When I arrived home last night after a six hour drive from Albany, I had the strangest feeling. Firstly my house was clean – a miracle. Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s how I left it for my guests who were doing a house swap with me. Then I noticed just how large it was. After staying in a beach cottage (3 bedroom home that overlooked a beautiful bay), the house just seemed so huge!

It kind of took me back to when I went home for the first time after growing up and moving away. Although this time it was in reverse. When I left this house it seemed so small and crowded, yet when I returned it felt so huge and spacious after being in the more cosy cottage. I guess it showed me that perspective is everything.

Suffice to say, I’m back home. I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to see so many amazing things while I was away. Hundreds of photos later…

Just so you get a little glimpse into what I’m talking about, on our last day in Albany I took my four children on a tour of Frenchman’s Bay. We stopped off at the Natural Bridge and the Gap, which are on the edge of the Antarctic Ocean. Probably one of the most beautiful scenes you’ll ever get to see. I don’t feel I did it justice, but here’s a taste of my last day in Albany…

I’ll be posting more pictures of the trip on my website, http://thefocusshop.com in the coming days.

The thought of traveling for five or more hours, on my own, to Albany was daunting to say the least, especially given that I was to have four young children in the car with me. Memories of the time I had set out on a similar journey to collect my mother from our home town of Wellington in New South Wales came rushing back. I fell asleep on the freeway in Sydney near Blacktown and rolled my car. Although I walked away with just a small scratch on my foot, it had really shaken me up. I was just a green 23 year old who had never driven a long trip before.

I can appreciate my husband’s anxiety, as he knew that I hadn’t been sleeping well. I’d been on a creative bender – so inspired that I couldn’t rest. All I wanted to do was create art pieces. I don’t know how many times he asked me the week before I left, “Have you been sleeping? When did you last get a good night’s sleep.” He even threatened to disable my car!! So you can imagine how that lack of trust was working on my subconscious.

Then there was the memories of my mother’s fatal car accident to contend with. Each car we passed was a potential deadly weapon. She’d done nothing wrong, but was hit head on by someone who did.

So knowing all that about me, I’m sure you can appreciate that I felt a little anxiety myself, very well suppressed mind you, as I reassured him that I was perfectly capable of going the distance and that if I felt at all like I might go to sleep at the wheel I would pull into the nearest town and find a bed for the night.

And as I started out on the adventure of a lifetime, knowing that I couldn’t back out because I’d arranged a house swap and my visitors were arriving as I was heading out of town, all I could wonder was do I really have it in me to drive all that way on my own? Don’t I need someone stronger than me to be with me and hold my hand?

The funny thing is this is just another realm of my coming to know myself. Coming to know that I am a capable woman, that I can make choices and that they can be good choices.

Suffice to say, I arrived safely in Albany. The sky didn’t cave in. In fact, apart from a quick stop off at Mt Barker Hospital to check if my daughter would survive taking too many travel sickness tablets (she’d been popping them every time she felt sick without my knowledge!) we had a very uneventful trip. The roads were very sparsely traversed by others, so we almost had the whole countryside to ourselves.

Stopping when there was a scene I just didn’t want to miss capturing, the twin screen portable DVD player I purchased was a real Godsend. It kept my children focused and I only got one or two “Are we there yets?” from my youngest daughter.

And now we are here, the adventure continues. Having miscalculated on the funds side of things, we are having to live very meagerly, but there is so much you can do that costs nothing when you are on holiday and we have been so blessed with our accommodation. I don’t know where I have ever had access to a better range of “girly” DVD’s, board games and the good old computer and computer games! We definitely got the better deal in the house exchange!

Here is the view out of our front yard…

And a view of the beach where we went swimming yesterday…

And here is Catherine and I at the beach. I met Catherine through the Women Can International site on Ning.com and she’s also a member on this site. It was great to meet her in the flesh as she lives in Albany.

My daughter who is 8 years of age came to me this morning to ask if she could go to see a friend. I told her that she could if she had cleaned her bedroom to my standards. I asked if she’d made her bed, as I knew she needed to put a clean sheet on the bed. She stood there and moaned and groaned that she needed help because she couldn’t put the sheet on.

Because I am the I Can woman and I am pushing the I Can philosophy, I turned to her and was completely firm with her. I told her there is no such word as can’t, only won’t, and that she could do it if she put her mind to it. Well, we argued for a few moments and I repeated my message saying, “You can do this. Have a go and if you really get stuck, I’ll come and help, but you have to try first.”

Well, she disappeared back into her room and I waited for her to resurface to tell me that she was unable to do it. The funny thing was she didn’t resurface so after 15 minutes I thought I’d go see how she was doing. When I went in she’d finished putting the sheet on and I was able to praise her for having achieved the task.

The life lesson for all here is that you can, if you want to. If you focus on the possible instead of the impossible, everything changes. You can realise your dreams, achieve your goals, conquer new skills, if you give yourself permission to try and be prepared to fail.

To find out more about the I CAN Philosophy, watch my introductory video presentation.

Yesterday my 11 year old approached me for a friend to come over. The day before it had been “Can I go to her place?”, which I had complied with. Usually I prefer to check it all out, but this time my head was in another place so I just said yes. It was as I was dropping her off that I started to have reservations. But by that time it was too late to change my mind.

Well, I went to pick her up and she was not there. She’d gone to another friend’s place for a swim. I arrived at the stated pick up time…no child. So I waited while they phoned and then the father of the house went and picked up the girls. Suffice to say, I was a little concerned about the arrangement.

So the next day when my child says can she come over, with the child standing right there looking at me with the big puppy dog eyes, I go yes, under duress, thinking that if she was allowed, I probably owed the family for having my child the day before.

It wasn’t until after I took the child home 8pm at night, after being pressured into having her stay for tea by my daughters that I discovered that my mobile phone was missing. I asked the girls about it and they sheepishly produced it for me. I thought nothing of it, other than being mildly knicked off that they’d taken it without my permission. It was even later when I noticed photos of the girl starting to slideshow across the screen of my mobile. I became mildly annoyed that they had filled the phone up with these photos but still not enough to rant and rave. However, on closer examination I was totally shocked to find a video clip, of the visiting 11 year old, prancing around topless and slapping her butt at the camera, porn style.

You can imagine my chin dropping to the floor. As I examined the video soundtrack more closely I could hear the girl giving them instructions about how and what to film and it got me wondering how many times this child has done this before???

Not really knowing how to deal with this, I explained to my children that firstly they should never have taken my phone and used it for this type of purpose because if anyone else were to see it I would be arrested for indecent dealings with a child! Secondly, I explained that what they had filmed had a name and it was illegal and called child pornography, they were a little shocked. I’d like to think that they are still innocent, but having seen some of the very sexual music clips on TV and the advertising of adult television in children’s hours I think it would almost be impossible to remain innocent in this day and age.

But what to do about it? Do I tell the parents? Do I speak directly to the child? Do I involve the school? Was it just an innocent child imitating what they’ve seen somewhere or was there more to the event?

I think back to when I was 11 and I try to remember if I would have done this at that age? Would you have done this when you were 11?

Suffice to say, I will be maintaining a more vigilant eye on future guests to our home as I never want a repeat performance!