I have a strong belief in the Universe. Not some old dude sitting up in a chair somewhere in space, looking down on us and waiting for us to screw up so he can put a check in the naughty column like some twisted, creepy Santa Claus.

I believe in the Universe. Energy. Positive, negative, neutral energy. Energy that compounds, energy that ebbs and flows, moving from one place to another in a constant state of flux.

Energy that seems to be flowing my way the last few days – thank the Universe!

The last few days have been such a rush to my pretty little ego that I had to write a post thanking the Universe for flowing some of that energy my way.

It all started last Wednesday when I clicked a link on LinkedIn to the Cambridge Who’s Who Women of Business group. I asked to apply and they promptly sent me to a form to start bragging about myself. Which I did.

I have to admit I’m really good at bragging. Not going to lie, when I get pumped up about everything I’ve accomplished and the effects I’ve had on both my clients and my employers, I get kinda caught up in the spirit of it all. And I have to say that was some of my best work, good bragging skills were definitely evident on that form.

After filling it in I hit submit and I didn’t really give it too much thought. Come Friday morning however I got a call from a lovely lady over at the Cambridge Group who wanted to interview me for their annual publication due to my awesome bragging skills! Woot!

After the interview she told me that she definitely wanted to include me in the publication and that she thought I would be a great fit for their organization – fist pumping that would have put any guido on Jersey Shore to shame followed.

I was ecstatically happy! A prestigious group and definitely some amazing opportunities to network and connect with other prestigious type peoples was not the way I thought I would start my weekend.

But wait there’s more!

I’ve been following the pre-launch materials of a couple of business coaches over at 180 Journey for the last week or so. I stumbled across their amazing ebook about three weeks ago and not only is it full of great info, it’s remarkably easy on the eyes (and we all know how good typography makes me drool!)

So I signed up to hear more about their new course coming out and was very interested to say the least.

But I started to get disheartened as I read more of their pre launch materials.

I mean, the information they were giving away for free was so good I was starting to lose hope that their final offering would be something that I could afford. I’m not one to balk at cost if I see a genuine payback from something but lately the business hasn’t been doing too good.

I’m down to my last few dollars from my major contract with the oil company and as of right now there definitely is no one beating down my door to give me high paying work. It has gotten to the point where I actually applied to a few full time jobs last week so that I could try to get something close to a paycheck every month.

And that has torn me up inside.

I would have to put munchkin in daycare – I would lose my time with him every day. Instead of trying to get work in around my child, I would be trying to get my child in around my work. And it has me feeling really guilty.

The reason I starting doing this type of work was so that I could set my own hours, work on projects I loved and be creative without sitting at a desk for eight hours a day. Ok, I still sit at a desk but it’s definitely not even close to eight hours a day and the desk is technically a stone’s throw from my bed and the fridge.

So needless to say, until I heard about the Cambridge Who’s Who inclusion, things were looking kinda bleak.

But today – oh wondrous November 9th! – I got the final pre-launch email from 180 Journey and I immediately clicked the link to their last piece of material, the one which would explain all and finally tell me how much the course would cost.

And I was right. It was way too expensive for me to afford. And just so you know where I am, the course was insanely cheap compared to the value that it was giving. But I just couldn’t do it.

So I sighed, and I closed the pdf file and resigned myself to either working full time or somehow finding some freelance jobs where I wasn’t ending up working for $14 an hour.

But something caught my eye in the email.

Right before I deleted it I noticed I hadn’t read to the bottom and I could have sworn I saw my name there…

It was! My name was in the email! But it wasn’t at the top, where usually there’s some kind of an auto field – Hi [first name] [last name].

I read the whole email from top to bottom, three times. My name was still there. I wasn’t seeing things, it wasn’t a mistake, my name was there twice.

This email was telling me that I had won a spot in this amazing course just for filling in the survey that they had sent out a week or so before. A survey! One that to be honest after hitting submit I totally forgot about!

I’m still reeling from the shock of it all! This has to be the Universe telling me to stop my downward spiral into full time drudgery and keep working at the dream – the dream!

Moral of the story is…. fill in every single survey you get, every single contest. Reply to every request and never, ever , EVER give up on the dream baby!

Thanks 180 Journey – I’ll be seeing you in the classroom / waiting in my pajamas at my desk.

PS: I will give something special to whomever can figure out the reference that the title of this post alludes to. Here’s a hint – It’s a turn of phrase in a novel by an awesome female scifi writer who also didn’t give up her dream of a planet filled with fire breathing dragons half a galaxy away.

My son turned 9 months yesterday. That’s 3 months younger than a year but at least 4 more than 5 months (I may have to check my math on that one). I cannot believe how fast these past months have flown by! It has totally blown me away the changes that I have seen him go through in such a short period of time.

And to top it all off – the little guy has decided that crawling just isn’t enough for him and he’s moved on to walking!

I’m not going to lie – I was a bit upset about missing it. My sister was baby sitting while I took care of a few things and visited a lovely friend of mine and she was the one who coaxed him into taking his first solo steps.

I walked through the door and she was holding him standing and let him go with a resounding “Walk to Mama!”

And. He did.

That little guy took eight or nine steps, all wobbly and smiling with his huge grin and he walked right into my arms!

Nothing could possible describe what I felt at that moment. Elated. Happy. Mournful. Comes a bit close.
My baby is growing up – he no longer stays where you put him, he’s into everything he can get his hands on and boy can that little guy give you a run for your money when he’s intent on something!

On one hand I am so happy that my little man is becoming his own little person but at the same time I mourn for the times when I could just hold him and cuddle and we were content to spend 18 hours a day in bed with each other.

What a crazy experience this parenthood thing is turning out to be!

