Why I do "home parties"

I've worked with hundreds of people in the last five years as a business coach. Never have I sat down with someone that has said  "I really want to do home parties" or "As a child I dreamed about going into peoples homes to share with them a product I believe in". Much more likely, the concern "Do I HAVE to parties?" is voiced.

I confess I was part of the later group. When I considering joining the company I currently represent it was my biggest stumbling block. Although I couldn't put my finger on why. There was something about that idea that made me feel uncomfortable.

I had been given a pull to check out the business and I was desperate to change my life. So I accepted that I might have to do group presentations and I dipped my toe into the business. I was surprised by what I found. Not only did I enjoy meeting new people in a relaxed environment, I learned so much.

Do you know what this is?

I didn't, until Wednesday when the host at my presentation served it. The same night a guest taught me a cool eye make up trick with scotch tape and how to pronounce the Ł in Polish.

In the five years I have been in Network Marketing it has grown in many ways. Home presentations are now only one of the tools we have to reach new customers. Several effective reach out methods have been added in response to our societies increasingly busy lives. In fact in my personal business these events only make up a small portion of my activity. 

Once my biggest concern, group presentations are now among the things I look forward to the most. I meet people that I never would have and learn the coolest things. 

If you are still wondering what that fruit is, check out  http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-a-Persimmon

We manifested a cat

In our house I have been working to get across the idea that 'thoughts are things', the premise behind the 1937 book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill . It's important to me that the kids understand that we can have control over our thoughts and what they think about will come about.

I didn't know they heard me.

Earlier this week a kitten was dropped off at our house. We were sitting on the lawn trying to befriend him and decide what we should do when my 13 year old spotted a bucket a baseballs that we had purchased from a friend on the weekend. "Holy Smokes Mom. We manifested a cat!"

Here lies the problem. I didn't read the parenting chapter on that. So my mind was instantly a muck with 

• He listens?
• What if he's afraid to bring anything into his life with a picture?
• Should I tell him he's right...that he's wrong?
• This is why people don't discuss this shit with kids.

I decided to implement the well used laugh and deflect technique practised for generations of parents without the right answer. 

We will revisit this conversation after I figure out what to do with this cat...

There is a chicken in my bra

I had the wonderful opportunity to grow up on a hobby farm. As a child I had my own horse and the barn was full of donkeys, goats, chickens, rabbits, sheep, ducks, a lama, a couple cows and I'm sure many more critters that I have forgotten about. We used to say that if it was legal for my Mother to buy it, it lived on our farm.

Which is why I am currently typing with a chicken in my bra.

Four years ago at a petting zoo one of my darling children looked up at me and said "Mom is that a goat or a deer?"
What happened in my head at that moment was a bit like a submarine sinking scene in a movie. Flashing red lights and horns were saying WARNING. WARNING. YOU ARE FAILING AS A PARENT. You are raising THAT CHILD.
That child was the kid that would come to our farm to visit and would run and cry when a bunny hopped in his direction. Even though I am aware that I am messing my kids up somehow, there was no way I was raising that child.

Which is why I am currently typing with a chicken in my bra.

I set about to right this wrong by creating our own little farm environment by getting a dozen chickens. Living on a single acre on the edge of town and wanting to stay married, this seemed like the best option. That was three years ago. The chicken adventures were many and our flock of 12 dwindled to three geriatric old hens.

 Which is why I am currently typing with a chicken in my bra.

The plan was to get 12 new eggs and an incubator to restock our little flock. But I made the grave mistake of taking the children with me to the farm to pick them up.
So far we've hatched 24 chickens and a duck.

 Which is why I am currently typing with a chicken in my bra.

24 chickens and 1 odd duck live in a box in my office, safe from the dog. All but one hatched themselves in regular bird fashion. The one we call Miracle didn't. She pipped her hole in the shell, then struggled for 24 hours to make any further progress. I googled. I helped. I shouldn't have.

Which is why I am currently typing with a chicken in my bra.

Miracle is tiny, half the size of the rest of the chicks. We didn't think she'd live past the first day. Which is how she found her name. As in "It will be a miracle if this one lives". The amazing part is that even though she is tiny, she is LOUD. She never shuts up unless someone is holding her. I think now Miracle is more a reflection on the fact that no one has wrung her little neck.

I have work to do today in the office I share with 23 chicks, a duck and the worlds loudest miracle chicken. I don't possess a chicken bjorn.

Which is why I am currently typing with a chicken in my bra.

Jimmy Coo vs. Air Canada

There is a battle going on that few people know about. The airlines are conspiring against the shoe companies by setting ridiculously low weight allowances on luggage, limiting the number of shoes that women can pack during travel.

This is why I am incredibly grateful for business partners with the same shoe size. I didn't plan it that way. I didn't find shoes clustered around a doorway at an event, peak inside, then recruit those that put the same size as me. Shoe size isn't on any questionnaires my future business partners fill out. It wouldn't matter if it was, because people are foot liars. Men lie up and women lie down. This in one of the many things I learned during my highschool career as a Joggers shoe salesperson.

