It’s 4.46am. I’ve been awake since 3.30am and out of bed since 4am. I can’t sleep. This is partly due to eating chilli con carne with chocolate for the last three meals in a row (before you ask, the chocolate apparently adds an extra something - indigestion perhaps? -and I made too much hence the meal on repeat cycle).

So I feel a little bit like a helium balloon. I also had too much wine last night while watching American Idol (you need to the wine to get through the show). This made me thirsty which was why I woke in the first place.

Of course once awake my brain immediately kicked into worry mode. My big worry at the moment is money. Making the money to pay for this yacht race. It is a vast sum of money that I need to raise and I don’t think I’m going to get much by selling my body (not unless a soap manufacturer requires human lard as a vital ingredient).

There are lots of fund raising things I can do but they all take a huge amount of time to pull together and time is something I have less of than money. This is where winning the lottery would come in handy. But buying lottery tickets isn’t really a viable strategy, is it?

I can’t keep typing as I hear a small person stirring and any noise is an invitation to them that the day has started. Being up at 5am is one thing. Being up and watching Dora the Explorer is quite another.

I had to go to the doctor today for a health assessment so that I could be signed off as fit and healthy for the race. This was a particularly good day for it because I just happened to have done a 3 mile run this morning and then met with EJ, the personal trainer who kindly gave me her time for free. This is so that I can start to build up some muscle strength because right about now I battle to get the lids off kids’ medicine bottles much less hoist heavy sails up masts.

Son 1 wanted to come to the doctor’s with me and given I’ve barely spent a moment with them this half term, I said yes under pain of death that he was good and quiet. He was both. Exceptionally so. So quiet in fact that he got to listen to the whole conversation between the doctor and I. Which just happened to talk about the fact that I was planning on sailing on a boat.

Nothing gets by a five year old. The minute we left he wanted to know why we were talking about boats. I have mentioned the trip to him before but it was all theoretical then. So I explained that I was going to go sailing for a while but only in September.

He promptly said: “I don’t want you to go, who will look after us?” Sigh.
So I said: “Daddy and we’ll get a nanny, someone really, really fun and lovely who will spend loads of time playing with you guys.”
“I don’t want a nanny,” he said. Sigh. “Who will take us to school?” he continued.
“The nanny will,” I said gently.
“But she doesn’t know where the school is,” said he, and melted into tears.
This is why this is a challenge. Not the sailing. This. Right here. The guilt.

We had a long chat and he seemed to warm to the idea when I explained that the nanny’s only job would be to play with him and his brother.

Later at bathtime I asked him what he’d like in a nanny.
“Someone old,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I want to know what old people do,” he said very philosophically.
“What do you think old people do?” I asked.
His 3 year old brother listening to all of this earnestly said: “They die.”
Son 1 and I looked at each other and fell about laughing. Classic chirp from pipsqueak.

I fear we have many, many of these conversations to come.

P.S.
I got my first donation today (thanks Vicks!) and first offer of a corporate ad. Yay! Plus lots of offers of promotional support. So thanks to everyone.

I am really happy to unveil my new blog created to track my progress as I prepare to sail from the UK to Brazil as part of the Clipper Round The World Race. I hope that once I get my head around Wordpress it’ll have far more lovely features - like some video and plenty of pics as the countdown to the training and race begins.

Since signing the contract things have moved fast. I’ve been sent all sorts of exciting bits of mail. Let’s see, there was the doctor’s letter that had to get signed to prove that I’m fit and able to take part. I assume by that that they don’t require a lean set of six pack abs. I have a six pack alright, it’s just made of sponges that cascade over the top of my trousers in an attractive muffin like fashion.

There was also the letter requiring me to pay insurance so that if I lose a limb or die at sea I was covered. That was comforting. I readily signed that cheque.

Then there was lots of information about marketing and sponsorship - which is how come this blog is now live.

There was the strange email asking about what size wet weather gear we needed, without having seen the sizes they come in. And a list of the myriad of things we’d need for training, with the caveat that we shouldn’t rush out and buy things specifically as we may decide that smashing our way through freezing cold oceans and living inside very cramped quarters isn’t really our bag after all. Whether it’s my bag or not, I’m in it for the long haul now.

My favourite bit of correspondence was the newsletter just for girls. It went over some of the issues that the gentlemen taking part in the race might not be too concerned about (and indeed might turn green thinking about). It covers subjects like:

- knickers (choose cotton to avoid nappy rash and dark as opposed to white which get seriously grey apparently)

- periods and how to deal with them on board (you don’t even want to know really)

- women’s issues (like the fact that not showering for weeks on end might result in cystitis or thrush and what to do about that)

- what to wear for best breast support while hoisting sails but which is still comfortable to sleep in and lastly,

- how to clean yourself thoroughly with baby wipes (because you ain’t going to be having a shower anytime soon).

It really doesn’t matter. The more I know about it, the more I want to do it. My first training session is booked for 5 - 12 April. I have to start honing my spongebob six pack belly before then, so am meeting a lovely personal trainer tomorrow (thanks EJ) who has agreed to give me some of her time for free to come up with some exercises to help me prepare.

And the marketing campaign will be kicking off in earnest soon. In the meantime, anyone who fancies sponsoring me can have a go. Be the first! Tell me the link works.

A special mention here to Helen who has helped me create this blog at www.moretolifethanlaundry.com and is hosting it for me. And a big thank you to Tasha who created the mum in the washing basket logo for me.

I’m overwhelmed at the support I’ve already received from people about this. You’re all brilliant shiny stars!

It came in today’s post with a satisfying thunk through the door. It contained a letter saying that my application was successful and that I’ve been offered a berth on the race. It also had a long contract outlining just how much it’s going to cost me, my commitments and many other scary things. So I promptly signed it, enclosed a cheque for £500 and posted it before I could change my mind.

