It's a mummy's life

I’m Holly, a working mother and I’m on a quest to find work life balance. I am failing miserably at the moment but I keep a record of my various attempts on my blog. My two young daughters (don’t EVER have them 18 months apart!) keep me extremely busy in a referee/slave kind of way. I used to be a grown up managing director of a PR firm who looked terribly business-like in Prada suits and Laboutins, now I am still an MD but I wear Primark and Next and normally have baby sick or squashed banana adorning my clothes. But it’s all good fun and I wouldn’t change a thing (well apart from find a few more hours in the day, that would be good).

1.What’s your blog about?
My life as a working mum; baby sick on my top and a laptop in my nappy bag. It’s fun, it’s busy but it’s not always pretty. I write about the adventures I share with my two girls.

2. When and why did you start writing your blog?
December 2009 because I had heard about ‘mummy bloggers’ and wanted to be a part of this wonderful community. I also wanted to keep a diary that my girls could read one day and see just how much I love them.

3. How long do you spend blogging and what do you enjoy?
Goodness far too long! I blog most days and I obsess over stats the rest of the time! I love blogging, I love the self expression, the community and the opportunities it brings me and my family.

4. What have been your blogging highs and low, triumphs or disasters?
High was winning the MAD award for Best looking Blog, also reading my blog post at Cybermummy was fun. The only low for me was when I changed my domain name and lost lots of readers, but that was soon rectified. Other than that there aren’t many lows, apart from the odd negative comment that hurts, but you get over them pretty quickly when you realize how many lovely people there are who read your blog.

5. Is blogging a job or a hobby? What would be the ideal outcome?
It’s a hobby but I’d love to make it a job, who wouldn’t? The ideal outcome for me would be to write my novel and spend more time on developing the professional side of my blogging hobby. But back in the real world I have a mortgage to pay.

6. How easy is it to set up a blog – and have you any tips for newbies.
Dead easy. I favour blogger because I know it and it’s incredibly simple to use, but Wordpress is the other big platform that’s free to use and performs better on SEO. My only tip would be to buy your own domain before you get going (ie: without blogspot or wordpress in the url) that way you are set up if you want to take it more seriously. If you do that then buy your domain for 5 years or so as Google prefers blogs that mean business, so to speak.