A Week In Life Of A Mom Blogger
I personally don’t think the life of a mum blogger is that much different from any other mother. Aren’t we all trying to fit everything into our days, balancing our babies on our hips, literally and juggling the many roles we have as a mum – a friend, teacher, cook, toy hoover, sleep soother and butt wiper to our kids?
Thankfully for most women of our generation, we have a life besides our kids. For me, it’s my baby planning business, mentoring other mumpreneurs and blogging. Every week is slightly different because I work on different projects each week, but below is how a typical week like for me.
Monday
I love Mondays. Yes, it’s school day and the weekend is over, but I like that Monday presents a fresh new start to the week.
Like mother, like daughter. Lauren doesn’t seem to have the Monday blues either. She is very enthusiastic about going to kindy after the weekend off. Her enthusiasm only lasts until Wednesday though. By Thurday, she isn’t so cheery anymore. Friday is fine because it’s Physical Education (PE) day and she loves learning a new race or some sort of games and teaches Georgia when she gets home.
10:00
I have three hours between dropping and picking Lauren up from school. On Mondays, I use this time to check in with my assistant to discuss what needs done for the rest of the week. She helps me with sourcing supplies and deliveries to my maternity concierge clients and appointments setting, among other things.
I receive collaborations/partnership enquiries all week. I use the weekend to sleep on those offers that I’m iffy about. I let my manager at Nuffnang knows which collaborations I’d like to work on and which ones to reject. She negotiates on my behalf and that takes a lot off my hands when it comes to blog sponsorship and advertorials.
14:00
My weekly grocery run is usually on Mondays. After picking Lauren up from school, we head to lunch at the mall. It’s also our weekly one-to-one mother-daughter time.
20:00
The programming on every weeknights is pretty much the same. I avoid going out or attending events because it is our family time. We have dinner, spend some time as a family, be it playing hide and seek, reading, doing puzzles or simply turn on the music and be silly, before tucking the kids to bed.
22:00
After the kids are asleep, Nick and I either binge watch series like House of Cards and Homeland or we’ll just chat and ask each other’s opinions on business related stuff. At times, we work quietly on our own computers.
I read a lot of articles on pregnancy, motherhood and entrepreneurship (the 3 major topics of my blog) to get myself up to date. I love reading other mummy blogs too. It feels good to know that we share many of the same ups and downs and that I’m not alone in my joys and struggles.
Tuesday
On Tuesdays, my helper sends Lauren to school while I stay home with little Georgia. Now that Lauren is in school, I get to spend more one-to-one time with this little one.
14:00
If I have a choice, I schedule most meetings to be on Tuesdays or Wednesday afternoon. I feel better about leaving the kids at home after I’ve sorted out their meals or at least have food in the fridge for the helper to cook.
Last Tuesday afternoon was an interesting one. I attended a collaboration session where a group of women entrepreneurs and myself shared our resources and discussed how we can partner and help each other’s businesses. It’s very inspiring to be in the company of these very capable women.
From the meeting, I’m currently in discussion with a few kick-ass ladies to start a women entrepreneurship program – to offer advice and share each of our own domain expertise to aspiring mumpreneurs. Exciting things coming up. Watch this space!
18:00
From The Sail at Downtown, I headed to Nuffnang office near Farrer Park for a bloggers tax session. I’m sure you’ve all read about the big hoo-haa about bloggers having to declare all their non-monetary gifts received from sponsors by now. The session was to clarify any doubts we have on filing our taxes. An hour later, armed with all the blogger tax knowledge crammed into my pregnancy brain, I went home to spend the rest of the night with Nick and the girls.
Wednesday
I work on my book, The Chill Mom: Secrets of An Enjoyable Pregnancy and Confident Motherhood, every Wednesday and Thursday morning. By the way, you can preorder it at a special price here. (Shameless plug)
10:30
I usually go to a cafe after dropping Lauren off at kindy. I’m in the editing stage at the moment and if you do see me working at this time, you would find me hunch over my laptop, furiously crossing out words, sentences and paragraphs and rework my material for 2 hours non-stop. I usually stuff my face with lunch as I work too.
14:30
After picking Lauren up from school, I went to the Children Baby Maternity Expo (CBME) at Suntec Exhibition Centre to check out the latest trend and innovation in the baby and maternity industry. I browsed and spent about two hours there talking to various suppliers from around the world.
On the way back home, I stopped by Giant to pick up some fruits and snacks for Lauren and Georgia. The mummy in me always feel like I should get them something whenever I’ve been busy and haven’t spent much time with them. Mummy guilt much?
18:00
My besties from KL were in town. They came by my place to see Lauren and Georgia before we went to Hai Di Lao for dinner. After dinner, I rushed home to put the girls to bed and left home again for long chat into the night with my buddies!
Thursday
Thursdays are mainly for writing. Besides my own blog, I also contribute articles to The New Age Parents, The Asian Parents, Executive Lifestyle, etc. We discuss what would be a good story for their readership and I write most of Thursday mornings.
