The Startup Wife

Feeling lighter

Last week this happened. It was one of those emotionally up and down weeks as a consequence. But this week, when the reality of it has sunk in and I am realizing that I am no longer walking around with the weight of an unfinished thesis on my shoulders, it feels pretty amazing. I have started to realize just how much it's been affecting me for the past few years. The constant guilt of having something to do but no real time to do it. No time to properly relax because once everything else was done I really should have been writing.

If any of my friends had told me they were trying to do something similar (a PhD, three young children, a very busy husband and a business) I would have sat them down and said, that's all really wonderful but there is not time for all of this at once unless you have a whole lot of childcare. And I didn't want the whole lot of childcare because, for me, that's not why I had children. I knew it was mad to try and do it all. And I've known for a long time it wasn't possible, especially with the crazy start-up ride we've had over the past few years. But I didn't realize just how much headspace my thesis was taking up. Not just the thinking about the actual thesis but the worry that I hadn't finished it.

Wow, it feels good to have that all taken away. So many lovely people have been in touch over the past few days to say nice things. Thank you! And several people have talked about the importance of the PhD journey and not just the completed thesis. I did have an amazing journey, which will always stay with me. The constant worry, however, will not be missed.

Five months into 2012 and I really am beginning to achieve this year's word. A wonderful feeling!

 

It's the little things

As a busy mum to three little children and a wife to a super busy, often absent husband it is the little things in life, which often keep me going. Each week I will be writing a "it's the little things" post to share with you the things that have made me smile. The little things in life as so important but we often let them slip by. Appreciate the little things. They are precious. This week's little things:

Can you see her? We had so much fun playing hide and seek in the garden yesterday. So many new places to squeeze behind, under, into! I hope you enjoyed the beautiful weekend. Here's to many more sunny days this summer.

{All images taken with Instgram. I'm emilyquinton. If you're there too say hello! x}

Time to say goodbye

{Taken at one of my many trips to Kew Gardens}

I had some big news this week. I guess I was kind of expecting it at the back of my mind but seeing it written in black and white was hard. I have finally after many years got to say goodbye to number 4 on my 12 for 2012 list. My thesis is no longer and I have formally been marked as 'failed to complete.'

I have spent the past 3 or 4 years going round and round in thesis circles. Should I quit? Should I try and carry on? There have been a few times where everything has perfectly aligned and I've been back on track and writing for a couple of months. Another few thousand words would get written, stuff sent to my supervisors. For a while I'd feel elated, positive and ready for the perhaps impossible task of writing 80,000 words, working with two supervisors based in two different universities and now far away from where I live, looking after 3 young children, a business, oh and how could I forget...start-up life. Thanks to start-up life we have also had to move house four times in the passed six years, which has also added a lot of disruption.

My thesis has been my thing for a long time. When I first went to university as an undergraduate I feel in love with academia. I knew that I wanted to do a further degree at some point and I loved the idea of becoming an academic. In my late 20s I was awarded a studentship for a PhD at the University of Birmingham, meaning I could leave my job and study full-time. I had two amazing, inspiring supervisors and made some really special and equally inspiring friends. I was researching a subject very close to my heart and I got to spend days at Kew Gardens, travel to Thailand and Spain, and research, read, talk, present at conferences, and just completely immerse myself in academia and my chosen subject. It was wonderful.

But a couple of years into it all arrived our beautiful daughter Imogen and my world changed in the most beautiful, special way. Motherhood was simply everything I had ever dreamed of and more. And alongside becoming a mother I was also becoming a professional photographer. My longterm love of photography was, it turned out, starting to turn into a business. Word of mouth and the internet was meaning that my business was growing much faster than I ever expected. Photography was something I always dreamt of doing but only in that part of my mind where dreams are kept. Not achievable dreams but just beautiful daydreams that are nice to think about from time to time. I couldn't believe that one of them really was turning into reality and I couldn't let that go.

So, I quickly had a daughter, a growing business and a thesis. Nearly all my research had been done before Imogen was born, so that was a good thing. I just had to write it all up. And so I kept telling myself for the next few years. Just write it. But the trouble is that PhD writing isn't just writing, it's writing with references, and it's writing that requires you to be immersed in it. It's an 80,000 word thesis, so it's a huge document to be working with. Plus all your field notes, interviews, journal papers, books etc. It's a PhD, it's not meant to be easy!

