Mummascribbles meets…The Sane Mum – Mummascribbles

Every week I feature an interview with a blogger, so that whether you know of them or not, you can get to know them a little better! This week we meet the lovely Ania from The Sane Mum. Thanks so much for taking part Ania 🙂

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family.
I guess our family story began over 11 years ago, when my husband and I met at a seminar we both attended. Since then we’ve married, had three kids (9, 7 and 5 years old), two German Shepherds and a ginger cat. We homeschool and live in beautiful, red, country Western Australia; and while I love the desert climate, I wish our closest beach wasn’t 400km away!

What do you like doing to be you, when you are not parenting, working (if you do), or blogging?
I love writing, blogging is actually something I started for me. I wish I had more time for it! When not blogging though, my favourite place in the world is either the beach during hot, summer months; or the couch with a cup of coffee/tea and a good book in the cooler winter months!

What is your biggest achievement to date?
There are three things that popped straight to my head when I read this question:

1. Being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mum: I am beyond proud of having maintained this lifestyle for the past 5 years. It’s not easy, but we absolutely love the connection and freedom homeschooling gives us. Which brings me to my second point:

2. Caravan trip: We have been talking about this day for all of those 11 years since we met, and finally the day has come – we’ve achieved our goal! As a matter of fact, at the time I’m writing this, we only have two days before we head off for the adventure of a lifetime! We will be travelling in a caravan across Australia for almost four months – I can’t wait!

3. The two above points are family achievements, this one is all me: Putting aside all my fears and starting my blog! I bought the domain three years before I actually started writing,. That’s three years of me being too scared to put myself out there!

From your own experiences, what do you find the hardest part of parenting and what is the easiest/most rewarding part?
As a homeschooling mum, sometimes it’s hard for me to have the kids actively engaged and excited about learning. The huge responsibility we’ve taken onto ourselves to educate our children can feel daunting at times. On the flipside, the most rewarding part is when I find a different approach or a way to make the kids enjoy it again, and see the rewards of them gaining more knowledge and loving every bit of it.

Parenting in itself is no mean feat; how do you juggle everything you need to in order to get everything done on a daily basis?
Honestly, what keeps me sane are our morning and evening routines! They take about 45 minutes each, and every person who lives in our household has a job to do – meaning it’s not all on me! For the rest of the day, in order to stay organised and not forget important things, I write lists. Yep, I’m a list girl. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t get done.

Why did you decide to start blogging?
I love writing and I decided to start blogging as a hobby. I feel I have a lot to contribute to other women, other mums and families. One day soon I would also love to contribute to our family through monetising my blog.

Tell me a bit about your blog?
My blog so far has been a bit of everything: I’ve been sharing our lives, our projects and how within all the mayhem of life, renovations, and parenting, I manage to find balance and stay sane! Over the next four months, it will be taken over by our travel content, I cannot wait to share all the beautiful parts of Australia with my readers!

What do you want your blog to achieve and where do you hope to see it go as it grows?
I have great plans of what my site will look like a couple of years from now, namely: it will be full of great content! Which direction will it go? I can’t answer that yet, but I hope that I will get some clarity regarding that during our travels. As I said before, I feel we have a lot to contribute to other parents, homeschoolers, aspiring travellers, etc, and one day I would hope for the blog to not only be contributing to others, but also to our own family by earning us an income.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a blog?
Start now! I bought my domain three years before I got the guts to start writing! I wish that I started writing the day I bought that domain name.

If you could have dinner with three people (dead or alive), who would it be and why?

1. My granddad from my mum’s side. I honestly don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think of him, and he passed away when I was 11. He had so much knowledge about so many things that I’m currently interested in – gardening, chickens, renovations, DIY-ing!

2. My granddad from my dad’s side – Unfortunately he passed away before I got to meet him and I would absolutely love to dine with him and get to know him.

3. Here I’ll be boring… My husband! We homeschool and live 600km away from the nearest family! A dinner date with my husband would really make my day right now!

Tell me three random facts about you

1. I would rather have a large piece of land with an old, little cottage on it, than a brand new, large, shiny house!

2. We have just sold most of our belongings to go on this caravan trip, and I cannot wait to come home to nothing! I feel this process of decluttering and only keeping the essentials has opened my eyes to the consumerist world we live in and I have no intention of overfilling my house with things ever again!

3. I am petrified of thunderstorms… I’ve gotten better at hiding that since having kids, but I think they’re almost onto me as they’re getting older!

Along with her blog www.thesanemum.com.au, you can also find Ania over on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.