Mr. Prickles from the Bank is slightly perturbed that we need more time to vacate.  Well how much time do you need?  He barked at me.  ”I don’t know.” I meekly respond.  At least a few more months.  I have to talk to my lawyer he says.  The seas of uncertainty are drowning me right now.  We have been looking for weeks now.  Something looks promising, I mentally move in and hang up my fun stuff to see how it works, get all attached then WHAM!  The Big NO occurs.  The most recent one happened in Sleepyholllow.  We found 2 great 2 familys, and called our realtor.  We are ready to check these out.  Hold on she says.  She shoots me back environmental reports.  It seems our perfect 2 family victorian is smack in the middle of environmental toxins from the Duracell battery plant.  I don’t think you want to live there.  She says. That’s why the price is so good.  Nobody wants it.  I am depleted and defeated.  Sofia has not been feeling well, and not sleeping well,  fussy as all get out.  Why is Sofia crying? Apollo asked concerned.  I don’t know I respond with utter exhaustion.  I don’t know.  Just then my mind flashes back to when I was in the first grade and I discovered that Kelly Heitmeyer was considered the prettiest girl in our class.  I’m five years old and beginning to discover and try to figure out my place as a woman in the world already.  So I go home to mom for some verification.  Mom? I Inquire. Am I pretty?  She looks at me with that same utter desperation of raising four kids and takes a deep breath and says:  ”I don’t know.”  I was defeated and depleated.  My own mother couldn’t tell me I was pretty.  Needless to say this put a huge dent in my self esteem bumper.   But now I finally understood my mother.  She wasn’t rejecting me in that moment.  She was utterly exhausted, spent and probably didn’t even hear my question.  Sitting in the seat of the unknown can be a very precarious precipice.  The thick fog swirls about your mind as you blindly have to keep stepping forward with utmost trust in your journey.  Then one day it lifts.  Like the parting of the red seas, all of a sudden you pick up the trail again everything makes sense and you are on your way!

“Abierta la puerta! Abierta la puerta!  (open the door! open the door!)  It was early 2006 and it was my first trip to Colombia.  I was downstairs desperately studying spanish out of my Spanish for Dummies book.  It wasn’t helping.  In this moment I was the dummy who couldn’t understand a lick of this language.  Beatrice was screaming from upstairs, as I sat dumbly trying to shove spanish into my cement head.  She emerged full on naked from the shower, dripping everywhere screaming “Abierta la puerta!”…”um” ….I looked at her shocked,  I had never seen anyone so soaped up before.  Beatrice was a lanky skinny thing in her late 40′s.  She’s one of those people who can walk around naked because fat doesn’t exist anywhere on her body.  She was, if I could describe it, dressed in soap.  Her eyes poked out from the foam and even her lips were covered in fluffy white.  Um,   I said again…”no comprende???”  Frustrated she had to go downstairs in all her naked soap glory and open the door for my mother-in-law and husband.  If you asked me if I heard the knocking at the door,  my answer would be No.  This was my first day in the strange land of Colombia. Beatrice was staying with my mother-in-law while she was trying to sell her home in the mountains.  We later went to check out her home for sale.  My heart sank for her as we walked about her unsellable house.  Evidence of termite damage was everywhere and rampant.  The home was old and miserable, lost in time and abandoned.  Housing stock in Colombia, especially in the countryside is very different than here in the states, but the feeling of a miserable house is the same.  I’ve walked into a few of those lately in our search.  I guess if you ask me what we are looking for, I would have to say, “We are looking for a housing miracle.”  Something extraordinary that doesn’t come along everyday.  Something so incredible it makes you say WOW.  (and of course all within our price range.)  Okay, here is my current riddle:  How do I practice the limitless abundance of the universe when I have to stick within the confines of a mortgage pre-approval?  I feel like I am standing at the door of life screaming “Abierta la puerta!”  and there is a part of me that can’t hear me.

Our grass outside is growing like crazy.  Especially since we are finally getting rain.  The bank shut off our lawn service.  Perhaps that is their way of thinking: “This’ll get those darn tenants outta the house, we  will make them mow their own lawn!”  LOL.  So now it becomes a game of mower chicken to see which tenant musters up the gumption to go out to the shed and pull out the rusted push-mower and get ‘er done.  Meanwhile Demo teams come out and walk around our property with giant measuring tapes.  Oh it’s enough to make a girl dizzy.  I think of all the beautiful trees and hydraneas that will get smashed when they bring down the houses.  And meanwhile we feverishly hunt for what is next.  As I comb through all the real estate listings my vision and mind go blurry with the many possibilities.  My world on the outside still looks the same.  Get down on my knees and scrub up after my daughters yogurt explosion.  Pick up Apollo from school.  Build a business in the cracks of life.  But on the inside I am delicate now.  Tender to the touch.  I get down on my knees and pray that we find what we are looking for before we run out of time.  My stomache twists into knots and my heart pounds louder these days.  I am finding it difficult to hear what others are saying, as the sound of my heart is the loudest thing in the room.  The only thing louder is Apollo.  It’s interesting when the giant hand of God comes in and plucks you out of something.  Like when I was fired from Mcdonald’s when I was 16.  I might never have left.  I might still be there today, perhaps as an assistant manager wearing a greasy polyester jumpsuit and hair protection visor, organizing the fresh high school recruits.  Or when my marriage died on me 10 years ago, ( I would not have walked away)  but my marriage took off, one day it said “see ya later, this is no more”.  The burning and the searing of the end gave birth to a new life.  Tender new shoots of love, a new marriage and 2 amazing little souls that entered the earth.  As heavy as gravity feels right now,  I muster up the courage to look up, find my shoes and keep walking.  What is possible in my life right now?  More than I can imagine.  Okay game show of life, I choose what is behind door number 3 for 500.  Giant possibilites beyond the most incredble creations of my imagination.  Grab the mower, Let’s get ‘er done!

