17 things every girl needs to remember at all times

This made me smile on a gloomy Friday morning – going to do #17 and then go get some spaghetti hoops!

Hannah Gale

Because life isn’t always easy, most of the time it’ll make you want to smack yourself in the face, cry for no reason and eat potato-based products. But that’s a-ok.

Go on, remember these things and try not to have a breakdown today..

1. Nobody on their deathbed ever says that they wished that they had worked more. Any dying regrets will be that they loved harder, lived fuller and embarked on more adventures. Remember that when you’re beating yourself up about your career or lack of. Your work should always be to fund your lifestyle and happiness and not to be the epicentre of your universe. If you’re moping because your career plan just ain’t happening, get a grip. Go on holiday with friends or have a boozy barbecue with family. Don’t ever forget to think about and prioritise what makes you happy.

2. £2.99 eyeliner from Collection 2000…

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Having Fun with Fusing Beads (Hama/Perler/Magic)

Sorting little mans craft box and found these (£6.99 at Sainsbury’s) – so thought I would have a play…. then inspiration struck, have been looking at ways to liven up my scaffold piercing and beads are used in jewellry – bingo! New adornment.

Next it was over to Pinterest to search for inspiration – if you search Hama Beads or Perla Beads there are lots of ideas to inspire you. Unfortunately the boards that came with the kit are only 15 x 15 and the designs I liked (and pinned) are too big.

So ‘Being Sharon Greenwood’ I decided to have a go at designing my own and this is what I came up with:  A Roller Derby Quad Skate.

Ta Dar – the finished project – not bad for a first attempt.

My Flamin Roller Derby Skate, the team I skate with is called Code Red and our branding is flames, and this is modelled on my own Riedell Dash skates with Poison wheels.

Why not come over and find out more about Roller Derby and like my team at http://www.facebook.com/coderedrollerderby

Thanks
Sharon

 

#100HappyDays & Happiness Tests

So, if you are anything like me, you will know and recognise when something annoys you, but do you know and recognise what makes you happy! In these crazy times, with all the pressures life throws at us, it seems that we may have forgotten how to be happy and the benefits happiness can bring. So as a little experiment I have jumped on the 100 happy day’s band wagon.

http://www.100happydays.com

I keep seeing the hash tags 100happydays, 100dayshappy and variations on Facebook and Twitter – all with a picture of the source of the individual’s happiness. So with the help of Google I decided to investigate this viral trend.  The basics – for 100 days in a row, take a picture of whatever made you feel happy and post it to your preferred social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc) and use the hashtag #100happydays and a few words if you want.

Reading posts like “Are you one of those people like me who has a super busy life? Does your daily agenda allow you to be mindful of what makes you Happy every day? No? Well you may be interested in #100happydays. It truly is a lovely project to get you back in touch with what makes you happy.” (Manon Popjes) and my friends pictures have inspired me to give it a go. Firstly, this challenge is not about being happy 24/7 – it is about taking note of what makes you happy and about finding time for happiness every day.

Now ‘Being Sharon Greenwood’ I just cannot do it for the sake of doing it, so decided to do some ‘bench-marking’ to gauge if my happiness does in fact increase by reminding myself that ‘happy things happen every day’ … I just don’t acknowledge them anymore.

So back to Google to find some ‘Happiness Tests’, I completed three of varying complexity and here are the results:

Test 1:
http://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/take_test.php?idRegTest=1320 (47 Questions)
Result:  42/100 Cynicism.

Cynical me?

Test 2:
http://happiness.teststipsandtricks.com/test/index.php?id=1
As the specialist Tal Ben-Shahar explains, happiness depends on the level of pleasure you get from your day to day activities, and the meaning you reach by performing these activities.
Result: Pleasure = 31%, Meaning = 49%

Need more of both?

Test 3:
http://www.stressandhappiness.com/
This is an actual psychology study so you do need to enter some basic info, age, gender etc. I feel that out of the three this is the most accurate – oh and you get to do a free personality test at the end, which, for me, was really accurate.
Result:  Stress – High, Stress Coping – Average, Happiness – Below Average, Positive thoughts – Average.

My current state of mind?

 

So I now have my starting point. See you in 100 days.

KEEP SMILING 🙂

Sharon

Be Your Own Hero – not just about the skating.

I love Facebook for the fact that my news feed is always full of roller derby goodness. Every now and again one of these posts engages me and touches me enough to share. Today a friend shared a link to a Rollin’ News article – Be Your Own Hero by Jay Pegg.

‘Be Your Own Hero’ is a well used phrase in the derby world, and for me personally it was not an appealing thought – I agree with Jay when he says….