I got to the point of quitting many times but I could never let it go. I didn't ever want to blame my children or my husband for my failure or disappointment. I didn't ever want it to come up in the heat of the moment in an argument many years later. But for some time I did feel like I had had to make a massive sacrifice for my children and my husband's start-up life. But then one day I woke up and my feelings about my PhD had changed. At one point it was my everything but things had happened, which had changed that. My everything has become my beautiful family. Yes, I'd still like to get a PhD one day and perhaps I will. But right now I am really happy with where I am. I am not Dr Quinton (or at least not for now) but I am Mrs Quinton, a very happy mother of three and a successful photographer.

I have also got to the point where I don't feel like I have failed (well, almost anyway!), I feel like I've just changed direction. As one of my wonderful and patient supervisors said, "you haven't failed, you have just ended up at a different place to the one you started out aiming for." I cried when I read that because it summed it up so perfectly. It has still taken me nearly a year to agree with it though. And failing isn't something that should be seen as a bad thing. After all "fail fast, fail often" is an important start-up mantra, and surely one we can apply to other things to. Unfortunately for me I didn't fail fast on this one, I really dragged it out. And that's an important lesson for me to take from this. If something isn't working look at why. If you can't change things to make it work, then seriously consider quitting it and doing something else instead. There is nothing wrong with admitting defeat, failure, changing path etc. Life is too short.

There are so many important positives to take from my PhD time too. I learnt how to manage my time and to self-motivate. I gained more respect for the environment and a love of flowers that will never die. I travelled and made some amazing friends on my journeys in the UK and abroad. I made some very special friends in my department, who will remain friends forever. And through one of these friends I also met my husband. So, I have no regrets that I started it in the first place that's for sure!

The only problem with where I'm at now is that I have about 50,000 words of an unfinished thesis and a whole lot of passion about my subject. I have some thoughts about what I might do with it all, which I'm sure will involve a trip to Devon to see one of my supervisors in the not too distant future. But for now I am going to enjoy the sense of relief and freedom that for the first time in a very, very long time I can enjoy the summer sunshine without the weight and guilt of a thesis sitting on my shoulders.

There are too many messages of thanks to go into this post today but I just want to say a big thank you to all of those wonderful people who have supported, inspired and helped with endless patience and love. Sorry I didn't make it to the end we originally planned but thank you for being with me on the journey.

 

 

First steps

The past couple of weeks have been extra cute in our family as little Max has been learning to walk. It's such a big thing when your baby turns into a toddler. Max's whole world seems to have changed and he has definitely also taken his first steps towards being a 'big' boy.

He is simply adorable and today he had his first adventures wearing his new shoes in the park. He giggled and smiled the whole time. He was so proud. And even though he is my third child, and I've been through first steps twice before, it was still just as precious and magical.

I'd just like time to stand still for a fews now please, so I can soak up all the cuteness of 15 months for a little while longer. I am making sure I stop, watch and treasure all the moments right now. I want to bottle the cuteness, the happiness and the newness of it all. Precious times indeed.

It's the little things

As a busy mum to three little children and a wife to a super busy, often absent husband it is the little things in life, which often keep me going. Each week I will be writing a "it's the little things" post to share with you the things that have made me smile.

The little things in life as so important but we often let them slip by. Appreciate the little things. They are precious.

This week's little things:

I hope this last week was a good one for you and you have saved some little memories from it.

Full of happines

My little ones are so good at being completely in the moment. When they are happy (which is fortunately most of the time) they are completely happy. You can just see the happiness oozing out of them with all those giggles, shrieks and laughs. You can see it in their eyes. It's the most beautiful thing in the world.

As grown-ups we can be so lost in all the stuff we have to do, all the plans we have for tomorrow, the rubbish weather, the supermarket shop... all that stuff that can ruin a moment of happiness. It can be really hard to just have that 'completely happy right now feeling'.

We've had a rocky ride of the good ol' start-up life over the past few years. And that's a bit of an understatement. One day I'll write about it all but it could put you off start-ups for life, so I won't do that until I can write about the next few years of things going well (crossing my fingers when I write that!) but it's been really hard for a very long time. Right now we are feeling on an upwards curve and that is an amazing feeling. We have good cash-flow too, which is so, so helpful!

