yoga, of course, and focus on mama for a bit. I found my parenting books including the fun things to do with kids book. Life is improving.

In six weeks, the end of Lent, we’ll be planting seedlings and celebrating spring. My peanut will have turned 3! I’ll be celebrating rebirth on so many fronts – business, personal, and focusing on the impending birth of this new baby boy.

I’m pretty sure I know where I want to be in my life right now. That can always change. But right now I know where I need to be. I also need to bring God more into my life, the joyousness that we felt this summer as we both enjoyed Mass on Sundays, my peanut and I. She likes the singing. I think Lent is a great time to do this, don’t you?

And I also think I can design some new patterns for the handbag site – maybe a diaper clutch with room for mama’s phone and lipstick.

I went looking for RTW inspiration and found a few things – ruffled edged, raw edged flowers sewn on gauzy tees. good update to older tees. skinny pants. check. ballerina flats, check. long but very fine cardigans. Looking forward to spring. check.

Lunch Dish

So I’m going to take some time every day to dish about what’s up (at lunch). We still have client from hell right now. Hoping to resolve that – positively if we can, and completely if we can do that too – soon. Meeting with one of our advisors today about it. The project was challenging, but the company culture – which is secretive, and not inclusive – is hampering efforts further. We love challenging projects with clients who are open, helpful and engaged. This isn’t that client. I’m sure it’s culture now. They seem to have a lot of lower-level employees who are not empowered to make decisions or move ahead in their learning or skillsets. Whereas equally challenging project with clients who love their jobs has been a delight. Still difficult technically but they’re ‘let’s brainstorm what we can do together” instead of “we don’t want to be bothered.”In that case we’ve come up with some amazing creative suggestions to get their projects done, and they’ve assigned people to learn and grow with us, who have become an extension of OUR staff in getting the projects done!

I’ve set up a personal social media strategy too – twitter is for crafty and marketing tweets, including RTs designed to attract a craftista audience who has a business on the side and wants to move that ahead. Facebook is a semi personal, crafty post place where I can move ahead the craftista agenda in my life (including promoting friends’ craft blogs & facebook fan pages). Linked in is purely marketing and web biz designed to appeal to prospects and potential clients, as well as present us as experts in our area. I think going to this strategy will help some of my friends move their agendas ahead too.

Personally, I think I’m more settled now than I have been recently. I still love my work minus the PITA client. If I can jettison them, I’m golden. Sales has been fun, even joyful lately.

this summer i really want to slide back into motherhood and move my sewing blog in the space of a fashionista, crafty but not crunchy mama. I’ll have a garden, but still wear designer ballet flats with my skinny jeans. I might cloth diaper, baby wear and breastfeed but I’ll be doing it in a strapless sundress and 3″ wedges. And I’ll be posting about making of things – dresses, diapers, handbags.

I’ll be 41 in the early fall. 41! That’s middle aged! what’s a middle aged mama who looks 15 years younger (even my casual friends cannot believe I’m in  my 40s) doing raising a newborn and a preschooler?! And doing it in size 4 skinny jeans and (nursing) tank tops no less! (hey, the girls haven’t slid too far south, with the right support they’re still at attention).

Back to work! It was a nice dish.

changing

My body is morphing into serious pregnant mama right now. I’m more and more aware of the impending change in my life and how little time I have to prepare. Over the weekend I felt like nesting. Nesting!  I’m feeling that slow turn inward that accompanies pregnancy at some point.

In many ways, this pregnancy has been harder to wrap myself around because I do have a toddler at home, already. And my life is incredibly busy. And it was unexpected. But I took some time and bought some fabric to make two more things to wear, something I promised myself I’d do.

I am trying to divest myself from the client from  hell right now. We are meeting with our attorney to discuss how to gracefully exit while still giving them what they need. I feel a moral responsibility to doing that. I need to focus on the good clients who deserve our attention and devotion. Not the problem children who do not.

What shape will my life take? I don’t know now, but I am envisioning a life this summer that is focused on my children and my garden.

Better days

Thursday just sucked, and just because it’s over doesn’t mean my questions aren’t still there. But what I need to do is push some of these other things ahead – map out a step by step plan for the patterns biz, map out what I think my summer should be.
Right now I’m working (it’s saturday) but it’s funny, when we like the client – and this is one of my favorites – I am not only not minding the work, I’m happy about getting it done.

I’m giving up difficult clients for Lent

That’s it. Anyone who even seems remotely challenging, I’m backing away. And that means at the proposal stage, too. I’ve got a prospect and a proposal that I think I’m not going to pursue. It’s not worth it. And I have SO many clients who are SO wonderful – as people, as clients – so why should I waste time with the ones who are contentious and irritable.

Hubby says I should not make rash decisions when I’ve had a bad day. But I want to. I want to rail against the world, make some rash decision and then just pack up and leave for a new life. I do. I wonder if this is the push I need, or if it’s just I’ve had a bad day and I need to chill out like hubby says I do. In four months (typed five, thought six) this baby will be born. And my life is about to change radically again, whether I make the choice or not.

But the choices are hard, and they affect many people, not just me. They would take me away from things I’ve done forever, it seems, and people I really like. But I just don’t want to go on like this. There are days I think that I can make it go, and then, like today, I see that it’s really ridiculous. I’m a puppet in a game I no longer want to play. Jail with the door open.

So what is it I want to do? Is it just this day? this client? the possibility of another one like this client? If i took them out of the equation would it be OK? I’m no longer sure any more of any direction. I know I’m not supposed to make decisions like this on a night like this after a day like this.  The posts like this are more numerous, and the ones where I love my job are less and less. Maybe I just need some time away (gonna get THAT this summer). It’s only four months away and I will be on leave for a little while. Able to see some perspective. It’s not just the clients it affects – my day care provider’s business, my kids’ college, my financial life, my obligations to my partners, to my bankers, to myself.

change

I went to my local goodwill, after being sorely disappointed at Target, snared two nice pairs of washable, yet dressy pants, chopped them off below the belly and am going to sew stretchy waistbands. The wool jersey ones were NOT with lycra and were a total failure. But they’re gorgeous fitting pants, so I will make more in a decent fabric. This is really a post for the sewing blog.

But along with all this is the renewed sense of change I am feeling. I needed to say “no, I promised myself THIS was my last and if I ever did it again, here’s what I’d do…” and I’m doing it. Work is settling down into proposals and projects – just the kind of flow I like. I need to add prospects to that, and then it will be perfect. Prospects, proposals and projects. I’m ready to start sewing bags and making the list of one thing per week to work on. I’m working on logos on the side for friends.

February gives us a peek at spring. This morning I heard birds singing. It’s still bitterly cold, and we put the flannel sheets back on. I got salsa on my maternity coat and they cleaned it in one day (I wore my mom’s swing coat – which is almost too small – but serviceable. Too cold for a cape.) But you can sense spring is out there, not too far away now. Six weeks, no matter what the groundhog says.

Tomorrow, evening networking event for entrepreneurs. I don’t know what the format will be, but I’m interested. I have several such ventures – our company’s initiative for entrepreneurs, the partnership with a client, my own side gigs. It’s good.