Time has gottne away yet again and suddenly time to look for our next home. Little disagreement between me an dmy partner about where to live. Me more towards moving away from town in favour of cheep rent. Partner wants to stay in the same area. He has his I have mine. I relent.  So we will look in the same area. St Kilda

In response to a chat with I had with  my kids I have decided that I need  to change certain aspects of my life thats been  making me and others around me miserable. Based on my past track record  here are my intentions.

No more excuses about why I can’t change what I know I should and want to change.

No more good intentions and not much  action.

No more putting work before life.

No more pleasing people and not myself.

No more addictions that makes me feed awful like smoking. I will as of tomorrow ask for help and get some professional and personal help  and show up and follow up. So watch this space.

Most in life parents teach children things. But this weekend I had an interesting breafast with mydaughters and they taught me a few home truths that I had to sit up and take notice.

I have no sense of self. I was aware of this fact through chaging my coffee habits to be the same as whcih ever person I happen to be with any given time. I have had 3 long term relationhsips and each time I have adopted my partners coffee of preferance. But my girls tell me it runs much deeper. I go with which ever story I heard last  in many aspects of my life so its very hard for them to take me seriously.

I repeat stories about others that aren’t   relevant.

I am not disciplined so its hard for me to accomplish things completely.

I have a way of being helpless and don’t want to take responsibility in many aspects of my life. Therefore I hand over power to others on many major areas of my own life.

My older daughter put it very succinctly when  she said “mum your life is not a group project. At some point you are going to have take responsibility for all of it”.

All this shocked me not because I wasn’t aware of my lack of sense of self but the enormity of it. All this was good for me to hear as I have been trying to wing it myslef and not gone looking for professional help.  At least not consistantly.

Harshest thing to hear was that I have been only excisted not as an independant human but only as a response other people around me. This is not good news as I am already 47 years old. So this has made me want to kick start mylife as soon as possible.

Well I have done a bit of networking in my time but in the last 7-8 months having left the work force and pretty much been flying solo I feel so out of touch. So when I entered those rooms having signed up for 2 full days of a weekend the first thought that went through my mind was what have I done? I was very nervous but determined to make the most of it. I am a positive kind of person and keen to make the most of everything (clearly I need to filter and assess situations faster because at times I volunteer  to do some a bizzar things) so when in the early part of the day the presenter asked for 6 people to stand up I did. I had no idea how nervous I ‘d be to stand in front of people. This is one fear I thought I had concurred.

As the day progressed and more women started speaking I was charmed. It was not just about business it was about the person who happens to be running business or following what ever passion at this moment in their life wanting to connect with like minded women who think that life is a journey and not a destination. Well I felt at home. I related to one or two speakers better than others. I bought their books learnt some of their tricks of just how to over come the struggles sometimes face us all and joined the group for ongoing camaraderie and support.  It was marvellous and I know there’s a lot more valuable lessons to be learnt from this group of women.

Sometimes I feel lonely in this solo business don’t forget I have been in the work force  till the start of this year.  So when I got a newsletter offering free entry to a 2 full days of networking event with women in a decent location I was super fast registering and got $200 event for nothing. So far so good. Then in the next few days a challenge. In an email another offer If I upgrade to aVIP ticket by paying a mere $50 I stand to win 30,000 work of mentoring. Not only that I get special tratment on the 2 days. My business will be promoted. At first I am sort of cautious but today just before the offer closed  I caved and paid $50 and now I am in for all the VIP stuff. Am I a sucker? Only time will tell.

I am now sooo busy studing up on who to market my website on and off line. Out of all the myriad of information this one appleals to me the most. Its by a very successful blogger and I can understand why. He seems to speak not swahili but English. So I intend on putting this very simple yet hard to do action into practice in the next month. Not easy because who trusts me? Who needs me ?etc Used to be my children but that’s increasingly getting less. As for people who listens to me ? Geez don’t get me started. So its going to be very challenging but I am going to give it go.

“First, ten”

“This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing. Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you…Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.”

I went to my friends 60th Bday today. My friend is very special not because she jumped off a plane on her 55th B day and hasn’t stopped breaking new ground. She is an amazing inspiration to me. Every time I talk to her I feel more enriched in some way. She is a true croan that imparts knowledge real knowledge about life, with wit and humour. She has for 15 years lived with Parkinson’s disease battling some terrible times but her grace and tenacity blows me away. She has beaten a prediction by the medical profession that she would be in a wheel chair by simply meditating. She is one gutsy woman who gained her dignity and learning lessons no matter how challenging life seems to get.  A truly remarkable lady

As usual it never rains but pours. My diabetic is not good I haven’t managed to keep my sugar levels under control. Now I am on Metformin. Not happy Jan as I was hoping to beat type 2 with diet and  lifestyle changes. Where am I going wrong? Well not exactly keeping my stress levels down by starting a business  I suppose. Some drinking and a little smoking. I am particularly annoyed about my inability to resist smokes as it has an immediate horrific affect on my digestion and energy levels. Second challenge is Menopause. Yes I am menopausal and it makes me hot and sweaty. I have never been a sweater. Now I am drenched some nights. Tired and moody. So what should I do about this one? Well I have always been causious about medication. I have been told in the past that I was depressed and hsould go on anti depressents and I have gone as far as purcahsing them and something told me that I should try a different way. So I took myself away for awhile and that experience of being alone,as painful and insane as I was it gave me insights into my own behavious so  much it made me a better person. More compassionate and forgiving of myself and others. I diagress.