“I’ll admit that I considered the phrase to be nothing more than one of those trite empowerment sayings that you see all over the place – much like aim for the moon and you’ll still land among the stars, which, is astronomically inaccurate for starters”

… but then I read the article, which did bring a tear to my eye, and know now that it is not about being the best derby player or the best skater, it is about your contribution to your sport and your team that makes you a hero.

So whether you are a skater, an NSO,  or on the committee – take time to read this, it will make you smile.

http://rollinnews.com/post/be-your-own-hero

6 Reasons Why Roller Derby is NOT Ready for the Olympics

A good blog from Canadian Derby Frontier – and as much as I would like to see RD as an Olympic sport, lets stick to ‘World Cups’ until we get the sport generally accepted, watchable and enjoyable by anyone, and really less complicated – I skate and NSO and have around 80+ hours viewing time, and I still get lost. Love the description about multi-personality disorder – yep that’s my sport and that’s most leagues I know – may have to print this out for next time I am asked ‘What is Roller Derby’.

5. Roller Derby has multiple personality disorderIt’s true! I cannot even begin to count how many leagues strive to be a hardcore competitive All-Star team, casual athletes, beer league and a junior sport organization all at the same time. Even the leagues that are not all of those things at once are, more often than not, still a combination of two or three of them.Trying to be several things at once and trying to make several groups of members, with different levels of commitment, all happy at the same time is bound to drive wedges into the community of a league and contribute to increased tensions.To the outsider who asks me, “what is roller derby?” I don’t really know how to answer them anymore.The best way I could describe it now is: “It’s a competitive, professional, grassroots, amateur, casual, complicated, frustrating, fun, fascinating, stressful, amazing extreme sport for women, men and children of all shapes and sizes. But in order to be competitive you need to go to the gym and cross-train. But don’t worry anyone can play! But you might not play if you don’t dedicate enough of your mind, body and time to it. Oh, and it has Olympic dreams but doesn’t get a lot of love from the media and has fluctuating spectator numbers and many leagues can’t secure venues or practice space, or consistently recruit and retain members, but when they do… IT’S AWESOME!”That’s roller derby in a nutshell.

via 6 Reasons Why Roller Derby is NOT Ready for the Olympics.

5 Things to Keep in Mind About Safety, Over-Training and Body Image in Roller Derby

Just started Roller Derby? Rushing to get on track? Over-training? Taking up new diets and exercise regimes to get out there quicker and be a derby hero – Yep, I did that too and it didn’t help,  all I did was break myself.  Some good sound advice in this blog – read it, note it, do it! You will thank yourself later on.

5 Things to Keep in Mind About Safety, Over-Training and Body Image in Roller Derby.

My life on a spreadsheet.

Well, this is going to be a very quick post as this is not my ‘blogging’ time. A couple of weeks back I posted that I needed to manage my time better. Well this week I have been forced to work it out, I have just taken on a 100+ hour desktop publishing contract (freelancer) and have to fix delivery dates. So yesterday I sat down with a list of things I am committed to at the moment, and the things I still need to be working on, including a couple of personal projects and my study. Well yesterday I jotted them all down and popped them into a spreadsheet. The grayed out area everyday is family time, normally cooking and eating. Well, I think I have managed to fit it all in and will try to stick to the times. 

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” Thomas A Edison

Day 101, Diets and other stuff!

Yeah, my new time planner seems to be working, today I have done some work for a client, worked on a poster design for a fundraiser (a committee I am on) and left a slot to do some blogging, well actually hubby has gone out so I have some free time to catch up on my blog. I enjoy writing my blog (and reading other blogs) but it is always pushed back to being the last thing on my list and because of this I am now aware that I have not blogged about Day Zero since February, about Roller Derby since January and I blogged about a diet in February and have not mentioned it since. So, apart from Roller Derby which warrants a post of its own, this is going to be a bit of a catch up to keep you up to date on what I have been up to.

 

Day Zero
885 Days to go, 13% complete.

Well without trying I have ticked off another two on my day zero list, #43 go to the theatre to see a show. I had a great evening in Oxford watching ‘An Evening of Burlesque’ with darling hubby, and #69 to tweet more, I am now up to 199 tweets, part of this is the fact that I have linked with my Facebook account so any public statuses are shared on twitter, and as Twitter now posts to my social and personal pages on Facebook I am inclined to compose tweets more.

I have also managed to mark a couple as ‘in progress’ and some of these are coming along quite nicely, I just have to remember to make a note of anything I do that is on my DZ list as trying to do it in retrospect is proving quite difficult – I know I have read books, watched movies, listened to new music and cooked new dishes but cannot remember at this point what they were.

