Was just sorting through my ‘Favourites’ list and found something I’d come across when Sex and the City came to an end. It’s without a shadow of a doubt (tee hee!) my favourite TV show of all time – I even managed to watch most of Season 3 while in the early stages of labour – and I suspect there might be a few SATC fans reading. So here it is. You need to have sound on. Enjoy!

Interesting, though rather superficial, article here discussing women in business, whether Martha is nice and whether Ruth would have won the Apprentice if she’d been a bit more girly (found via BrocanteHome).

The article ends up concluding that so many women are now setting up their own businesses a la Martha because they don’t fit into the stereotype of what corporate senior management (still mostly men) expects from women.

In my case I think that was true to an extent, but mostly I only got so far in corporate-land because I’m just not a big corporation type of person, and wouldn’t have been if I were a man either. What I find really interesting is the sheer number of women who are giving up traditional corporate careers. At the moment I’m hanging out with a whole bunch of absolutely delightful women (found via a post-natal NCT class) who have babies the same age as the Minx and who all, with very few exceptions, are in the process of rethinking their careers. These women all had what sound like glamorous and high-powered jobs but were either unable to fathom how they could combine said jobs with motherhood, or else have had to acknowledge that they were actually quite unhappy in their jobs and didn’t really want to go back.

So many women have told me that they too would love to start up their own business. I think it still represents for many that Holy Grail of flexibility and freedom from male-dominated office politics – though I’m not sure how many would still want to if they saw how little I’m earning at the moment and how often I’m up packing up orders after midnight.

Ugh. Not sure what point I’m making here. Best read the article for yourselves and let me know what you think.

Have been feeling rather grotty the last day or so. A hacking cough that seems to have taken up permanent residence in my extremely sore throat coupled with a really nauseous, churning stomach – have no idea how the two can be related. So apologies for recent lack of inspired bloggery.

I was born and brought up in East London and have supported West Ham for as long as I can remember. Though they’ve never been super successful, I’ve always loved their footballing philosophy – their enthusiasm and the way they always try to play attractive football.

Today a young and newly-promoted West Ham side played against Liverpool in their first FA Cup Final for 26 years. And lost. On penalties.

It was a thrilling game and they played so well; played their hearts out and very nearly won, leading 3-2 at the very end of the match before Steven Gerrard scored an incredible equaliser on the stroke of full time. And then they hit the post in extra time.

And I know it will mean nothing to them tonight, but this afternoon they really did themselves, their club and their supporters proud.

I’m still gutted though.

It’s probably just post-Tuscany blues and pre-having-to-get-everything-ready-to-move-to-Seattle hysteria, but I’m feeling a bit meh at the moment.

Like there’s a huge brick wall up ahead of me. I’ve been pretty much running on adrenaline since the beginning of November, and there’s always been something to focus on next – Christmas, Valentines Day, Mothers Day etc.

But now summer seems finally to be here and people have got better things to do than online shopping, so I’m expecting orders to tail off quite a bit.

I know I should be taking this opportunity to make all the improvements to the website that I haven’t had time to make, buy in lots of gorgeous things for Christmas, sort out all my admin, work on my search engine optimisation etc. but I just don’t seem to have the inspiration or motivation.

I want something EXCITING to happen, or failing that, just to go and lie under a tree in the park with a trashy novel and forget about search engine optimisation altogether.

I want my groove back.

Early morning mist

A thought occurred as I looked through all the photos I’d taken in Tuscany.

So many of them were pictures of vast landscapes, even though I know full well that no photo will ever do justice to such a scene. So few of my photos are of details – even though such photos are often the most evocative. I just don’t see them even when they’re right under my nose.

I wondered whether the pictures one takes are actually a reflection of one’s approach to life. I know I’m a ‘big picture’ kinda girl – always full of big new ideas, always having to force myself to execute ideas I’ve already had. I do know that the devil is in the detail, but sometimes I feel just too lazy to look for him.

One of the reasons I love reading craft and design blogs is that they are often full of photos of tiny details, often taken from an unexpected perspective. Is it because ‘crafty’ people are ‘details’ people and is this one of the reasons they do what they do?

Two blogs which are fabulous examples of this are Cally Creates (check out her recent photos of Edinburgh) and Tongue in Cheek, which I read because her daily photos are just so evocative of France and fill me with nostalgia (I’ve just noticed that Corey from Tongue in Cheek has written a post about how she’s not a details kind of person, so I guess that blows the above theory completely out of the water!)