CurrentMom

Speaking in Tongues

Sharing Saturday

As I move to the end of my second week on a work trip in Israel, I am flummoxed by the fact that, despite the reality that I don't speak a word of Hebrew, I am losing my English facility as well. As I tripped through the souk today, buying fruits and vegetables and flowers for my hosts (as well as a killer cup of fresh pomegranate juice) I felt like I was speaking Hebrew with the vendors, and even understanding a little of what they were saying. In truth I wasn't, but it still felt good to be in the flow just a little.

But every time I tried to talk with my friend, I found myself lost.I couldn't think of the right turn of phrase, the right word, the right idiom.The cacophony of all the Hebrew hitting my head on one side, and the continuing English conversations with my friends and colleagues (often with heavy Hebrew and sometimes Arabic accents) on the other side, boil together to create a vacuum somewhere in my brain. I wonder if everyone who lives in two languages experiences this same phenomenon.

A Working Mom's Travel Blessing

Sharing Saturday

I am sitting in the lobby of a tacky hotel on the Dead Sea. Outside the dining hall, people dressed as Greek gods performed silent dances as we are herded into a smorgasbord of delights - meat, rice, potatoes, hummus, bread, salads of every color and texture, and of course, beautiful-looking but straw-tasting desserts.

 

Welcome to a tour of Israel. I am currently thousands of miles from home, missing the biggest winter storm to ever hit DC (well, not exactly missing, as I had my flight cancelled the day of the blizzard and it took me 27 hours to get to Tel Aviv), missing a full week of school cancellations and the beginning of winter break. Missing my 8-year-old’s tooth falling out, my daughter’s laughter, my oldest son’s wry humor. I am on a work trip.

Christmas Lunch at the Zoo!

Meal Monday

I don’t know about you, but this time of year is generally when I reflect on the year that’s been, and across all Christmas' past really; in terms of what’s happened or what should have happened but didn’t or even how where I was impacted on how I celebrated the festive season altogether.

Take last year for instance. My family and I had Christmas lunch at the Melbourne Zoo. Why, you may ask?

Sadly, a year or so previous my brother’s marriage had ended, so we decided it was time to start a new tradition. After researching and reviewing all sorts of offerings, we decided on Christmas lunch at the Zoo. Not only is it a delightful place to spend a day, and perfect for the little ones, it was also a great way to put all the spending money to good use i.e. a “donation” to the Zoo.

Victoria Falls, the Romantic Heart of Zimbabwe

Travel Tuesday 

What an amazing place Victoria Falls is... truly a wonder of the world.

Imagine this: a couple of Australians standing near the edge of the Falls, getting really wet from the spray, arms in air, screaming like banshees. Yes, that would have been us! We even managed to get other visitors to join in with us along the way. We certainly laughed a lot. It was a fun way to enjoy the Falls, I must say.

A similar photo now features in a poster in the window of our Travel Agent Reho Travel, the owners of which are our adventure buddies. It is rather handy travelling with your travel agent. It certainly helps when there’s an issue with ticketing or some such thing.

Traveling For Love, Mooramong – Private Hollywood…

Travel Tuesday

Would you travel from one side of the world to the other for love? Claire Adams did. Claire’s was a story of a Canadian screen star that chose love over fame and created her own version of Hollywood on a farm in the Western District of Victoria, Australia.

Silent screen actress Claire Adams, who appeared in 46 films between 1919 and 1927, moved to the Skipton property Mooramong a year after marrying local grazier Donald "Scobie" Mackinnon in London in 1936. Their extraordinary life together has finally be revealed with the launch of the National Trust of Australia documentary Mooramong - Private Hollywood, narrated by Rachel Ward. I was fortunate enough to be part of the Melbourne screening of this delightful story.

The documentary uses footage taken by Claire over many decades as she recorded life at Mooramong - glamorous pool parties, international guests, the couple's love of animals, and their farming and community life.

Whilst sitting through this 63-minute film (produced, directed and written by Australian independent filmmaker and journalist, Lina Caneva), I couldn’t help wondering whether I would do the same. If the man of my dreams worked really hard to sweep me off my feet, and he happened to live in the Northern Hemisphere, would I leave family, friends and the life I’ve known behind in pursuit of a dream? I’d like to think I’d say yes… but then I also have to work out how to make the arrangement workable.

Certainly with the frequency of today’s flights, coupled with the number of low cost carriers that are now available, any visiting routines can be handled a whole lot more easily than they would have been able to be in Claire’s day.

Really, each of us is not more than approx. 30 hours away from anyone else, which in the scheme of things is not that long at all. Add into the mix the use of Skype and Messenger and all other web based communication tools that are now available, and loved ones are not that far away at all. In fact, I suspect you may make more of an effort to contact loved ones overseas on a more regular basis, even more so that you do when they’re just down the road. Certainly that was the case between my brother and I!