The deed is done. GULP. There is no going back now.

I now wait to hear back from the training officer to tell me dates when I can go freeze my bits off in the seas surrounding the UK and the marketing team to give me guidelines about sponsorship and raising funds. This is why my new race dedicated blog is not yet created - I don’t want make something only to find out I’ve violated ten different rules.

But there you go. It has taken just 20 days for me to see an ad in the paper to being a fully signed up crew member. I feel just a leeetle bit ill when I think about all the ramifications, workload, emotional turmoil this is going to cause. But you know what, 2009 just got very interesting.

And this afternoon was a case in point about why working my butt off on a boat for five weeks can sound appealing. I had to go into town to:
a) deposit cheques
b) see a bank manager
c) buy envelopes
d) put two letters into the envelopes and post them
e) return library books and get new ones

How hard could this be? Apparently, very. Both boys left school hating the world and me in particular. Going to town was boring, boring, boring. They didn’t want to go, despite me promising hot chocolate at Costa Coffee. (To be honest, I didn’t want them to go either but I didn’t have too much choice in the matter.) They whinged all the way there. Then they wailed and shouted and stropped and stamped their way to the bank, so much so that people either stopped and stared at us or gave us a very wide berth.

Once in the bank, they proceeded to let everyone know just how much they hated stupid banks and quite how boring they are. They wailed their way across the street to WH Smiths, until they saw the sweets and crisps inside. They then switched to full volume nag culminating in son1 standing with his hands on his hips yelling: “UNLESS YOU GET ME THESE CRISPS I’M NOT LEAVING THE SHOP”.

You could see everyone looking to see what I was going to do. Was I going to give in to this tantrum and prove just how spoilt these little beasts were OR was I going to do what the WH Smith staff certainly wanted which was to buy the crisps and get our noisy selves the hell out of their shop. I opted for the latter just to buy me mileage to get to the post office. We finally got to Costa Coffee and the boys got their hot chocolate. They sat their happily crunching their quavers until they noticed that there were no marshmallows with their hot chocolate. Cue the next outburst. Son1 then said that he really was still hungry - which is normally true as school apparently burns a billion calories a day.

So I went and bought a bag of mini muffins in my bid to encourage healthy eating. Son 1 ate three in quick succession. Son 2 finally tried one, spat it out and yelled: “This is disgusting! I WANT SOMETHING ELSE!” I said no. Our difference of opinion ended with me trying to carry a small beast dripping hot chocolate, kicking and screaming all the way out.

We finally got to the library and every book I chose was “stupid”. I gave up the fight, let them choose an assortment of crappy books and left. Supper has been ignored despite wails that they were so starving they might die within minutes. And I am having to type this to the background strains of Wall.E, another demand in the libary that I was too tired to fight (tantrums in WH Smith are one thing, in a library with everyone saying Sssh is quite another stress level). I can’t possibly go to my study as the film is too scary, but they won’t let me turn it off.

So this is why facing gales and high seas seems a breeze in comparison to my normal life.

My new year resolution for 2009 was to make time for me. This might sound easy, but as a mum to two young boys aged 3 and 5, a wife doing the normal household juggling and a ‘mumpreneur’ running a demanding business, time for me hasn’t been something I’ve had much of in the last five years.

I’m not alone. Most of my clients are mums too, as are many of my friends. All of us rush around planning what to make for dinner, carting kids to school or activities, planning childcare, sorting out social lives, being a good wife/friend/daughter/sister, fitting work in around it all, and attempting to keep the laundry pile manageable.

The thought of taking time out of frenetic day-to-day life do to something just for me seemed impossible. But one Sunday in January I saw an ad in the Sunday Times for the Clipper Round the World Race. I showed it to my husband and said: ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to do something like that?’ His reply was: ‘If you want to do it, do it.’ I laughed it off as a dream.

But I couldn’t let go of the idea and sent off for the information pack. The more I learned about the race, the more I wanted to do it. The obstacles to doing it seemed fairly insurmountable:
- I have no family nearby who could help look after the children
- My husband has a very busy job that takes him out of the country regularly
- I have clients who need to be looked after and a business to run
- I don’t have the money required to pay for a berth and the training
- I’ve never been apart from my children for more than 48 hours. There’s a huge amount of guilt in leaving them for 5 weeks not to mention the heart-wrench it would be for me.

The list of reasons for not doing it seemed to go on and on and it would have been much easier for me to say: ‘I’ll do it when the kids are older, when work is less busy, when life is easier’. But when exactly will that be? So I decided that there’s really no time like the present.

I applied and got a place, sailing from the UK to Brazil – 5,300 nautical miles – the first leg of the gruelling 10 month circumnavigation. It means racing a yacht with 17 novice sailors and one experienced skipper, facing whatever the ocean throws at us, working 4 hours on, 4 hours off for five weeks. It is going to be mentally and physically exhausting. Emotionally it is going to be a massive challenge.

But hopefully at the end of it all I’ll have proved that you don’t have to wait for life to get easier before you can live your dream. It is possible to step away from the laundry pile and the school runs every now and then and make something happen just for you. I hope at the end of it all, I can be hugely proud of hopping off the hamster wheel and achieving something amazing.

For all those mums out there who are wondering when they’re going to get the chance to put themselves first – or even a minute to pee in peace - I’m doing this challenge for you. If I can do it, you can too!

Please sponsor me and help me make this dream happen! Just go to www.moretolifethanlaundry.com ...

P.S. A big thank you to my husband Chris who has encouraged me every step of the way. Without his support, this challenge would be a lot harder.