0-60 in 30 years!

Well, after becoming an avid reader of Noisette Marketing’s blog, The Academy, and reading a spectrum of different stories inspired by Isa’s “What’s your story?” campaign, I’ve decided to take the plunge and dive in too.  So, here’s my story…

If I had to choose one word to describe my life up until 2010 I think it would have to be “coasting”.  After being a very bright and active child, always on the go from dance class, to music lessons, to sports clubs, my teenage years saw the onset of what I can only describe as pure, distilled lethargy!  One by one my hobbies were dropped, the effort I put into my schoolwork decreased and I made getting by on the minimum amount of effort required an art form.  

This continued into my university years - I managed to graduate with a 2.1 in French despite the late nights and even later mornings*, and suddenly I found myself in the real world with not a clue of what to do with my life beyond moving to Paris to be with my French boyfriend within days of finishing my finals!

It was in Paris that I fell into being a bilingual legal secretary.  I took the job thinking that it would just be a stop-gap for a few months while applying for “a graduate job”.  Little did I know that the job market in France is completely different to the UK and with no idea of what I actually wanted to do, a move to Glasgow and 5 years later, I was still stuck in an office doing a job that couldn’t have been less “me” if I’d tried. 

Coasting, coasting, coasting…

The first big enormous(!) change came a couple of months after marrying my lovely Frenchman at the end of May 2009.  After getting over the lovely surprise of finding myself pregnant, an early ultrasound scan showed not one but TWO blobs with healthily beating hearts!  To say we were shocked would be an understatement, but after a tough few months of double pregnancy, on 12 March 2010, we became the ridiculously proud parents of identical twin girls – Ivy and Lily – the lights of my life.  

After the whirlwind of relentless feeding, winding, nappy changing and sleep deprivation (x 2!) eased up and I was still in one piece, I started feeling like nothing was a match for me!  I was a mum of twins - nothing could scare me! Having my girls had awoken some kind of raw motivation buried deep inside and I started to regret all the time I’d wasted coasting and doing nothing while I’d still had so much time on my hands!  

That Autumn, I bought my first sewing machine and started to teach myself to sew.  Typically, I only really started to get into it just as my long-dreaded return to work arrived (albeit only 2 days a week now). 

I joined an online craft forum called The Crafty Bums (to which I owe a heck of a lot) and dropped myself in at the deep end by offering to make a few extra Christmas stockings for people while making some for Ivy and Lily’s first Christmas.  The ladies I made for were delighted and a few makes later, including some fleece birdie dresses for the girls, I decided to start a page on Facebook that I called Two for Tea Creations.

Then, I don’t quite know how it happened, but friends started asking me to make things, then friends of friends and before I knew it, the miracle of Facebook meant that complete strangers were ordering (from ME!) and actually liking what they received!  

Six months later and the slow trickle of orders has grown to be a flourishing wee business with 800+ likers on Facebook and a 3-6 week waiting list!  My skills and confidence have also grown amazingly and I am never happier than when I am designing and making new items and adding them to my repertoire of available designs.  The feedback from happy customers is all the motivation I need to keep going and believe in myself – something I have always had trouble doing.   

My days are a whirl of cuddles and thread, needles and nappies, stories and design, fun and fabric – and I love every minute of it, no matter how exhausting it is juggling toddler twins and a business!

The only blight on this rosy picture so far has been the two days a week I have had to leave my gorgeous and funny babies at nursery and my sewing machine all alone at home and go to my “real” job.  After months of spending 40% of my working week miserable, claustrophobic and depressed and the other 60% overheating my sewing machine trying to squeeze in a week’s worth of sewing into my three days “off”, I have finally decided that enough is enough. 

So, this week I am going to take the biggest risk of my life so far and hand in my notice at work.  It has been my desire for years to work for myself in “something”, and to now find myself in the position to be able to (with a lot of support and encouragement from my wonderful husband) is just a dream come true!

So there you have it.  This is my story so far, but I feel like it is really only just beginning.  I know that momentous changes are afoot and I am facing them with equal measures of fear and excitement.  But I figure that no one made a success out of anything without taking at least one big risk, right?

Coasting to full-throttle in (nearly!) 30 years – at least I’ve got there in the end!

So, come on and join in the sharing – what’s your story?

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[*]  I just had a flashback of my 19 year-old self having an animated but serious discussion with a fellow student about how ridiculous it was for the uni to schedule 9am seminars and expect everyone to be there!  Considering my day now starts somewhere between 5 and 6am, this memory did make me chuckle!