Tools such as these really would make the decision easier.
No more snail mail, no more travelling by long boat (or only if you want to), no more waiting for days and days to get to where you want/have to get to. The older we get, the smaller the world seems to get; don’t you think? Certainly, there is fabulous upside to moving away on a rather long adventure. Imagine the experiences, and the memories, and the purchases, and the new people you will get to meet; probably a whole lot different to the place you are leaving. That in itself would be enough to spur me on I think...

What about the work factor? Would you give up your current career, your working life as you know it to travel across the seas? Does your current money making arrangement make it possible to pack up and move around the world anyway? Would your care factor about the work you do still be as high as it is now, especially for love? So many considerations...

Would I marry after only a few weeks like Claire and Scobie did? That’s a different question all together!

Happy Travels
the entrepreneurial mother™

Global Citizens and Helicopters...

Travel Tuesday                                       

Picking up on the great post on Family Friday (the 13^th) “Who Has the Energy to Be a Helicopter Parent?”; discussions like this always raise the same kind of questions for me… what is the parent trying to prevent/hide by acting this way? What are they so potentially scared of by being part of the global citizenship. Quite often, if the surface is scratched deep enough, it's got just as much to do with the protection of the parent as with the protection of the child.

 

Whilst I acknowledge the following would be the ultimate in living nightmares, but what if the now delightful 11-year-old Daughter turned into an axe murderer? Obviously many of the questions that could immediately come to mind could revolve around how did I, as the parent, contribute to such madness? How on earth did this happen? Why me? I know, lets just prevent it from being even slightly remotely possible and morph into a helicopter parent instead! That’ll stop it from happening for sure…

 

Learning to let go is difficult there is no doubt. Parenting to smother has to eventually do some kind of ongoing deep-seated damage surely. How many of our own parents, for example, do we see where they have been brought up in a particular way, only to have it manifest in the way they in turn parent. Not always to the betterment of the recipients either.

 

Can parenting of the helicopter variety really work? In my opinion, I think not. It can’t. It’s not sustainable; it’s not real world, and its certainly not doing your child any favours in terms of setting them up to realise their full potential. Instead, my personal preference is to use the energy in ways I have to influence Daughter, i.e. by role-modelling the behaviours that I deem suitable and necessary. Hence why I choose to travel as often as I can with Daughter. If my intention is to give her the opportunity to develop into a “global citizen”, then it is my role to introduce her to as much of the globe as possible. The why for me is that I believe that with a worldly perspective, we as a Daughter/Mother team are more likely to be successful in achieving this. (I’ll have to let you know the outcome in time though!)

 

Mind you, why? is not a good question to ask. People’s opinions are what they find acceptable to give as an answer in general and in the context of the questioner. As Mark Earls points out in his 2003 book, “Welcome to the Creative Age”, we are not rational but we are good at rationalisation. He convincingly states that attitudes not only tend to follow behaviour, but that attitudes and opinions are best understood as a function of behaviour rather than their cause. As he puts it, “you think your girlfriend is attractive; after all, she is your girlfriend”. Assuming he is mostly correct (he, and others, do have supporting evidence), behaviour, or another way to look at it – action, is so very very important. And I for one intend being as guilty as possible in displaying the behaviour I want Daughter to emulate, most of the time. To that end, travelling, as one of those actions, factors very high.

 

Earls goes on to say the following:

“…the reality of most peoples working life today and the not-so-secret ambitions we have are in stark contrast to each other. As we travel more (long-haul package travel is the fastest growing sector of the travel market) and experience more (in two generations, Indian good has gone from being an exotic and over-spiced minority taste to one of the most popular cuisine in the UK), we can’t but notice that the gap between the reality of working lives and our dreams and ambitions has widened to breaking point.” What an important lesson to learn. Part of my action, my role modelling is also representative of the way I set up my working life. I’m not the entrepreneurial mother for nothing! (And that’s a whole different discussion.)

 

Happy Travels
the entrepreneurial mother™

When the Weather Turns Hot...

Talent Tuesday

I know there will be a number of you that are starting to feel cold, or at least thinking about it coming soon. We on the other hand are starting to get hot; in fact very hot, with this week all temperatures to be above 30oC (approx 90oF). Now part of the reason we love living in Melbourne is because it is renowned for having “4 seasons in one day”, so the shock of back-to-back days of heat, coupled with it being only November is proving a little prickly to bear! But we live on!

Every time it’s hot like this, I reminisce about the time I had felt this hot, knowing that the place to cool off was only a sandy walk away… Lake Malawi. What a delightful spot it is. It was hot, very hot, and even the water a little tepid, but nonetheless a wonderful part of the world when you’ve got nothing else to think about but keeping cool and eating mangoes (when in season of course). Near where we camped was the biggest mango tree we had ever seen, and the fruit itself was just lolling on the ground, waiting to be scooped up and instantly consumed.  Exquisite.

The lake itself, what a setting it is. It’s definitely one of those postcard picture perfect beach settings. It’s so big you cannot see the other side. That’s us in the photo playing in the shallows; having a lot of fun. Quite exceptional really.