Sometimes luck is in your favor and you can collect a tribe of fellow size 9ers to travel with. All feeling secure in the knowledge that you are going to be able to bail each other out when the shoes you were planning for a big event while traveling over time zones, morphed into something uncomfortable and hideous.

It's just good shoe math.

A selfie stick IS a business tool

When you are born right after Christmas your birthday loses some excitement. Celebrate it 38+ times and the gratitude for being allowed another is gift enough. This year was different though. When my husband asked what I would like for my birthday. I answered right away. "A selfie stick!".

I watched my darling husband fight an internal battle on how to react. He almost hid his horror and concern as he cautiously answered "really?". I confidently answered "As a business tool".

Now if you have been blessed to be with someone more than half your life, like we have. You know when to ask more questions and when to move on. A selfie stick arrived cheerfully wrapped on my birthday.

I know he doesn't get it. He has an office and co workers he sees every day. When you work from home as an Independent Consultant it's different. We only get together a couple times a year, so it's exciting, fun and fills your cup.

You want to capture that shit. 

No that's not my hero biscuit

I lost my opportunity for the ultimate Mom hero biscuit when I opted in for drugs during the c-section births of my three children, hanging her head in shame. So I'm not sure why medicating myself to get on a plane feels so dirty. I know passenger 12B in the seat beside me doesn't care when I sneak in my tiny pill, but they should. I could introduce them to young airline mechanic that was seated beside me a few years ago on a return flight. I grabbed him so suddenly and tightly during some turbulence that I felt I should write an apology letter to his Mother.

I've read the stats and know that I am technically safer in the air than I am in the car on way to the airport but here's my trouble with flying. I've run into enough people in different fields that are terrible at their job, that it is not a big leap to think that perhaps I might have a bad pilot. Now before you start in on the comments section, I know that planes are largely flown by computers and more than 1 pilot, so it takes a large collection of errors and factors to crash a plane. But it happens and when it does it's all over the media, like a giant beacon of warning to the fair weather flyer's like me.

Ironically I love to travel and take at least 6-8 flights a year. So I have developed a system that you are welcome to borrow.

Step 1- Set alarm, and wake frequently to make sure the hydro has not gone out.
Step 2 - Give up on sleep and have 2 coffees before leaving the house. Pack one for en route.
Step 3 - Arrive at the airport ridiculously early so to ensure enough time to elevate the anxiety levels.
Step 4 - Talk to every member of the airport staff to get a read on whether 'something is up' or not.
Step 5- Start process of bi-hourly peeing. Get another coffee.
Step 6 - Check out each passenger in the waiting area for signs of unstable behaviour.
Step 7 - Listen for boarding call. Contemplate leaving the airport.
Step 8 - Cautiously board plane, being sure to make eye contact with all attendants and peer into the cockpit to watch for shiftiness in the pilots.
Step 9 - Find seat and text a goodbye to all those you love before shutting down your phone.
Step 10- Resign yourself to the fact your life might be over. Repeat, "Let go. Let God", until your plane has levelled off.
Step 11- Land safely. Make mental notes regarding all promises made to your higher power and feel silly about Steps 1 -10.

You're welcome. j

"Tony! Tony! Come around."

"Something's lost and must be found!" I was taught you only call St.Anthony in for the big stuff.

 18 hours before getting on a plane and my car keys were gone. Compound the problem by the fact that we live 2 hours from the airport and I am to drive my business partner as well, and we have a problem.

The first few hours of looking were marked by annoyance and minor barking at the family to assist or get out of the way. I've never seen them move so fast when the school bus arrived.  As each place that the keys "should be" was searched my panic level increased. Six hours in I was a full blown crazy woman. I checked the trees outside. In my mind a squirrel picking up my dropped keys and using the colourful lanyard as nesting made complete sense.

Insert on the scene friends and family that called or stopped by to say goodbye before my trip. As my plight became apparent they offered super helpful advice like "Did you check where you usually put them?" "Maybe they are still in the car?" "Wow, I bet those keys are really expensive to replace!". These remarks allowed me to practice my life long goal of holding my sarcastic tongue. Of which I am not always successful.

8 hours into the search and I had to allow myself to think about what the heck we were going to do if they didn't turn up. Clearly they weren't in the garbage, in any nook/cranny of the house and they weren't in the trees. They were gone.

The children cautiously arrived home from school asking if they were found. I'm sure my frazzled and exhausted appearance answered for me. I had just confessed the situation to my travel partner and had answered my husbands 7th text of "Found them yet?" with a resigned "No :( ". I begged the kids to check their backpacks. Which of-course was met with protests that I had made them do it before leaving in the morning. That was until they were located. In the backpack that was checked 8 hours of searching ago...