 

Diet
Remember me blogging about ‘The Two Day Diet’ that was serialized in the Daily Mail? (click here to read it).  Well the book arrived, and I had a look through and it is not as simple to do the diet as they made out, you still have to follow a Mediterranean diet for the other 5 days. A lot of my friends are having success with the 5:2 diet, where for two non-consecutive days a week you limit your calorie intake to just 500 calories, so I have decided to give this one a go.

My first challenge to face was to choose my days. I used to regularly have a ‘skinny day’ on a Monday out of guilt from the weekend excesses, so decided Monday would be one of my days, for the second day I needed to choose one where I did not have any roller derby training (could not do that on 500 calories) and one where I was not going to be rushing around too much. My only option was a Friday, great for feeling guilt free heading into the weekend. So Monday and Friday’s it is. So far I have had 3 fast days and lost 2lb. This way of dieting appeals to me as I can still eat normally the other 5 days, I have managed to maintain my weight on my ‘normal diet’ for 4 years now so must be doing something right, and on fast days only have to think – I can have that tomorrow if I want to.

If you are thinking of doing this diet be warned, it is tough to go a day on only 500 calories, I really struggled on the first day and did not space my meals/snacks out enough and ended up with a raging head ache and feeling sick, the second day was slightly easier as I had two small meals well spaced out, I did not get a headache this time, however, I could have eaten my own arm by 6pm and was seriously tired and ratty. I now space my calorie intake out even more, I am not a morning eater anyway so find 120 calories at 11am, 120 calories at 1pm, 250 calories at 6pm and then a 10 calorie jelly at 8pm works, I don’t feel as tired – and I drink either water or black tea with sweeteners during the day to make me feel full.

 

Work
I went self-employed in January, however, because of my operation I did not do any marketing till a couple of weeks ago and have already had interest in my services and taken on a new client – a short term project that will need regular ad hoc work in the future. I have existing clients but this is my first since launching as Sharon Greenwood SMART (http://www.smartofficeservices.net)

Portfolio Building
This ties into work as it is something I need to do to build my business, so I have been doing some ‘free’ stuff to gain experience in areas where my portfolio is ‘unqualified’ or ‘inexperienced’. One of these areas is desktop publishing and specifically programme/brochure/e-magazine production. My roller derby team hosted their first open door bout on Sunday 21^st April and I helped create the poster and programme for them – take a look here at the poster and view the programme here.

 

Studying

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am an eternal student. I love to study and take exams and it is very rare for me not to be attending a course or doing a correspondence course. I take some courses ‘just for fun’ however this time it is work related. I want to be able to offer a (locally) unique service, and focus on an area that will be useful to my other ‘services offered’ so signed up to do a proofreading and copyediting correspondence course, it was delivered a month ago now, and as yet I have not had a chance to look at it. This is the first time ever, that I have not jumped on the box as soon as it arrived and got ‘stuck in’ so I must have been feeling pretty rough when it arrived.

 

As always,
thanks for reading

‘Hoping to keep on top of it now’
Sharon x

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How can I manage ‘everything’ being self-employed and a full time Mum?

In January I went self-employed and started my own business, www.smartofficeservices.net.  My business plan is to offer services to local business, entrepreneurs, charities, clubs and groups. I want to offer some mainstream services, such as bookkeeping and office admin, and also offer some unique services such as e-Media solutions. My personal plan, is to be able to do work I love, with the variety and challenges I crave, and to be able to do this around caring for my family and being a full time Mum.

As I have only worked part time for one business for the last for four years, and done some freebie stuff for friends now and again, the going self-employed part was not as scary for me as it would be for some, I am not giving up a regular income to give it a go, I still work for the business only in a self-employed capacity now. Darling Hubby (DH) is also very supportive, and is happy to continue supporting our household to see if I can get this off the ground. Little man (C) starts school full time in September this year, and if my business is not good I will start looking for jobs so that we have a second regular income.

I hold qualifications for the skilled services I am offering , which is great, but for some of the newer services I want to offer  I am either unskilled or only part trained, so my first task as a self-employed person (SEP) is to take on the extra training I need and do some ‘gratis’ work to build up my portfolio – I would personally not employ someone who could not show examples of their work, so would not expect  any potential clients to take me on without checking out my portfolio and any testimonials first.

