Friday 29 June 2012

work life balance

Asleep

i've been thinking about this post for months now, thinking about how this blog used to be pretty balanced between my family life and my work life and how over the past couple of years i write less and less about my family/kids and more and more about work. and why this is so. manda wrote an couple of posts in a similar vein this week and really struck some chords with me, making me want to tackle this subject personally. there are so many reasons really.

when mae was a baby i wrote about her a lot and i love to go back and read those posts but as she got older, i started to feel a bit uneasy about sharing her in this completely-open-to-the-entire-world space. i'm not really much of a worrier about most things but the idea that someone could walk up to my kid and offer her her favourite toy/food or convince her that they know her by citing numerous details about her life kind of freaked me out. i know this is highly unlikely and truthfully she is pretty much always with me anyway but that's going to change in the next few years as she starts school. and then she'll be able to read this blog and what i've written about her and that presents it's own set of problems.

and that's just a small part of it because there is also the fact that as my kids get older i find it harder to write about them. their personalities are so much broader and more expansive than i could ever capture in words and if i can't explain something properly, as i never could their quirks and foibles and sweetness, i tend to just not write about it at all. which kind of sucks because i really want to capture these years and the girls as they are today, i know they are only going to change and change and change again.

these days i mostly share kid and family related stuff on my personal page on facebook, where i know exactly who is looking at it (i have all of my settings to share with friends only) and my family back home can get regular updates. this works perfectly for me but i realise it does leave this blog a little stale. it's hard because on top of the reasons above, i only have limited time/brain power to write posts and i really do have so much maze & vale stuff to share, i really love my job and am excited by the things i'm working on. at home, my work and family time are pretty divided - when the kids are home and awake, i really don't do any maze & vale stuff, aside from checking email or writing a quick facebook update. every once in awhile mae will hang out with me in my "snowing room" as she calls it, to watch tom & jerry on youtube while i heat set fabric or do a small print run, that's about the extent of the overlap. but i'd love to be a bit more balanced in this space. just need to find a way to make it all comfortably fit*.


*here's a start: in order to buy time to write this post i have given sophie a small bowl of ice chips to consume while she watches ABC2 and bought mae a dora & diego sticker game for the ipod touch.

5 comments:

  1. We have that ipod game too, love those baby sitters :) there's another good one called princess fairy tale maker by duck duck goose that both my girls like.

    This is such a hard thing to choose between... i've been thinking about it myself, although my blog is a little anonymous (no pics of me, so surname, no husband name) but i don't know if any of these things would actually help. But I do feel like there will be a time where I will want to stop putting pics of my kids up there, just not sure when that will be yet.

    Also this article made me think too.. http://gigaom.com/2012/06/07/why-ill-let-my-daughter-shape-her-own-digital-identity/

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  2. it's so hard. i have basically no division between me, family, sewing, work, and blogging time. i think i need to go a bit the other direction and turn off the computer and the sewing machine once in a while.

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  3. I am TOTALLY hearing you Leslie. I like recording and sharing some creative pursuits on my blog and news of some of our home life but sometimes feel uneasy about the extent to which I share about the kids. The blog is a great way to share with friends and family all over the world but, I also turned to Facebook this week to share family photos and felt much better about doing it that way (but it's still not perfect)...I've been toning the personal aspects of the blog down lately but I uploaded yesterday's post with photos of Elsa and have been feeling unsettled about it ever since. Actually, I think it has to come down but, I wanted to share it with Ella at Little Red Caboose first...perhaps I just should've emailed her but couldn't find her address! Anyhow...I'll continue to work on the balance (between sharing creative experiences and the children's days). And hey!, the fabric arrived...thanks so very much, I love it!!!!

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  4. Hi Leslie, I too have been thinking similar thoughts. When Joy was born, I felt uneasy about showing her on the internet. I felt so protective of her... It was an instinctual reaction that I still find difficult to articulate properly. I have recently decided that I'm rarely going to share photos of my children on my blog. I would rather document their journey in their photo album and my letters to them. So much more personal and private.

    I like your blog just how it is. It gives me loads of inspiration. In fact, I brought some paint this week to stencil onto some fabric :-)

    xx

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  5. Hi Leslie,
    We met at the Craft Vic seminar at the NGV last Thurs talking about Aus Post and online shop postage setting limitations. Thanks for your input, btw. ;o)
    I've just found you here and will hunt you down on FB to connect that way as well. Your post about the whole work/life balance was nice to read and raised some pertinent points about a complicated issue -- I certainly haven't worked it out and spent a lot of time when the majority of Melbourne sleeps doing the things I love in order to have time for the family I love during waking hours. Certainly not ideal. :o\ My own business blog died about a year ago due to certain Google changes that I haven't managed to resolve!!
    Cheers,
    Robyn
    Focus on Art -- assemblage owl sculptures

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I love to hear your thoughts, thanks so much for taking the time to comment! If you have a question to ask, I will answer it here (and by email as well, if I can track down your email address). I would love to reply to every single comment but until Blogger makes it easier to reply by email, please know that I am so happy you stopped by : )

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