Greenside Up<\/a> so that I could share all the knowledge I’d learnt about soil, water, polytunnels, biodiversity and plants, thereby helping newbie gardeners to grow their own veg too.<\/p>\nHowever, as any self employed, business owner knows – this isn’t a nine to five job. To make a success of it, and particularly when you’re so passionate about what you’re trying to do, it’s a seven-day a week, evenings, early mornings and even middle of the night kind of job. I can’t deny either that I thoroughly enjoy being ‘Dee’ again and not just being “someones mum”, but as a mum, that’s where the emotional struggle begins.\u00a0How can you have a successful business and be WORLD’S NO 1 MUM?<\/p>\n
I wonder do men feel this pull, as Mr G certainly doesn’t feel the same guilt I do at bathrooms not always being clean and floors unwashed…?<\/p>\n
The answer, I feel, is that you can’t be everything to everyone and that there’s no such thing as the perfect mum. We all try to do our best. There were no school lessons teaching us how to do it, we weren’t born knowing how to be parents, nobody ever warned us just how difficult it would be, that it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to us all. All we have is our own upbringing to guide us and we either try to replicate it if it was a good upbringing, or hopefully improve upon it if it wasn’t.<\/p>\n
Before she retired to go on to become a full-time foster-mother, for many years my mum was a business owner too and I now fully understand and appreciate all the sacrifices and guilt she must have felt.\u00a0(Mum’s now in her mid 70’s and along with my dad is currently looking after three under one year old babies…)<\/i>\u00a0I was lucky – mum did her very best and I feel, a fantastic job, guiding and showing us in her actions how to be good human beings. My sister and I grew up to be independent spirits thanks to her amazing example.<\/p>\n
![\"Chocolate](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greensideup.ie\/media\/choc-chip-cookie-bar-recipe-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225\")
So how do I do the best that I can for my own children? Well for a start I’d like, and need, to\u00a0spend quality time with them. I’m having to accept that it’s not going to be every day, or as often as they or I would like. At the beginning of this year I made a firm resolution that I would spend good, quality time with them – not homework or eating meals together time, but one on one time<\/span>. Children remember things they do and not things they own. My memories are of holidays, swimming lessons or weekly trips to the cash and carry where the four of us would stop off and buy huge piles of fish and chips and pickled gherkins.<\/p>\nFor our children and me, our quality time tends to be spent in the kitchen baking. They love to cook, so guiding \u00a0and teaching, weighing and tasting is how we’re currently spending most of our quality time. Yesterday we baked tasty little Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars from a recipe our youngest had torn out of a magazine. To our surprise the easy recipe worked, the cookies are delicious and I’m sharing it here ….<\/p>\n
Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe<\/h2>\n
Ingredients<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n1 cup butter or margarine
\n\u00bd\u00a0cup caster sugar
\n\u00bdcup brown sugar
\n2 large eggs (I used 3 as the mixture looked very dry)
\n1 tsp baking powder
\n1 tsp salt
\n\u00bd tsp vanilla extract
\n2 cups plain flour
\n100 g\u00a070% chocolate broken up (or a cup of chocolate chips)
\n1\/2 cup chopped walnuts<\/p>\n
Method<\/strong><\/p>\nHeat the oven to 180\u00b0C and grease and line a baking tray (23cm x 33cm). Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until combined. If you don’t have a food processor, cream the first seven ingredients together, then add the remaining.<\/p>\n
Spread the mixture in the tin and place in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from the oven, cut the pieces to size and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.<\/p>\n
Enjoy with a cup of tea, cream or custard!<\/p>\n
![\"love](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greensideup.ie\/media\/love-you.jpg?resize=200%2C195\")
For now, when I’m sitting alone at night, when they’re all tucked up in bed and I’m beating myself up from feelings of unbearable guilt that I missed the latest soccer match, haven’t yet taught my eleven year old to knit or am sending them off to a neighbours once again to be looked after, I have to hang on to the fact that as long as my children keep slipping me notes like this one I can’t be doing it that wrong.<\/p>\n
If you have children, how do you spend your quality time with them? Do you suffer the same guilt? All tips greatly appreciated please!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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![\"chocolate](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greensideup.ie\/media\/chocolate-chip-cookie-bars.jpg?resize=320%2C240\")
As a business owning mum, one of my constant struggles is the emotional guilt of not spending enough quality time with my children.<\/p>\n![\"Chocolate](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greensideup.ie\/media\/chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225\")
ust a month after finishing the course threw myself into starting