And today I was pottering about while one of my boys was napping and the other one was pottering about with me, and I suddenly connected completely with that full of happiness feeling. That feeling of everything being really good right now. Right in this moment. I'm learning from my children every day about how they capture the moment and really live it. It's not always possible because I really do have to think about other stuff too but today I felt like I really got it.

We have lots of plans for what we're doing in the next year or so. We have holiday plans, moving plans, work plans, we have lots of exciting things on the horizon. I am really happy about all of it but I am also really happy right now, and that is a very beautiful thing that I wanted to share! 

I hope you have a lovely end to the week and have some lovely plans for the weekend. We are off to photograph a wedding tomorrow and then have a day for just the two of us on Sunday. A happy balance!

{Start-up Spotlight} Bamarang

I am really excited to share this week's Start-up Spotlight with you. Bamarang is a new design flash-sale site for the UK. Based in Shoreditch, London their team of design scouts scour the UK to find new and inspiring items to feature on Bamarang. Each item is on sale for one week only and has a discount of up to 70%. Those of you who use similar sites already will know that they are for members only but it's free and easy to join Bamarang, so don't let that stop you.

The thing that I love about Bamarang is their commitment to great and inspiring design. I know there are going to be lots of things I will love on this site. I have already ordered a Baggu!

Tonight at 7pm they are launching a special design for kids sale and they have kindly offered my readers a £10 voucher to spend on your first purchase when you sign up.

Happy Shopping!

{If you know of any exciting, beautiful, interesting start-ups that you'd like to see featured here please do let me know, so I can share the love!}

Book of the week: Pantone Colors

 
I have fallen behind on my book of the week posts, not because we haven't been reading together, but our weekly after school routine has changed with the addition of swimming lessons and drama club, so I lost my flow a little. I'm back with it now though!

We have all been loving this lovely new book by Pantone. Full of colours, lovely illustrations and of course Pantone references. With parents both working in the creative industries, this book was a must for my children!

I love the names of the colours in the book; Lion Yellow (Pantone 110), Orangutan Orange (Pantone 159), Ketchup Red (Pantone 186), Bouncey Ball Pink (Pantone 7424), Monster Purple (Pantone 254), Police Office Blue (Pantone 2727), Grandma Gray (Pantone 421)...

A really super book for exploring colours. A book I know that we are all going to enjoy having around for a long time.

It's the little things

  As a busy mum to three little children and a wife to a super busy, often absent husband it is the little things in life, which often keep me going. Each week I will be writing a "it's the little things" post to share with you the things that have made me smile.

The little things in life as so important but we often let them slip by. Appreciate the little things. They are precious.

This week's little things:

What a beautiful end to a lovely week. I hope you've had a good one too.

A big thank you for kindly voting for me in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging awards. I am thrilled to say that I'm a finalist in the Snap category. How very exicting!

{Photos taken with Instagram. Please follow my if you're there too! emilyquinton}

 

 

When things begin to come together...

What a wonderful feeling it is to get to the end of a week and feel that life is going pretty well indeed. Perhaps it's the fact that I've woken up to blue sky and sunshine this morning for the first time for quite a while that is helping me to feel like this too. But I also know that life is feeling great right now and it's been helping me to get lots of things done that I've been putting off for ages, and make decisions about things that I've been trying to avoid thinking about.

When things come together in one part of my life it gives me renewed energy to face things that may be tricky. And the more of this I do, the more I feel I can achieve. It is a really wonderful feeling and a feeling of being in control, rather than feeling that something or someone else is in control. It's liberating!

I have used these feelings of happiness, calm and control, to also start having the biggest clear-out I have ever had. I've been holding on to so much of my past for far too long. Yes, it's lovely to keep memories and treasures and stuff but a limited amount, and an amount I can enjoy rather than feeling utterly overwhelmed by all the clutter. We have moved house so many times in the past five years, and each time taken it all with us, so in preparation for our next move (sometimes in the next 12 months) I am clearing out each day. It's amazing how getting rid of stuff helps you to feel like you've also got so much space in your mind as well as in your home. I love it! And I'm sure the local charity shops will too.

I have also really, really loved the progress that my little ones have made this week. Max has started walking, I have taught Imogen to read another set of tricky/memory words (I'm still struggling with phonics but that's for another time...) and Oren is finally in (dry) pants! I'm feeling like a pretty good parent right now too.

I hope you've had a good week and have some lovely plans for the weekend. I hear it may involve sunshine, which really would be perfect!