I also take the afternoon to work on blog posts while the kids are napping. I don’t usually finish a blog post on one go. I tend to batch similar tasks together. I’ll work on all the framework one day, researching for facts the next, editing photos for a few posts at the same time, and if I’m feeling chatty, I’ll start filling in the words to my blog posts. I leave linking references and proof reading till the end. Shocking I know, I do proof read before hitting the ‘publish’ button and my posts are still full of typos and grammatically wrong at times. One day if I earn enough from this whole blogging gig, I’ll hire a proof reader, I promise.
16:00
A quick dash out to meet my maternity concierge client at Mount Elizabeth Novena. We discuss her requirements for a confinement nanny. It’s really similar to a match-making exercise! Sometimes it’s a match made in heaven, sometimes… well, let’s just say there has to be give and take in every relationship.
After the meeting, I take the girls out to our local playground and let them run for an hour or so.
22:00
The writing, editing photos and promoting blog posts resumes on Thursday night. I go to bed at 1am. It’s waaaaay too late and not great for my skin, but I enjoy what I do and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Friday
I send bi-weekly newsletters out to my subscribers every second Sunday, so I draft the emails on Fridays. My newsletters contain latest posts, special giveaways and downloadable checklists and ebooks for my subscribers. I have 2 lists. You can join my blog subscribers here or here.
The second list is created for readers who are interested in earning a sustainable side income while staying at home. You can expect to receive more tips on managing both home and work/biz life productively, the how-tos of starting a business from home and how to set your business/blog apart from everyone else. I won’t bombard you with my pregnancy news here, but if you are interested to follow my personal journey as well as receive mumpreneurship tips, you’re welcome to join both lists!
19:00
Last Friday, we had dinner with our friends at Osso. It’s an adults-only dinner, so it also doubled up as a date night with the hubby. We try to catch up at least once a month, mostly with kids, but last week we wanted to eat peacefully without interruption from the kids.
Saturday
The kids have their Heguru classes every Saturday. So lunch is usually settled at the mall right after classes. Lauren’s staple? Chicken rice!
We spent the rest of our last Saturday at home, catching up on sleep and vegging out on the sofa reading and watching television. Bliss…..
Sunday
Sunday is usually another quiet family day for us. We would go to a nearby cafe for breakfast and take the kids for a walk around our neighbourhood. We would then spend the rest of the day just chilling at home.
Last Sunday though, we went to a friend’s son’s 2 years old birthday party held at their place. It’s amazing how kids can go without food and nap when they are presented with jumping castle, climbing gym, slides, ball pit and lots and lots of toys. I did feed them though and they slept like babies at the end of the day!
17:00
It’s Skype with Ah Ma and Ah Kong time. This is when Lauren shows off the latest songs she learnt from school and Georgia sings whatever she pleases.
19:00
Dinner on Sundays are either a very simple home cooked beehoon soup or if I’m feeling lazy, you would find us at Sushi Tei eating sushi rolls and tonkatsu!
This is it! My typical week of juggling kids with my business and keeping a blog. What’s your favourite part of your week? Do share!
This post is part of a link-up with other Singapore Parent Bloggers to share a week in the life of a blogging mum and dad. You can peek into the life of 29 other families over at Week In Life of Blogging Mum and Dad linkup here.
Next up is Christy, a mum blogger at Kids ‘R’ Simple is a FTWM to 3 young kids. Read how she strikes a balance in juggling between a full time job, blogging, kids, family bonding, nurturing relationships and self-care and most of all – finding joy in motherhood.
Wow you’re really amazing to get so much things going in a week! From Maternity Concierge to writing book, to spending time with the family… I need to be more productive like that!
My kids are my motivation. You are amazing too, Jacqualine. From hosting to your party deco business and now with three kids in tow!
I enjoy reading your blog. You inspire me to be more productive esp juggling business and being a mom. Im a sahm and just started blogging. No idea how u manage a business! Thumbs up
As corny as it sounds – if there’s a will, there’s a way! We, mothers are a resourceful bunch and we can make it work if we put our minds into it. All the best with your business and blogging. If you have any question, just shout! 🙂
I’m amazed how you remember everything! Some evenings when I’m just lazing on the couch with the husband, I will be like, “Eh, what did we do yesterday huh?” And I’m not even pregnant so I can’t blame my bad memory on that.
What a productive week you had! I really enjoy the 1to1 quality time with my girls too.
hahah I found one similarity between us! Heguru! =D Nice read Michelle! Thanks for sharing =)
it’s great to see what you life is like in a week.. you’re achieving so much at home and at work. I’m glad you sorted out what to do with the NN offer and it’s working great for you. Well done Michelle!!
Ai @ Sakura Haruka
Thanks Ai. Yes, being in NN has freed up my time, so I can focus on writing instead of spending hours replying to sponsorship enquiries 🙂
I must have missed you mention that you’re working on writing a book! All the best for that and thanks for the sneak peek into what your week looks like.
The book writing isn’t going as fast as I had hoped but it’s almost there! Thank you 🙂
Wow what a busy but lovely week as a mom blogger. I love what I do as a mother and a blogger while I am so new to it all still I am learning every day. Can’t wait to work on bigger projects sounds like an entrepreneur program would be amazing to help and inspire others. Good for you. Thanks for linking to #ShareWithMe