I’m sure there will be lots of cuddle time  in the future. And what’s more fun than running after a giggling munchkin?

Sometimes a big project gets so overwhelming that you want to curl into a ball and just pray that some deity takes care of it for you. You want to procrastinate, you want to take shortcuts and you’d rather not deal with all the fine print thank you very much.

Oh wait, that’s me.

So maybe you don’t do this when a big project stares you in the face but I certainly do and I’m starting to get sick of it really.

My penchant for shirking responsibility is over!

Now what the heck is the crazy lady talking about? Maybe if you throw her a small token she’ll tell us then leave us alone.

The wonderful husband and I got some amazing/scary/exciting/frightening/enormous news the other week and now it’s put us all in a tizzle with the myriad of possibilities it opens up for us.

Basically, his grandfather’s home in Saskatchewan has recently become an option for us. A mortgage-free, some assembly required option.

We went to visit it the other day and assess the condition of the home (not too bad but not so good either) and also so I could get a better idea of the property.

And I think I may have fallen a bit in love with 5 acres just north of Lloydminister. I’m not sure if it’s love or a fleeting fancy but I think there might be something there for us.

Lots of space, a unique earth home, a quanset (who doesn’t need a quanset!) and space for gardens, kids to play and animals to…. be animals.

But it’s going to be a huge project and we first need to decide if we want to fix it up and sell it or fix it up to live in or just bulldoze the whole thing and sell it as is.

The house has mold and needs to be gutted, the roof needs work and the 1983 styles are just screaming for an update.

But I’m not going to lie, it kinda feels like home.

So we have to start the process of finding out whether this place is feasible to be called home. Whether the mold can be dealt with or not, whether the roof should be patched or replaced entirely, whether Mike Holmes will consider taking our calls.

Faced with the entire project  it’s huge, scary and daunting. Looking at it in bite sized morsels makes it a bit easier to tackle.

So that’s my plan this week, breaking the huge project into smaller, manageable goals and hopefully we’ll have some concrete answers to the long list of what ifs.

Who knows? Maybe this blog will turn into a city girl moves to the country and the hilarity that ensues. Keep reading and we’ll find out!

PS: Mike Holmes, if you read please call me! Have I got a project for you! Unique Earth Home…. huh? huh?

I’m 27, female, well educated. Creative. Business owner, career minded and income focused. I’m also a stay at home mother, a wife and a domestic goddess who can whip up delectible goodies at the drop of a hat.

I get queasy when I walk into a messy room but I refuse to spend all my time cleaning. I love to laze away an afternoon doing very little but I can’t stand the feeling of doing nothing. I enjoy immersing myself in a project and working my brain to exhaustion but I’m probably one of the worst procrastinators I know.

I’m not superstitious yet I wear a greek evil eye and check my horoscope every day. I don’t believe in destiny but I know that meeting my husband and having my child wasn’t just happenstance.

I walk around every day with an internal war being waged in my head and heart. On one side I’m a take no prisoners, career minded busines owner. On the other I’m a sensitive, creative, stay at home mom.

How do I align these two sides of myself to exist in harmony without imploding and taking out several city blocks?

Growing up, I was taught that there was nothing I couldn’t do. Women were no longer thought of as domestic beings with a life revolving around the home. We’re powerful in business, we’re determined and we’re successful.

But are we happy?

When I’m developing for work, I want to be baking or playing with my son. When I’m relaxing or crocheting I feel guilty for not working and getting some sort of business task done.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this either. I think this is a feeling shared by many women my age. We have such a hard time aligning these two portions of ourselves that it comes to a point where we’re frozen in one spot because we think we have to go in one direction or another.

And do we really have to choose? Do we have to be one or the other? How do we accept and embrace the two sides of our lives and allow them to coexist? Can I put another question here to illustrate my point?

There’s no right or wrong for this question and I’m not sure if I’m going to arrive at any sort of answer anytime soon but I think just acknowledging the struggle and labelling it is a good start.

One day I just might be able to align the two halves of myself into something I’m totally comfortable with. Until then I’m just going to have to stop giving myself such a hard time over it.

My apple corer paid for itself today. Not only did it pay for itself, I’m pretty sure it paid for the melon baller and the lemon zester too.

I made a huge batch of apple butter this afternoon – the yummiest smelling, sweetest tasting, most awesome apple butter in the world (this claim has yet to be proven by the FDA).

My sister brought over two huge bags of crab apples from SuperMum’s tree the other day and I decided to cook some of them up into yummy goodness.

It’s one of those situations where the item that saved the day is one that could have probably made it’s way into one of the donate or sell piles currently sitting in the garage. But it didn’t, and now it never will. It has officially proven itself too useful to give away.

How do you decide that something is worth keeping or has earned a spot in one of those piles? Once you decide to put it in one of those piles, what’s going to stop you from needing it in the future?

Granted, I probably could have made apple butter without the apple corer and been just fine (though most likely with a lot more swearing and throwing of things) but it most certainly would have gotten done all the same. But it has me thinking about the whole uncluttering and simplification process I’m currently going through.

I’m not having second thoughts, not by any means. But it’s making me realize that the process is 90% of the experience, not just the stuff. Rather than blindly and ruthlessly going through our things, I’m going to be a bit more thoughtful about it, really think about the usefullness of something before I toss it in one of those piles.

My cowboy hat I bought on a whim three years ago because I almost went to Big Valley Jamboree? Definitely going in the give away pile (I look awful in a cowboy hat!) but my apple corer? I think I’m going to keep it – even if it only gets used twice a year. I think in the future when I’m making big batches of apple butter for the kidlets I’m going to thank myself for keeping that one.