Day in the life of … Lola Gonzalez

I wish I could say I am a morning person, but I am not… I prefer staying up working late at night than getting up early in the morning, so I snuggle up in bed feeding my six-month-old baby Sophia waiting for my three-year-old Bella to come upstairs and “wake us up”. This is never after 7:45 (sigh!).

If today is a nursery morning for Bella, i.e. Tuesday or Thursday, I need to get both girls and myself ready and leave the house before 9.  After leaving her settled and happy, I go back home and get on with some work. Ideally, I would spend all morning working on Nectarina, my online store where I sell gorgeous children’s wear, shoes and accessories from Spain. However, there is also housework to do, lunch to cook and looking after baby Sophia, so some days I only get to answer a few emails, pack a few orders or going to the Post Office to post parcels. Combining housework with looking after the girls and running my own business is not an easy task, and some days I feel very frustrated when I can’t work on the website as much as I would like to. But I feel blessed that I could give up work after having Bella and stay at home looking after her and then Sophia.  Dressing Bella with the beautiful dresses and shoes that I got from Spain when she was a baby gave me the inspiration to create Nectarina.  All my friends always commented on how pretty she looked and how difficult it was to find traditional girls clothes in the UK, so I identified a gap in the market.

I normally do all the telephoning and contacting suppliers and customers during the morning, some times afternoon, if I get Bella to stay quiet for at least five minutes!  We are currently between seasons, so it has been a bit more hectic than usual. I need to arrange meetings with Spanish suppliers to see the new catalogues and order next year’s collections. I will then travel to Spain for this purpose (this is one of my favourite sides of the business as I also get to spend a few days with my family!) The evenings are mostly dedicated to all the hard work, such as stock taking, working on promotions, writing product descriptions for the website, and so on… When we get the new season’s stock, I also need to categorise the products, price them, and add them to the website, etc… while my husband works on the photographs and the creative side of the website. He has been very supportive from the beginning and also spends a lot of his spare time working on the business. We rarely go to bed before 1am!

I know I need to do much more and work much harder if I want the business to keep growing… but I also want to spend quality time with the girls. Bella is very energetic and needs constant stimulation, so I spend a big part of the day taking her to different playgroups and activities… I am hoping to spend more time working on Nectarina once she starts full time nursery school in September. I am so proud of what I have achieved so far… and look forward to a challenging future!

Lola Gonzalez is full time mummy to Bella 3 and Sophia 6months her business Nectarina is a treasure trove for any mummy with daughters, and lucky for Lola she has two!

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2 Comments

  1. Kerri
    September 16, 2010 / 8:10 pm

    Fabulous website – so lovely things on there wish I had a girl!! Will have a good look for my niece!

    Must admit I am not much of a morning person either!

  2. September 21, 2010 / 5:19 pm

    beautiful clothes and beautiful girls!