I was on Twitter chatting with a friend and I told her about my daughter and something she had said when she was a young child. She’d drawn a picture of the family but her younger sister was missing from the picture. When asked where she was, she replied with a very serious face, “She’s still in the pencil, silly.” We all erupted in laughter because she was such a funny little thing.

You’ve got to love four blokes singing with their beautiful lilting vocals and soulful dispositions.  Kurt and the guys get my vote as the best sounding group of blokes I’ve heard ever.

If you had asked me 10 years ago if I thought of myself as a women’s leader, I would have laughed at you.  I was totally focused on the arts. I was in the church back then in a big way – 7 days a week church life.  I looked at the women’s ministry teams and I was “too young” for that kind of stuff.  I was so “youth” and “arts” focused.

But here I am.  A mother of four children.  43 years of age and I find myself heading up an International women’s association.  How did I get here?  When did my passion for women grow?  Why am I doing what I do?

Well, for one, I am a woman, so I guess it is going to come as no surprise that I understand how a woman thinks.  Consequently, it is no big jump to think that perhaps I would want to work with what I know.

Secondly, I started a women’s magazine.  I didn’t set out to choose to do that, it just came and tapped me on the shoulder and I said yes to the opportunity.

But I think I really started to develop a heart for women (in a very pure way) as I started to hear their stories.  I was galvanised by the powerful stories of women who were taking action, in their own little worlds, in a positive way and I didn’t just want to tell theirs, I wanted to become my own story.

So I made the decision when I resigned from Pearls Women’s Magazine where I was co-founder and co-editor to start a women’s organisation that was focused on the whole “women can” philosophy.

Women are amazing creatures I have learned.  We can partner together and create amazing community events.  We get things done.  We make the magic happen in life.  We are creative, intelligent, patient and enduring in our vision and purpose.  We don’t have to be caught up in ambition, in bickering, in trying to climb over each others.  I have learned that it is a very precious thing in life to actually support another woman to see her shine!  In fact, this is how I came out of post natal depression after my fourth child was born; by reaching out to help others I became well myself.  I love this part of Women Can International Inc and I love this part about my business, The Creaticians.  It is an honour to see other’s shine.

I find myself surrounded by women who are amazing voices on women’s issues.  I hope to share their stories with you through this blog over the next months because they are TOTALLY inspirational to me.

So it seems that life has chosen me to represent women and to work with them in a passionate way for their betterment.  I don’t really understand it all.  I don’t know why I feel driven to surrender so much of myself and to sacrifice my time, but I just know that there is a reason and a purpose and this is my pathway for the time being.  So while I am on this pathway, I shall give it 100% of my best efforts.

I’d love to hear about what life has chosen you to do.  Please comment.

If you are looking for some music to relax in the tub that will take you on that relaxing journey and lift your spirits, look no further than the I Can Woman, Hayley Solich’s instrumental collection.

“When I compose my instrumental music, I often get the whole picture.  I hear each instrument that needs to be added and it is kind of like doing a tapestry, you have an idea of the end product, but until you add each thread you don’t see the whole picture clearly until the end of the process.  I feel divinely inspired when I compose my music and it just seems to have this soothing quality that is like a balm to the soul.” – Hayley Solich

Pop over to the I Can Woman’s site and listen to some of the samples and benefit from the half price New Year sale and save $ssss.

Life today is just so fast-paced.  For parents like myself, I’m sure any opportunity to have a job that you can work around your children is worth investigating.

When I started working from home in 2008, it was more a decision I made based on lack of options. I  had four children, was separated at the time and my children were going through a very difficult relocation to a new school, a new house, without the security of their father.  I was being called into the school more times than I would have liked, so having a regular job was near on impossible.

That’s when I got creative and decided to use my computer to generate an income.  I started out by doing whatever I could to help out my friends.  Type up a resume, design a DVD cover.  Whatever I could.  Out of that I grew a business providing business support services including webdesign, graphic arts, publishing, video promos and business mentoring and training.

I’m not suggesting that everyone could do what I have done as I do have advanced skills in a few areas.  However, if you can type, then you might find that you can provide a Virtual Assistant type of service working from home.  Working my own business now is the best decision I made because it affords me the flexibility to respond to my children’s needs.  In fact, it would be nigh on impossible for me to do a regular job, as with four children, I am called out to the school at least once a week for something and then there are the days when the children are sick too.

So if you are wanting to find a business that works for you, my suggestion would be to sit down and write a list of the skills that you have and look to see what kind of work from home business you can build.  Think about the kinds of things that you do naturally in your day.  Do you organise a household, do you make phone calls, do you manage a budget, do you type letters, do you research important information etc.  These are all skills that are valuable in a business and you may have more skills than you think.

I’m always happy to throw a few ideas around with you.  At the end of the day though, a work from home business is a lot of hard work and sometimes takes a long time to build up the business to a point where you are getting a decent return.  If you’re prepared for the long haul, it can be very satisfying.

