A Little Launch in Wet Wales

Was I excited about this new website launch. Yes! Did I plan I months in advance and spend sleepless nights on a whole new website. Yes! Did I run giveaways to build up excitement. Absolutely I did. I shared some behind the scenes of highs and lows and sneak peaks of new stock and the process of some of the best and worst bits. This road to the new website has been so special and amazing for me. Getting to create my dreams and work from home around my children is one of my life highlights and if you're here, you've helped me achieve this! Thank you!

I gave this launch my all, learning coding, extracting files and importing data, learning new software's, shifting my domain, creating new stock and designs, maths, spreadsheets, weights and hex codes. All whilst balancing my everyday work schedule, marketing and social media, meetings, parenting, housework, every day life stuff (you know, the "this wasn't on the to-do list" things)… Oh and trying to balance that Oh So Lovely Social Life for a "healthy work balance" ahhh also known as starting 12 unfinishable conversations with friends whilst side eying the wild looking gremlins we call our offspring as they perform what can only be describes as circus acrobatics whilst making noises resembling the ones from animals found at the zoo on a busy day, feeling like you're in a scene from Rugrats, before inevitably feeling emotionally overstimulated and burnt out and saying good-bye because you've got to get back the start the cooking. Much better. Socialising, tick! To keep me sane on this process I've also been running, which basically is me twice a week flopping about the backroads scaring farmers with my flailing limbs. Fitness balance, tick! I've learnt burn outs aren't fun and make my nearest and dearest sort of frowny. So if you're one of those people who have moaned at me for pushing myself too much the past year and a half, your moaning paid off and has made me a better and more balanced person. I think clearer, get more work done, surprisingly have more energy and am a generally better person. Thank you.

So, I planned this launch, to within an inch of its life. Step by step with a printed list of daily to-dos to reach maximum momentum, it even had little tick boxes next to everything to tick it when it'd done it. It was scheduled, it was thought out, it was great. Wasn't I proud. 

Finally, after a month of sticking to the to-do list, posting, giveaways and behind the scenes excitement and stress - I had one week left to go and I was ready. This final week before launch coincided with the start of a two week half term, which I'd planned to go away camping in Wales with a bunch of friends and between us take out 10 children. That's right 10... But I'd planned it all, website ready to launch, loudly on social media all I had to do was post about it. I was taking work with me. I'd created a little folder on my phone of PDF's I'd cleverly made in advance to post daily before the website released. I'd drafted posts and recorded videos. I'd packed my laptop for the day before the launch, I'd grab a beer in the sun watch the kids on their bikes and sit back and just linger on my website for a minute to take in all the hard work I'd done. 

I. WAS. READY. But did you hear from Aurora's Destination?

Little did I know, Wales is basically one big valley of wet rain and zero signal. Did you know that? Nothing. A lot of rain and little communication with the outside world unless you drove to the local civilisation, which is approximately 45 minutes away- that's also where the milk and the toilets that aren't kept in fields are hiding too. I think the towns had nicer climates too... sunshine and warmth. Not our little valley though, it was a whole new world. A perfect place to reduce screen time and create wet memories, not ideal for a website launch, but hey. You could buy Wi-Fi on site from reception of the camp site and if the wind blew a certain way and you balanced in yoga position with your mobile on your head and try to avoid the mental winds and rain you might receive a WhatsApp. But that's about your lot. My plans flew out the window and I embraced the much needed time away from anything work related... at an absolutely critical time in my business. When life gives you lemons, stick on a bin liner and get the kids out to the waterfalls. I hear the rest will fall into place. I'm now home and I've had zero visits to my new website. But I had a wet Wales holiday to remember. 

It wasn't the launch I'd planned. But does anything go as planned? I'm just a Mum, giving it a go and it's going OK for now with it highs and lows. Big launch or a little launch, I wouldn't have had it any other way from, surrounded by my friends and family in a muddy field with a tent that felt as if it was being vacuum packed on my head by the wind on my birthday, in lovely wet Wales. Welcome, to my brand new website.