So, my website is up and running, I am enrolled on a copy editing and proofreading course, and I am volunteering to do ‘jobs’ that will boost my portfolio and experience, all this ground work is finally paying off, I was approached to do an internet research role for a local company, unfortunately I could not commit myself to the hours required, however, the ‘boss’ was impressed with my skills and versatility and has a few projects in the pipe line that he would like to talk to me about.  I was disappointed at the time, however, a few days later I received a desktop publishing enquiry and am having a consultancy meeting next week to have a look at the project.  In retrospect, I am happy that I did not get the internet research role, as this more exciting project has come along, and I would not have been able to fit it into my work schedule.

I am also working on two personal projects, that hopefully going forward, will earn me an extra income, and they will also be great for boosting my portfolio as they will cross several areas of my expertise.

So at this point in time my work commitments are the following:

• 1 Existing – bookkeeping, Social Media Management, website and general admin. PAYING
• 1 consultancy booked PAYING – with potential for contract after consultancy phase
• 1  Short term Social Media Management – Free
• 1 eBook  – Free
• 2 poster designs – Free
• 1 sports programme – Free
• 1 e-Booklet – Free
• 1 Social Media Project – mine
• 1 website project – mine

I know that I have taken on a lot of Free work, but at the time I was thinking more about my portfolio, and not the actual time this would take, hence quite a few late nights, no time to blog, read, watch TV or to just relax.

Some days I just sit and think, how can I fit this all in?  I am a Mum, so during the day, I clean, I iron, I cook, I spend time with C, take him to classes, groups and on play dates, and on the days when he is not at pre-school my ‘working day’ will start at 8 pm after he goes to bed. On other days I just don’t know where to start with my ‘work’ and how to fit it into my already busy life. One thing I know now, is that I want www.smartofficeservices.net to be a success, but to do this I need to organise my time better, to prioritise my work – my personal projects might be the most exciting for me and the ones I am happy to give my heart and soul for too, but they don’t pay the bills (yet), and as I need an income, anything that brings a financial boost needs to be put first.

So, I have realised, that working ‘free-flow’ and doing what I want when I fancy it, and on occasion cutting it tight on deadlines, is not working for me and is not best for my business. I need to organise my work, family and social time much better, so am going to buy a project planner where I can block out slots for everything and stick to it – and if I take on paying clients anything I am doing for free needs to be pushed back unless I am willing to stay up to the early hours to complete it.

So for anyone starting out as self-employed offering the same of similar services as I do,  these are my lessons learned (so far):

• Do work for Free – but only if it is really going to benefit your portfolio/experience.  Restrict free work to the areas where you have just qualified or have limited experience. Before saying ‘yes’ to anything, think do I need to do this for free, if you are giving up your valuable time there needs to be some benefit to you.
• Plan your time effectively – not just your work time, all your commitments need to be considered. Think about when you work best, can you move your other commitments around so that this is the time you are able to work?
• If you have allocated two hours to a client, set an alarm for 10 minutes before the two hours is up – this gives you time to finish up where you are and take any notes for when you pick the work back up, whether that be in a few hours, or a few days.
• A difficult one – if you really don’t like the idea of the doing the job offered, don’t do it just because you need the money.  A half hearted job is a job half done and it will not reflect well in your portfolio or testimonials. So unless you are absolutely desperate don’t do it.

If you are in a similar situation, or just have some ideas of how to be more effectively manage and balance your work, family, social life – let me know.

Thanks for reading.

Sharon.

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My neglected Blog :(

Well it’s 9.30 am Saturday morning, 20^th April 2013, and little man is in his drama class, I have to wait for C and it is Dads dropping off today so no one to gossip to. So unexpectedly I have an hour to myself, so dig in my bag for my trusty notepad that travels with me, and decide that I don’t have to be at my computer to write my blog, I can do it here and now using old fashioned paper and pen and then type it up later, and hopefully I will find the time to do that before it goes out of date (this paragraph is being typed after drama class, between lunch and a friend of C’s birthday party this afternoon 1.34 pm)

I am only just feeling 100% after my operation in January, my energy levels were shot and I am only just getting back to where I used to be. On top of this I am on three committees, have little man to look after, a home to keep, a business to build, my beloved Roller Derby, a college course, my blog and a Day Zero project. So my next blog, which is currently in progress, will be:

How can I manage ‘everything’ as a self-employed full time Mum?

(second paragraph typed, 23.16 pm, got back from the party, made two lots of cupcakes for an event tomorrow, cooked supper, washed up, refreshed the dye on my hair, sorted out some things I need for my Roller Derby teams first bout tomorrow, started writing my blog and have decided that I do not really have time tonight to double check it and publish it, and have a busy day tomorrow so need to get to bed before 1 am)