So I am reading about pro and against HRT . Apparently there are women in some asian countries that have no syptoms at all. Will I be spared the worse symptoms? How bad is bad? I suppose I am going to findout. After all I am in the midst of it. There are some +++. I have never liked the cold but at the moment my body has the weiredst and the best sensation to cold wind.

I am getting more irritable therefore more outspoken. Good to be able to say speak my mind  once in awhile without worrying about people’s reactions all the time.

I am getting more aware of the limited time we have on this earth. Things change and my health and wealth have both deteriorated and I need to now rebuild both with lessons I learnt so far applying new rules and living my own dreams. First I must know what they are. I got my work cut out infront of me. But its all going to be good.

Well two things to celebrate. Pete my partner has been working our website that seemed to be dragging on on but you know its nearly ready. I feel alaunch coming on.

Second reason for thrills. I got my first ever cooperate party booking. I have been trying for a month to get in front of someone, anyone with my wares. Few faulse starts. Unfulfilled promises. But this is real. Now all I need to do is deliver the goods.

I have to tell myself its not all bad. There are somethings about the whole jewelry experience I haven’t yet told you. When I went to Bali a few weeks ago a taxi driver started stalking me as they do. His name was  Made was very perisitant and really made the most of my reluctance to say gt lost I don’t need you. He would come and sit in the hotel yard in the hope I want to go some place. Fair enough because I did get his hopes up by telling him I wanted to go and see the Silversmiths in Celluk. But having heard about the difficulties of just finding suppliers I became disinterested in a trip to Celuk. Anyway I felt thought I must go somewhere to make up for this for Made. So oneday I jumped in his taxi and told him I needed to go around the corner really just to have a look and in the process he asked me again what is that I am here to do in Bali. I told him of my plan to start a silver jeweley busienss back in Australia. That is then Made told me that his neighbour happnes to be a silversmith and worked from home. You can imagine my level of interest as this conjured up vision sof some dark drab living room and an old man hammering and souldering in a corner. Definitely wouldn’t be a supplier for my international trade. Anyway in the 10 minute ride to JL legian something told me to check this out. I asked him how far way this place was and he said about 15 minutes whcih seemed resonable and I agreed to go and check it out. We must have gone for about 25 minutes entering into windy roads leaving the familiarity of the main drags and going passed weired and sometimes not so wonderful Balinese wares. I was by now having major doubts about my madness and how best to explain my slight diversion to my partner back in the hotel. Finally turning into a dirt road and Made pointing to a house that he said was his own and we could see his friend the smith and we could have coffee at his houe after. Great… I don’t know then how I reacted to the first site of a massive gate and 2 security guards standing amoug the rice fields which seemed like an entrance to some grand mansion.

After Made explaining something the guards let us in. Just as well because for the life of me I couldn’t see how we would reverse out of there. After that Made went to the grand building and seemed to talk to a very young man of about 26 years of age. After a short discussion the young man was introduced to me as the owner of this jewelry manufacturing business and he was willing to see me. I told him quickly that I was a complete novice into the jewely busienss but a fast learner nevertheless and that I was intersted in seeing what he was doing. He promply offered to take me around his factory I was blown away what was  described to me as a working from home business turns out to have  50 people working there. Mt Ketut the young owner was wonderful. He told me that he liked the fact I didn’t try to bull shit my way through I was honest to say I didn’t know much about jewellery.   Aparanetly thats different to how most people he come across. He said that I didn’t have a big ego. Therefor he wasnted to help me. Who am I to argue about the size of my ego? Will he belive I am a classic wounded child with low selfworth and a very high ego?  He also said he wanted to help me because he knew its not his riches that would help him in his next life but his deeds as he waived his wrist in motion an dI noticed the very expensive watch he was wearing. So what? He didn’t say he didn’t like what money can buy. And true to his word Ketut hs negotiated with a beautiful Dutch designer for me to sell her beautiful Lava jewelley here in Australia and NZ. Ketut god bless him has been the one to hook me up with a very large jewellery manufacturing company in America which happens to have many factories around the world including Ketut’s is talking to me about me somehow doing adeal with them to distribute thier jewellery here in Oz. So it wasn’t all for naught.