And then your child is born, the beginning of all future hopes and dreams — There’s no interview. The position is challenging and fierce. It comes with no salary. It leaves you absolutely exhausted every day, deprives you of sleep, and the free time you once enjoyed, but you wouldn’t trade it even for free access to the biggest bank in the world. Welcome to…

Celebrating the birth of a friend’s little boy… — The inspiration comes from the poem, ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ It’s all about seizing opportunity, and being open to adventure. Dearest William, CONGRATULATIONS! Today is your day, You’ve landed on earth And now you must stay. Today‘s your ‘birth’ day! And you’re perfect, we think. But we know that…

To look in a mirror and like what they see… — My 3-year-old daughter a shoplifter? Come on! It was a Friday night. Late opening in our city, a night when it is de rigueur to shop after work, and then enjoy a simple meal out. My husband needed some business clothes, and we went down to the basement of a large store in the men’s section. It…

Am I capable, or what? — To twittle or not, a challenge by Carolyn Hastings to write a poem of four lines (a quatrain) with exactly 100 alphabet letters. Too easy! As it turned out, not as easy as I had imagined. Still, I gave it a try. Twittle — A rhyming Quatrain Ah TWITTLE, a verse ‘too easy ‘to write …

Instead build you new life on borrowed terms and adjust… — As John Lennon once wrote, “There’s nowhere you can be that you weren’t meant to be. I’ve chosen to highlight three writers today. Each of them is endowed with a robust human spirit that sees them doing things that many of us might discard in the too-hard basket. Whether you…

Exposing unethical real estate tactics to get you through the door first of all, then swing a deal… — Let me state from the outset that I am no fan of real estate sales people. In fact I am certain there’s a far hotter corner in that place we often refer to as hell, a relentlessly hot and steamy place to make up for the myriad transgressions of common…

And when you see an opportunity to fix it… — This story was inspired by Charles Amemiya who wrote this elephant story. Many years ago when I was a student, I worked at a holiday camp, one of those camps that teem with wild kids who tear around the place with death-defying energy, high on sugar, going from one noisy…

Shaming happens when people find out that you now reside in Poverty Street. Its why people are determinedly tight-lipped. — In this post I talked about a new reality in Australia, people, many middle-classed, turning to op shopping, and sharing in buy-nothing groups in order to make ends meet. Or just to prepare for the inevitable interest rate rises! As I thought about writing this post, I was reminded of…