There are always ways to make money, it’s usually just a matter for finding the way that works best for you.  Good luck!

I thought I’d write about the intended change of laws in Western Australia with regards to children that are being neglected or abused.   I want to discuss the concept of parents juggling responsibilities and sometimes dropping the ball.  Too often we crucify someone for ‘dropping the ball’, without giving any regard to their full circumstances or understanding their “why”.  Especially in light of the laws they are proposing to bring into Western Australia, where children can be taken from their “neglectful or abusive” parents and placed under the care of  guardian until they are 18 years of age.

This law greatly concerns me because there can be reasons for perceived neglectful behaviour in parents that are not worthy of the harm that removal of their children from their family could cause them.  I am not saying that children should continue to be put in harms way.

I will give you some examples from my own life.

When you have as many balls in the air at one time as I do and as I have in the past, you are going to drop the ball at some point.  After all, even the best jugglers drop the ball when they are learning how to juggle.  However, if they continually drop the ball, even after years of practice, then there is some cause for concern but tread carefully in how you respond to the person who drops the ball because they may have a very understandable “why” which can be fixed with support.  They may be doing the best they can with what they have.

After all, how many of us have more than one ball in the air at any given time?  Especially mothers.  I mean, I had four children under the age of five at one stage.  It was completely overwhelming. Of the four, only two were toilet trained!  Yes, nappies, nappies, nappies!  Then there was the new baby wanting to be fed every four hours – the mess they could make while I was chained to a chair breastfeeding was incredible!  Consequently I went through a time of post natal depression after the birth of my fourth child.

I wonder how many young or older mums out there have been in my situation.  I was living in a different part of the country to where my family were.  We were financially on the edge of bankruptcy (which fortunately I had the nouse to get us through without having to declare) and consequently, our phone had been cut off, so we had no outside communication.  I was stuck at home because taking four young children out at one time was a bit of an ordeal.  I had been courageous a few times and I have to say that my girls were very good when I compare them with the boy (the baby) now.  They always hung onto the trolley at the shops and stayed with mum.  The boy, on the other hand, ALWAYS takes off the second we get to the shops.  But generally it was just too hard to do.

While I was depressed I found it hard to get out of the chair and I struggled with suicidal thoughts.  There were dirty dishes in the sink, dirty clothes in the laundry, the house was not only untidy at times but also dirty, as there was food on the floor.  I probably hadn’t cleaned the toilets in a few weeks.  I’m sad to say, there were times when I failed to meet the needs of my children.  There were times when I made bad decisions because my head was just one big fog.  There were times when I was filled with rage and could easily have caused them harm.  Had someone been looking over my shoulder I may well have been classed as a “neglectful or abusive” parent.

Fortunately, that only lasted for six months of my life, but that six months was very eye opening for me and now gives me a much deeper level of understanding and compassion towards other parents who may be going through difficult patches of their lives and using drugs or alcohol to dull their emotional pain.

I remember when I was single I used to look at families with lots of children and their laundries were always overflowing with washing, their bathrooms dirty and their houses untidy.  I used to judge their lack of cleanliness, yet until recently I’ve had the same thing going on in my own home and I realised that if you have a split focus – mum is working to support all those children – someone, somewhere needs to cut you some slack because you can’t be superwoman, especially if you have little family support.

In our world there are so many responsibilities.  I believe we need to ensure we meet our responsibilities to the best of our abilities.  However, grace is essential if we don’t want to damage each other.  Not every woman who has a child is equipped with the ability to care for that child perfectly.  We are all on a learning journey.  Instead of judging we should be embracing, sharing knowledge and offering support.  If you see a young mum not doing it right, ask her how you could help her.  Don’t tell her how to do it better, or take over from her.  Be respectful, but be proactive as well.

We are in this life together.  You just never know when you are helping someone who may be an essential part of your world later on.  The child of a young mother you help may grow up to be the doctor that saves your life, as was the case in a story I read recently.

If the authorities really care about children, then my advice to them would be to care as equally about parents.  Instead of taking away from them, come alongside them and understand better their “why”.  We all have a “why” and when we understand one another’s “why” then we can make a decision as to what is in the best interests.  My intention during that time that I was failing my children was not to fail them.  I wanted to be the perfect mother. But my “why” was that I didn’t have the support that I needed and I was majorly sleep deprived.  Had I been given time out and time off to recover, it may not have taken as long for me to be back on my feet.

When others are dropping the ball, please take the time to understand their “why”.  It makes all the difference in the world, both for yourself and for the other person.

If you want to better understand this principle, I highly recommend you read Dr Stephen Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, as he describes this principle in detail under the section on mutual understanding.  This book was life changing, given to me during my period of depression.  I’ve written a review for my other blog here, http://thecreatician.com/?p=572