We had camped at the Lake for a dose of well deserved R&R. This had been the order for two days, especially as the batteries needed recharging. From memory, we were at about day 10 of 20-odd days erecting and dismantling the tent nightly. The thought of being able to not do it for one morning and night was almost blissful. Things you don’t think about when you say yes to a 4-week camping safari!

When we finally moved, it was off to the other side of the Lake, the Zambian side. Here the rain came down like nothing we’ve seen in these parts for a very long time, and it was so constant too’ if only it could have head Melbourne way. Parts of Africa may definitely lack, and may not have some things that we brag about but they have rain and green grass aplenty.

Given that we were on our way to Victoria Falls, we hoped that all this good rain would have the Falls flowing like never before! We actually had no idea if this rain headed that way but it’s worth wishing for...

We spent a few more days catching up on more resting and reading and eating and sleeping, oh and some mandatory playing... The Lake certainly reenergised us, more so than we may have first realised as it has turned out. This was further emphasised by the cricket game we managed to firstly explain to the locals, and then execute to everyone’s great delight just put the icing on the cake, so to speak. Wherever there is good fun to be had, and a little game or two to play, who worries about not being able to understand each other’s language! Many lessons were extrapolated from that one game of cricket alone, and that example has, interestingly enough, been used a number of times since...

Usually along the lines of; just because a person doesn’t look like you, or even speak your language, doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them, and vice versa; where there’s a bat and a ball, many variations of any game (and even life for that matter) can surface; when all parties are laughing out loud, there’s no room for the day-to-day stuff that can drag us all down; etc. traveling is of course a great educator.

Happy Travels
the entrepreneurial mother™

The Melbourne Cup – Not Just Fascinators and Horse Raci

Travel Tuesday

The Melbourne Cup, one of the premier international horse racing events of the world, has been run today. And luckily we, Daughter and I, were invited to attend. Apart from the actual horse races run over the 4 days of the Spring Carnival, the Melbourne Cup is almost as importantly about dressing up, making an effort, you watching people watching you, and learning many life lessons. With this taking place whilst many are beautifully decorated (well, most of the time, although some do look like they should be out doing Halloween), Filly's and Freshmen, in Fascinators and Fedoras, Frocks and Fandangles.

It's very handy when such a prestigious event happens in your hometown. Fortunately, where others travel the world to attend, locals like us just have to jump on the train, and before too long be at the track with 100,000 of our closest friends!

Touted as "the race that stops a nation," it's one of the greatest days on the sporting and social calendar – the one day when everyone, young and old, stops to partake in this unique cultural event. It is now so ingrained in the Australian culture, that Crikey! we even have the day off work for it! But while Australians all over the continent (and expatriates too, I suspect) take part in the celebrations, nothing compares to being there to witness another chapter in this enduring story.

The $5.65 million (AUD) Emirates Melbourne Cup is the richest handicap race in the world and the centerpiece of the Melbourne Cup Spring Carnival. The history of the Cup dates back to 1861, where it was founded offering modest prize-money and a hand beaten gold watch. The uniqueness of the race stipulated handicap conditions and a distance of two miles.

It is a race built on dreams, on hard luck and triumph. It is also a race survived by tragedy. But while the Cup continues to evolve it will remain the greatest 3,200 meter horse race anywhere in the world and, by the nature of the conditions, arguably the most challenging to win.

Discount Codes for CurrentMom 2010: Small Business Conference in Florida

Important note: the CurrentMom 2010 conference has been cancelled.

Startup Sunday

If you haven't yet registered for the CurrentMom 2010 conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., this coming February, here's your chance to win a free registration! We put together CurrentMom 2010 to give you practical tools to build your business, manage your life and restore your energy.

On top of inspiring speakers, small-group coaching and networking opportunities, each attendee will receive three free spa treatments at the new, on-site Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa, valued at $185. And those are just the highlights of the professional and personal benefits you'll enjoy at CurrentMom 2010, a small business conference not to be missed.

High Tea...Because There Are Some Things You Just Have To Do!

Travel Tuesday
 
There are some things in life you just have to do, and High Tea is one of them… well in our humble travelling opinion, that is. We try and partake in this time-honoured tradition in as many fabulous places as possible.

High Tea is described as (according to dictionary.com) "a late afternoon or early evening meal similar to a light supper." But i'’s so much more that that. It's pure indulgence, enabling the momentary departure from normal by being transported into a bygone era, that really plays the heartstrings. High Tea kind of works hand in hand with the old time dances that used to be standard operating procedure on a Saturday night. High Tea is something that has to be experienced to be believed. And it certainly doesn't do your taste buds any harm either!

When we walked into the foyer of the pink Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, we knew we were in the right place, as you can see from the photo. That's Daughter standing next to one of the selection of gourmet delights that stand High Tea out from the crowd. Yes, it is a high-class afternoon tea where you get to sit for a few hours, and try everything that's within your reach. It really is a marvellous experience, and the most decadent version of "having a cuppa."