Home

Home…what welcoming and wonderful feelings that word brings! A place where you are enough, you can be yourself, you can refresh, replenish, and stretch out. I hope you have home; as a physical place or whenever your family and/or friends are all together. Make this site a home to you in a changing world that requires navigating every day. This is my writing home and a place where you’ll see you can do things and just by trying can encourage others to do the same.

Home is where it all starts. I like one with a kitchen just big enough to have a friend or two settle in while we make my favorite dishes (a boat’s tight galley kitchen forces genius decisions and de-cluttering!) Home also needs both a “cave,” an area to snuggle up in with a good book (or Kindle or Nook!) and a “perch,” a safe place in which to survey the world.  Those two needs can be met by a having a big enough front porch!

When homes in the ’80′s through the McMansion crash of 2007 began being all about an imposing front door with no adequate rain protection for guests or packages and no place to sit or even stand and rest between the outside and inside, I knew we were in trouble!  We were shutting out the world, as if we could.

One main reason the world loved Oprah during that time was because she was your kind, comforting and wise Aunt who always had time to sit and sip and have real conversations about real things on her front porch.

Without a place to think and meet and greet, women and families lost their bridge between the world and home. After decades of charging daily out to work, maybe we instinctively tried to burrow away from the world’s frantic pace and retreated behind to private decks. A retreat after so determinedly wearing down the hard spines of  an old world order.

Women are high sensory creatures. Spiderman has his spider-sense, but women’s intuition is legendary. And when a woman assumes the responsibilities of raising a child, she moves to another level of ability which demands safety while that pudding is setting!

Once she perfects that many-armed, multi-minded tasking ability both physically and mentally, she’s laser-focused, better than all of Angie and Brad’s assistants, nannies, and bodyguards combined.  Mothers…well, in the immortal words of  That ’70′s Show character Fez, gazing admiringly at Donna (ok, maybe her chest): ”Wow…what can’t they do?”

And once that task of having a safe home is largely completed, she still has those super-human abilities. She many times is the one called on to build relationships, manage family get-togethers, negotiate “sharing”, assign chores, mete out consequences and decide honey-do lists.Can she apply these skills elsewhere? Yes. In the world. It’s time.

This website is all about YOU; us; whatever we can do or be: the female spirit in a boiling-over world. The truth is, we are Home: comfort, listening,negotiating, resting, growing, compromising. And now we need to take all those abilities out into leadership of the world. This call is NOT just for young and commitment-free girls, it is for ALL of us.Old or young, odds-taker or common sense-maker, married or divorced, in debt or feeling flush, with young kids or ones old enough to shave. And please, no waiting until the kids leave the nest!

We can’t wait to go after our dreams until we are experienced enough, old enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough or we finally weigh what your driver’s license says we do! You sure don’t see men waiting til they are experienced or slim enough to go after what THEY want! 

Lucky coincidence: Right now in 2012, the world is desperately seeking the safety and encouragement of “home.” Everyone wants the chance at their dreams in an environment of safety, health, justice and  fair rewards for hard work.

Can we share our resources to give us all a chance at dignity and chances for something better while providing a fair playing field and  not excessively handicapping those who do succeed?

Doesn’t that remind you of having to balance the resources of your household among competing siblings? We women are naturals at this game!  It is said there are 2 ways to lead: by fear or by love. Women know the leadership way that lasts.It is mostly men who have historically led our countries, fortunes and policies while the women and children dealt with the day-to-day world those decisions made.  Women instinctively know how to handle this kind of leadership and deserve a turn at the helm.

Governments, businesses, countries and families in 2012 need to examine new ways of leading, negotiating,working and creating niches: creating “home.” The world is at a loss for answers that women can provide!

It sure isn’t just me that believes this. Bill Gates, when asked if Saudi Arabia’s aim to be one of the Top 10 technology countries in the world by 2010 was realistic, replied that if they’re not fully utilizing half the talent they have (the women) in the country, they’re not going to get very close!  The Dali Lama, while discussing how to solve some the world’s many challenges at a 2009 conference in Vancouver, said it was the western woman (for starters) who would come to the rescue of the world.

So, that’s what this site is about: How you, us, women, can bring Home to the world and change big things.  The economy and American life may never get back to our perception of “normal.” Let’s admit that the changes that we recognized around 2007 may be here to stay; our new Normal.

Before you despair at the job in front of us, remember countless women in history looked ahead into the frontier future and had it alot worse than we did! They drove the oxen, fixed the cart, dumped their dishes along the side of the road, made dinner using cow patties as fuel, fought off an attack to the wagon train and then gave birth all in one day. They adapted to their new surroundings and learned how to survive in a new climate and thrive. We have to, too.

You are the magic, Mom, to your family, your kids and your community.You are the key to your family’s success and the world’s future too.

Pick where you can be the change and act. Get rid of a too big house, too far from your jobs and schools. Run for political office. Become a teacher, start that new company. If we all did what we had a passion and talent for, would it be the tipping point to change the world? If we aren’t so happy with the way things are, could a change be much worse? Let’s do the research and find out!

Stay tuned…to the “new” Normal.