The power of FACEBOOK. The good. The bad. The ugly.

I went out with some new friends the other night and in passing conversation they knew lots of details about my life that they couldn’t have possibly known unless they had stalked me on Facebook and read my blog. It …

How do I overcome my working mother guilt issues??

I started working 7 days a week when my youngest was just 4 months old. She was still waking at 1am and 4 am every morning, luckily only for a bottle then back to sleep, she did this until 9 months old.

She’s now 2 and since then I’ve had some pretty hard core guilt issues. I’m not happy about admitting this but I think we only really bonded for 4 months, it was and it is really really hard to focus on my kids and work equally or at the same time, one of them suffers or both do equally at separate times at one stage or another. Everyone talks about work/life balance but I think it’s impossible as a mother to ever have the perfect balance. I’m an either all kids one week person or an all work one week person. I work my time around my appointments.

Just recently I’ve been criticised on Facebook by some people about a photo I put up of my Kids going to daycare and how I called them “roadblocks” to my career. One of my “friends” thought it was appropriate to screen shot my post and private message it to my ex husband, who then contacted me and questioned my mental stability and ability to raise our children. I have 90% care of them and as you can imagine, this didn’t go down well. I was angry.

I’m not making excuses for the post but I do feel the need to explain. The post was made late at night and I have 4 kids from 6 months to 6 years old living under one roof, which is a huge change for me. I was tired and I was excited to be able to get some work done for once. I also possibly used the wrong word, instead of “roadblock” perhaps I should have used “challenges” Either way, as I pointed out, anyone that knows me or is a career woman and or working mum should understand what I meant and how I meant it.

Which brings me to my moment at the beach with my 2 year old, Angelique.
A couple of days ago, I decided to break the evening routine and I took the kids to the beach after dinner. They had a ball, it was cold and the sun was setting but they didn’t care, they were screaming in joy, getting their feet wet in the waves and then they got all their track suit pants wet so I pulled them off and started walking home up the dunes.

My baby asked to get up into my arms (she puts her arms up and says “cuddle” in the cutest voice ever) and so I picked her up and started to carry her up a steep sand dune with a seriously strong sea breeze. She hugged me so tight, i felt the wind blowing past my hair onto hers and I nuzzled my face into her neck and felt her hair blowing on my forehead and she smelt so pretty, like my little Angel. I miss her. It breaks my heart that i haven’t been here for her much over the past 2 years.

Then quite unexpectedly, I started to get teary, I started thinking about all the sacrifices that I make by doing the job I do, by working 7 days a week. I thought about how much I miss my girls, about how much I block out my family, just to get through emotionally. I think of my WHYS – why do I work so hard? Why do I sacrifice my girls’ early years.

I may get criticised, people may talk about me and people may think that I’m a money hungry bitch and that my kids suffer (Yes, people have said the about me) I am adopted, I never ever ever want my kids growing up with the
abandonment issues that I had. I also want my kids to have absolutely anything and any opportunity they want. I also want to be retired and able to look after my grand children so my girls can work and money is going to enable that for me and my girls.

I work my absolute ass off day in and day out for my kids. I hate leaving them, I hate them crying, I hate them telling me they miss me. Out of everything in my life, this upsets me the most. I also know however that when my kids are with out me, they are learning, they learn to adapt and learn independence.

So how do I overcome my guilt of leaving my kids to earn a crust?
I own it. I firstly recognise my guilt, I own the feeling, I think about my WHYs and I continue on. It’s natural that they will cry when I leave but I am thankful that if I’m having a shit day, I can go get my kids and spend time with them, I can afford to do cool things with them and I hug them.. Really really tight. Xx

Thanks for reading my blog if you made it this far!
How do you overcome your guilt? Single dads too. I’m not sexist.

My moment of empowerment with a chainsaw and a tree.

So I had this property settle last week, the sellers were contractually obliged to cut down some trees, however their property was settling on the same day as their purchased home and they had major issues getting out the tenants and it was a very stressful time as they faced homelessness.

So I decided to take on the responsibility of cutting the trees down. So I did what most agents would do, called in a mate, borrowed a chainsaw and called in another mate and paid him a carton to chop it down.

Problem sorted? Nope. Mate rings saying, can’t start the chainsaw and I’m about to run out of phone credit. I didn’t hear back so not sure why but I assumed it was done. Next day, 8 missed calls from the buyer. Belinda, it’s not done, what’s happening, needs to be done ASAP and my mate wasn’t available for another 4 days.

So, upon a lot of contemplation. I thought to myself, ok, I’m going to have to chop them down myself.
I thought about a tree looper and I’m not trying to be rude but I have an ex that’s a tree looper and let’s just say he’s not that intelligent so I’m thinking, if he can chop down trees, so can I.

So I chuck on my sneakers and tree lopping gear. Haha. Off I go to the property. I get there and the male buyers looking at me funny, he goes, you doing that?? I’m like, Yes it’s no drama. How hard can it be? I’m thinking to myself – I’ve got big muscles and a can do attitude. This is going to be easy.

So I sit on the concrete with this chainsaw, there’s about 6 methods to starting this thing and I start to wonder if I can really do this. I try and remember how my mate who lent it to me showed me how to start it up and I can’t remember so I find the instruction Manuel in the box. I skim over it a few times as I can’t be bothered investing the time into reading it but soon think to myself that I need to invest the time as it could be a finger or a limb at stake.

So I read method 1-7 on how to start a chain saw then there are all these random after methods plus a lot of instruction on “kickback” “tree felling” “chain tension” etc etc I’m slowly starting to think that I’m out of depth, I continue on. In my head I’m saying ” I am woman, hear me roar” Just because I watched my dad roll the bin out every Thursday, just because he did all the “man” jobs does not mean that because I’m a woman…I can’t operate a chain saw.

30 minutes later and after reading the instructions carefully, I start the chainsaw, I figure out how to take the chain break off and I’m good to go.
Then I walk over to a tree and I stand there with a real live chainsaw and I’m thinking, ok do I so a horizontal cut? Left axis cut, right axis cut and holy shit what if this thing kicks back and I cut my hand off?

I put the thoughts to the side and begin sawing this little piece of branch as a test. “Rrrrrrrr” the chainsaw is so powerful it cuts through a thick branch. Immediately I had all this adrenaline run through me and I was overcome with this amazingly independent feeling. I don’t need man to help me do this, I don’t need anything but belief in my ability to do this.

I went out the front to the important tree and start to cut. Thunk… The chain comes away. So now I’m screwed. I have no idea how to fix the chain. So instead of wasting anymore time, I called a handyman.

Ok so what’s the moral of the story?
I am female and I have been brought up with “male” and “female” roles but as we move further and further into the future with woman earning more our lives and roles get more confusing.

I always have the attitude to try anything once and to never give up. Just starting that chainsaw was a massive victory for me because alot of woman wouldn’t even think to do that. They would try and find a man to help because they probably believe that it’s not something that’s with in their capabilities but it is and I proved that. Ok so I didn’t finish the job and with time on my hands I would have figured out the chain issue and pushed on.

I’ve decided to use my chainsaw experience and take into my real estate life and attitude. I’m never going to let minor set backs throw me off my game. I will not stop until I’ve made a million dollars in one year. That’s my goal and I’m going for it.

Thanks for reading my blog this week if you got this far and please ladies and gents if you think you can’t do something, please just believe in yourself and give it a go. At least you tried!