Yesterday a blogger I follow, Kathryn Hendry, AKA the Mother Hen set up a 14 day blogging challenge.

Her Instagram page can be found here:

https://www.instagram.com/the_mother_hen_/

She has set the challenge to try and combat her own writer’s block and fall in love with writing again, and to also encourage others who want to join in! We are using the hashtag #motherhenblogchallenge for our posts.

 

So here goes, 10 interesting facts about me……

1. I have a modern apprenticeship in aircraft engineering. I had no direction when I left school, I sort of knew what I might like to do, but my careers advisor basically laughed me out of the room. My older brother suggested an apprenticeship, and after a year of college I applied for one and got through. On my last year I received the apprentice of the year award, which was a massive deal for me at the time because I was one of only 4 women working on the shop floor in a factory of around 400!

 

2. I no longer work in engineering! After 5 years I moved on, mainly due to one of the managers there not allowing me to expand my knowledge by working in different areas. Looking back I feel that he held me back. Every 6 months he’d come up with another reason why I couldn’t move areas. I’ve come across that a few times during my career, there is always someone else (usually a manager) making decisions about what they think is best for my career, Deciding when they think I’m ready for the next step, and in the meantime keeping me interested by dangling a carrot that promotion is on the cards, when in actual fact it never was (Not that I’m bitter or anything!)

 

 

3. I’ve always wanted to be an actress, but never pursued it. When I went on maternity leave with my eldest I finally took the plunge and went on an introduction to acting course, which provided us with feedback at the end. I really loved it and it spurred me on to join my local theatre group. I’ve been in 2 plays with them and then took a break to have my youngest daughter, but am chomping at the bit to get back into it now she’s older!

 

4. My biggest regret is not following my heart when I was younger and allowing myself to get directed into getting a “normal” job. I wish I’d studied drama at college when further education was free, now I have to pay for expensive adult education if I want to have any chance of following my dreams. I am realistic though and fully aware of how hard it is to get into acting professionally, and with a young family, it’s even harder, so for now I’ll stick to my little theatre group, then when the children are a bit older I can look into doing some more courses.

 

 

5. I spend the majority of the time on my own with our 2 children, my eldest is 4 and my youngest is almost 2. Hubby works long hours, both day shifts and night shifts. When he’s on days he goes out at 5am and comes home at 7:30 – 7:45pm, so he doesn’t see the girls at all. When he’s on nights he goes out at dinner time and comes home at breakfast time, so he sees a bit more of the girls, but we don’t get a lot of time together. When I’m not with the girls I am at work myself! I work 2 days a week, and they slot in with my husband’s shifts, so that one of us is always at home with the girls.

 

6. I chose my blog name because I always called my eldest daughter “My little munchkin” and then when my youngest came along it changed to “Munchkin no1” (my eldest, no1 because she was born first) and “Munchkin no2” Therefore it made sense call myself the Munchkin Maker, and Confessions of a Munchkin Maker had a nice ring to it!

 

 

7. I’ve been married to my husband for almost 11 years. We met in Feb 2007, moved in together in July 2007, got engaged in September 2007 and then married a year after that.

 

8. I was in one other long term relationship and a couple of “flash in the pan” relationships before my husband. The long term one left me with very little confidence. It started off well, and I really thought we would always be together (I was only 19 at the time though, he was 6 years older than me!) however after a car accident he became very controlling. He cheated on me, more than once, and would often compare me to other women in the street “why don’t you do your hair like that?” “Why don’t you dress like that?” you get the picture! He never hid the fact that he was checking out other women when I was with him.

 

Anyway, it took me 2 years to finally break away. I’d keep leaving, and then he’d reel me back in, he even told me that no-one else would ever love me if I ever left him, and that any other man I met would just use me for sex. Wow! That got serious pretty quickly didn’t it! Anyway, I had a couple of miss matches and then met my husband, who is hands down the best man I have ever met! He behaves in such a manner that I never have to question where he is, or who he’s with, he treats me with so much respect, he still carries the bags when we go shopping! He has so much patience with our girls, it is absolutely heart melting to see their bond. He has given me my confidence back, he tells me I’m sexy when I think I’m frumpy and that even after all these years he still find me attractive.

 

9. My husband and I lost identical twins in April 2013. I did write a WordPress blog post about it, if you want to read it. All I will say is that it broke me, completely, and it was my husband that got me through. I have even more respect for him now, knowing how he can selflessly step up for me and put his own feelings aside, when I was unable to do the same for him at the time.

 

10. I am really enjoying writing! Blogging is another thing I’ve wanted to do for years, but held myself back whenever I thought about setting a blog up. I’d tell myself I wouldn’t be any good at it, it’s too technical, I wouldn’t know how to get started, etc. But then late last year I finally gave myself the push I needed. I set up a WordPress blog, then an Instagram and FB page. I did make mistakes to begin with, during the set up, but I am taking my time with it and learning new things as I go. I’m getting braver and trying out different techniques, media and filters, and I am loving every minute of it! I’ve met some lovely supportive people and am slowly gaining followers. I look forward to posting every day, and love reading what everyone else is up to!

So that’s my 10 interesting facts, I hope they were interesting! It was actually was easier than I thought it would be. Once I started tapping away at the keyboard there was no stopping me!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this, and thank you to Kathryn for coming up with the idea!

 

Bye for now! X