The 2 October 2009 was a beautiful spring day in Johannesburg. It was warm, the riot of spring flowers were on full display and the sky, through the vibrant green of the new leaves, was an endless cornflower blue. It was not the right kind of weather to die. I remember the details of that day so clearly because it was my mom’s last day on this earth. At 3:30 in the afternoon, in her own bed, she breathed her last ragged breath surrounded by her family. Ironically, she was diagnosed with breast cancer during breast cancer awareness month and died several years later in the same month.

Ten years on I still miss her terribly and think of her every day. I wish she had been here when my kids were born, but I will never forget what she taught me about mothering.  During her last few weeks she and I spent many hours filling out “The mother’s book” created by Elma van Vliet. It is  a journal filled with questions for daughters to ask their mothers: when did...

Being a mom to small humans is not for kids. In all honesty mothering two toddlers 18 months apart was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. They are now a little bigger and attend nursery school in the mornings and this has made life a lot easier, but before that they were home with me ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I was privileged to have the opportunity to stay home with them, something I know many moms long for, and are not able to do. I was grateful. But that did not mean that it was easy. To be honest on many days I fantasised about my past life as an efficient, organised therapist. 

There were days when I felt so overwhelmed I didn’t know if I wanted to cry, or scream or run out the door the moment my husband arrived home from long days at work. On those days I realised that I had to bring things back to absolute basics. What could I do to calm down? To not yell like a banshee? To stop the waves of overwhelm from crashing over my head? I realised that my...

Sweden 2016. The air was as crisp as the fiery autumn leaves which had begun to fall. The smell of smoke filled the late September days.  My family and I were in the midst of the adventure of a lifetime. (Also the name of the Coldplay album which became the soundtrack to our trip.) We had bought a motorhome and were traveling around Scandanavia. Everything was perfect. I had my family around me, everyone was healthy, and each day was filled with magical experiences. 

And yet I felt fractious, irritable, sad, restless. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with me, so I sat down with my journal. As I wrote down the date, it became clear to me what was going on. It was late in September. I realised that this was not the first time I had felt this way. For me, the run up to early October is full of memories. On the 2nd of October 2009 I lost my mom to cancer. Exactly five years and 3 days later, on the 5 October 2014, I gave birth to my first child. An event that was...

A few years ago Ikea had a campaign called “The wonderful everyday.” That phrase really struck me and lodged itself in my subconscious. 

I love to write about creating the life you want. I am interested in how we can continuously improve our habits to take our heads, hearts, homes and health towards where we want them to be. But I also don’t want to be so focussed on the life I’m trying to create that I forget to pay attention to the one I have right now. 

At the end  of this post I will give you some ideas about how to find the treasures hidden in your wonderful everyday. You can also download this FREE pdf with journal prompts to help you apply the suggestions.

A couple of years ago a video recording surfaced of my husband’s family from his childhood. In fact it was quite miraculous how we got hold of it. As part of his retirement package, my father-in-law’s colleague had received the company video recorder. The same one my...

There are two kinds of people in our house: morning people and not morning people. The division is split clearly down the middle. My husband and boy #2 (the two year old) wake up with the rising sun cheerful and ready for the day. Boy #1 (the four year old) and I emerge some time later, bedraggled and slowly warming up to the idea that the day has, in fact started, with or without us.

If  you have read any of my previous blogs, you will know that organisation and planning has not been something that has come naturally to me, though recently things are changing and I’m loving the new found sense that I can, in fact, win the war on chaos and disorder one habit at a time. Why is this so important to me?

Annie Dillard says “how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” If every day starts with me yelling at my little boys, or leaving my house cross and stressed, or having not spent any time connecting with my husband, then I am spending my life in a way that I...

If the phrase “sparks joy” doesn’t ring a bell for you, you may just have been living under a rock for the last month or so (or maybe you were on a January social media or Netflix fast! Good for you, I did one of those last year and certainly felt the benefits! But I digress… 

For me, Marie Kondo herself sparks joy. I love her enthusiasm and the idea that all around the world women just like me are being intentional about how they want their space to look and feel. We really do live in a global community. It just delights me that a beautiful pint-sized Japanese woman is teaching Australians and Americans, and South Africans like me how to fold our clothes. I’ve also been doing Allie Casazza’s annual 30 day “Declutter like a mother” Facebook challenge. She has provided practical strategies and encouragement to work for just 30 minutes a day to clear out space so we can live our lives not just tidy up after them. I’ve...

We are fast edging towards the end of January! How are your new year's resolutions going so far? 

Imagine with me for a moment that its New Year's Eve 2019 and you are reflecting back on this year. You realise that you have made serious headway on some big life goals. Things that you have wanted to achieve for a really long time.

The beginning of a new year always gives me a little thrill. I am one of those people who loves the idea of a fresh start. It's not that I want to start from scratch, but I love taking a moment to reflect on the blessings and challenges of the past year and looking ahead to new beginnings. I like to think about who I have become this year and who I want to become in the year to come.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about constantly overhauling my identity and becoming someone completely different, or radically changing my hair, I did enough of that as a teenager. What I’m talking about is slowly building on what I...

To the mom next to her child’s hospital bed, 

I see you sitting there, your eyes fixed on the tracing lines, your back aching from leaning over the cot,  your ears buzzing with the incessant beeps of the monitors. I know what its like to be unable to pick up your child because there are tubes and needles everywhere you look. I know what its like to be transfixed by oxygen saturation levels and heart rates and the tempo of his breathing. 

Maybe this is your first time in hospital. Maybe you have a newborn baby and nothing went to plan and you find yourself in the NICU; or maybe you are a veteran, a mom who has done this many times before. Maybe this will be a brief stay, or maybe you will be here for a long time. 

I have spent more days than I care to remember in hospital with my little boy. My first two Mother’s days and my first two Easters as a mom were spent beside his ICU bed. In fact, as I write this I’m sitting next to yet another...

What I learnt from fasting from Facebook for the month of January.

Towards the end of last year we had a bit of a challenging season in our household. It is not the first or even the worst (or the last I’m sure) but towards the end of December I was feeling pretty low. One or both of my little boys had been sick almost constantly since October. Combining a child with serious breathing problems and living in a rural area with poor access to hospitals is a recipe for chronic anxiety. Sleep became a rare and precious commodity. Combined with this we were waiting for news of a job my husband had applied for which would take us to the town where we are building our new house. At the time we lived two hours away and were really hoping we wouldn't have to rent out our new dream house before we ever had the chance to live there. With all of this going on I found myself constantly wanting to distract from my restless and anxious feelings. Two things that I routinely turn to when...

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing (Walt Disney) 

Starting something can feel a little terrifying. For a very long while I have had thoughts and ideas swirling around my brain which I have wanted to share in blog form but for various reasons it has never seemed like the right time. In the last few weeks, again and again, I seem to keep coming across blogs, articles and books which encourage a leap of faith. In taking my leap, I’d like to encourage you to take your own, whatever form that may take. 

I have been thinking about times when I have started something new. When I proudly sent in the first assignment of my masters degree, I was rather crushed when it was returned to me, with the polite request to redo the entire thing. Apparently I had missed some crucial models and frameworks which I had not even heard of. I was embarrassed and thought that my supervisor would think “who is this girl, she has no idea what she’s talking...