This planet is bursting with resilient, diverse, fascinating, kind, warm, uplifting and, funny WONDERFUL women.

I am personally very blessed to have an army of lovely ladies in my life. The relationships I have formed and sustain are absolutely one of the most important sources of spiritual sustenance I have access to.  The women in my life offer me a sense of community and belonging, and buoy me through bad times and good.

I have thousands of stories about how awe-inspiring, kind, quirky, unique and wonderful the women in my world are.  I’ll share just a small snippet of stories with you now:

One dear friend was on a road trip with her family recently. She’s a vehement social justice campaigner, and has dedicated her entire life to fighting for the needs and rights of our society’s most vulnerable. She came across a homeless man in Hamilton, and her and her family took him out for a hot breakfast and arranged a lunch for him as well. He did not have the capacity to tell them too much about his situation, as it seemed he didn’t really understand it himself, but she did manage to find out that he had an appointment to talk about emergency housing within a few days. She reached out (safely and thoughtfully) with a kind hand.  She talked to him like a human being, because we are ALL human beings.  This story has touched me deeply. The social and economic issues and growing disparity in this country mean more people are living rough, and we are a small and nimble enough population that the growth of this kind of poverty is simply unacceptable.

I have another friend who has recently finished a gruelling course of cancer treatments. She is an honest, warm, HILARIOUS human being who stands up for animals, people, and our environment and fights vehemently for the underdog. She volunteers with community groups, her family were extremely early adopters in Electric Vehicle technology, and she sees and nurtures the good in the people she loves. She is an amazing mother, a concerned friend, and she can see the pain in my heart when it starts to creep in and take over.  She sees it because she is one of the few people who face the same darkness. “Who makes the clown laugh?” She often says to me when one or both of us are confiding that the darkness has crept in.  We are both clowns, and share our energy and laughter generously as it feels like medicine for ourselves, and, I hope, for those around us.

Just a few final examples of friends who do amazing things (trust me when I tell you this doesn’t even scratch the surface:

I know a woman who holds people’s hands at hospice and comforts them and their families. And another gorgeous, elegant friend who feeds and socializes with people at a retirement village between modeling and acting gigs. I know and love a group of women who catch babies and dry mother’s tears during the most beautiful and vulnerable time of their lives (the births, and sometimes, the loss, of their babies). Another group of wonderful women I know have dedicated their lives and careers to helping women out of the cycle of domestic violence. Another woman has recently stood up to one of the biggest and most notorious boys club in the country, and her voice is being heard! She’s a feisty one for sure. Another friend homeschools her two beautiful girls and has become an integral part of that community. I know award winning creatives, women engineers, a superstar nanotechnologist, journalists, advocates for awesome in general, lawyers, accountants, teachers, nurses, business women, matriarchs, writers, mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters, artists, doctors, poets, philosophers, travelers, cleaners, cooks, gardeners, activists, volunteers and modern day feminists… And they are all my friends. And they are all my heroes.  And they all have a story to share with some other woman or girl, that could well change the whole trajectory of her life if she lets the advice and guidance percolate.

A book containing all of the amazing I have witnessed, just in the women who I know and love would be volumes long.  And every day there are several new chapters to add.

It is no secret that I have for a very long time wanted to mobilise a community and movement to support women and girls of all ages to conquer fear and find a path to their own awesome.  A physical and virtual network where we mentor each other to be fearless and actively pursue dreams and goals.  A safe and uplifting place where girls and women can go for sustenance for the mind and soul.  A place to get sound and accurate advice for personal, professional, mental, educational, and general concerns.  A place where people can connect if they get stuck on a project or in a rut.  A place to obliterate pain points and punch obstacles IN DA FACE with the help of superstars from various fields and with varied skill-sets.

The current problem is, I have NO idea where to start.

So I thought I would start here, with a public announcement of my intention to regularly celebrate and say thank you to all the women who are taking names and kicking butte.

If you are a woman, and you are awesome (which you are, I can assure you) please consider joining me.  Please consider sharing your skills, stories, strength and positivity.

I’ll start a FB cause page and call it The Seriously Sustainable Sisterhood.  I will share intelligent and uplifting articles, happy thoughts, funny pictures and it will be a safe and secure forum for women to connect and encourage each other to identify and follow their dreams and goals.  I’ll share great content from some tried and true sources like Mighty Girl, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, Huffpost women, The Cultureist, Psycology today, various amazing blogs etc.  And we will work really hard to have robust and useful discussions.

We all have to start somewhere right?  Well, this is the start of something that I hope will uplift and sustain the ideas, dreams, and goals of many women far into the future.

Have a great weekend.  Feel free to like the page.  Actually PUHLEEEEZZZEEEE like the page.

XXOO

Dee

I proper LOVE mornings. Winter mornings are a special kind of fabulous. I say this, because I am lucky enough to live in a house with more than adequate insulation and heating.

Well over half of the people in the country probably don’t like mornings in the winter because they are in cold, damp, often overpriced housing, and they spend the winter sick or shivering.

As soon as we’ve witnessed the true tipping point on the EV and greentech movement, and this gorgeous country is finally truly #LeadingTheCharge on renewable energy and sustainability, then we are going to find some clever people from here and around the world to work with and tackle poverty and (at the same time because the two are inextricably linked) women’s issues.*

Strong women mean a strong society. We live in an age where childcare and domestic chores do not automatically have to be a woman’s domain. There are fabulous stay-at-home dads who support driven and successful partners and successfully pilot thriving households. Strong, educated women with a self-esteem do not stay in harmful relationships. They make better decisions for themselves and their current and future families. They make wonderful role models in their own nuclear and extended families, and they give other women (like DEE!) tangible sources of inspiration to keep going when things get tough and obstacles appear.

So yes, where was I again… Oh that is right, mornings.

The feeling of being snuggled up as the children file in for morning cuddles and cartoons is one of my favourite things in the world.

Recently, the baby has been sleeping through the night in his own crib, in his own room at the other end of the house where it is warm and snuggly and quiet. He goes down around 9:00 and gets up around 6:00am. This is the light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll be able to escape the children for days, perhaps weeks at a time in a few short years when they are all big enough to be farmed out to various family and friends and happy to be so.

The conversation I wanted to share with you this morning, and apologies for taking so long to get to it, is this:

As is often the case when something goes well (or even if something goes terribly wrong) is that we take a moment to retrace the steps that led to things panning out they way they did. What I have noticed recently, is my husband has adopted an almost superhuman ability to take credit for things panning out well. I think I am fine with this, as he’s a fairly wonderful human and churns through more awesomeness when his confidence is high.  Trust me when I tell you, that his confidence is currently somewhere in the stratosphere.  For the most part, I really enjoy seeing him like this.

“I like this baby sleeping through the night stuff.” Said my chipper husband before dutifully heading to the kitchen to make me an espresso. “When did this start happening I wonder.” He continued.

We went through a number of factors that contributed to the warm, cozy environment that the baby now enjoys for several uninterrupted hours a night. And then, like a small bolt of lightening, Steve piped up and said: “I know, it was when I put the heater in that room.”

To which I responded; “Yes darling. I do believe you will find, that it won’t be much of a stretch to find that every single good thing that happens to this family, or every single person who we have ever meet, seen, or known, can be fairly easily traced directly and indirectly to you.”

There was a pause. There was a laugh. And when the laughter subsided Steve piped in with: “You’re probably right.”

And so our day began.  My husband the ever humble superhero was ready to take on another day.

Have a magnificent Monday if that is when you are reading this, or a great week if this crosses your eyeballs on a different day.

Thanks for reading.

Dee

*Relevant but worthwhile tangent to discuss.