My world is beginning to spin faster, as I hunt for a new home, mop the floor of my current home, and work on my business from home, all with a smear of hummus on my pants from Sofia’s sticky hand.  As fast as I can pick up toys and mop ,my children find ways to pull the world apart again.  Tell tale signs of exploration, like 3 tampons sitting neatly in the middle of the hall like a cat.  I don’t know what other mom’s who are home with their children do, but I study marketing, furiously.  Tucked into these moments of finding my personal effects in odd places, and pretending to keep it all together,  I build my business. The learning curve for building a business from home, is a long one for me.  But I’ve held on through many strong winds.  I’m starting to see this accumulation of sorts.  A new way of thinking that has evolved over time, which allows you to see the world from a different perspective.    Eckert Tolle, in A New Earth says that awakenings are irreversible.  I can see that.  I had my first big financial awakening from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, many years ago which set me on this path for personal financial freedom.  And once you are awake to an idea like this it holds onto you, and tightly.  I suppose that is why there are 28 million fellow MLMers out there all working toward a common goal, one invitation at a time.  As I begin to see evidence of my own financial revolution take shape, I have a clearer picture of where all this is going.  My husband still thinks I’m nuts, and friends still roll their eyes at the mere mention of my journey.  I am okay with that.  Seth Godin says it all too well: “No one is listening, until everyone is listening.” So in the meantime, I continue to build in silence, in my home surrounded by the robust play of children, and the crusty smear of hummus on my pants,  I’ll eventually take care of that.

Massive change is on my highway of life.  Do you remember the Banker that my son was hitting in the leg with the bug catcher? ( While we discussed the fate of our river home?)
Well, said Banker promptly filed letters for us to vacate our home.  He stated something about the numbers not making sense and cited a few safety issues, but COME ON… we all know it was the bug catcher jabbing into his leg over and over.  Ahhhhh, how we loved this place, and I suppose it takes the sledgehammer of a foreclosure to incite us to move forward.  As my sadness crept in and I thought about how much I love this home,  I knew in my heart it was time to go.  Four years on the river, what a blessing.  But on the brighter side I get to say good-bye to the mice that love to eat our cookies while we sleep.  Or the grain moths who discovered how much they enjoy my cashmere sweaters.  And even the dorky drop ceilings, which you barely noticed because you were too busy gawking at the million dollar view.  And I get to say Hello to new possibilities.  Like…space… good closets…a healthier home for my family, something beyond my imagination of amazing.  I also get to embrace this change like a bat outta hell..Using the fury of energy to move my life and my business into massive and swift action.  This is a blessing in my life.  Sometimes blessings make us cry.  And sometimes they inspire us to to light our life on fire!

I awake to glorious intentions, and plans for the day.  The unpredictability of childhood teaches me flexibility and patience on a daily basis.  I think Sofia is getting another set of those all important, yet painful molars, as she has walked about gloomy for days, and this morning wanted only to clutch onto me for dear life.  I am very skilled at this point with making breakfast, cleaning up and getting dressed all one-handed.  My husband darts out the door to catch the train, while Mr. Apollo is screaming for gum, and I am desperately changing a very dirty diaper while Sofia furiously screams and bites.  It’s these moments where I dump her into the tub and just hose down the poo, otherwise the shit flies everywhere.  Sofia doesn’t care that she is naked and covered in poo, all she wants to do is nurse and nap.  ”Must get octopus dressed” I chant to myself as the legs fly in and out of the same pair of pants at least 40 times.  It’s days like these where you pick out the outfit, not according to what is the cutest, but what is the fastest.  My morning moves forward.  The neighbor boy Wyatt comes over to play.  I find a quiet reprieve to take a moment to do some all important sit-ups.  After about 25 or so I realize  I am being hailed by a pretend spray of spit bullets from little finger guns.  It’s the daily pirate and outlaw play.   Right now it’s truly about putting out the fires.  This afternoon as I spoke with a real-estate banker about the fate of our current home,  Apollo laid on the floor and decided to hit the upright banker in his leg over and over with his bug machine, all the while watching the adult conversation float above him. I’m sure it was a good 5 minutes of leg banging before I realized in horror what  my little cherub was up to.  Oh boy,  he’s at it again.  I apologize profusely as I pull the flailing arms and legs off the floor in my attempt to remedy the situation.  I am learning to surrender into this mom working from home bit, and to enjoy it more.  Finding the joy and the peace in the wake of mayhem.  Disaster still strikes, but there is a little more buddha in my road.  I can hear Sofia singing in the bathtub.  She is only 17 months, and barely has a word yet, but she sings.  She plays with her water dolls and I quietly watch this moment.  This is why I work from home.  And I am filled with the deepest gratitude that in this moment this is where I am, witnessing beauty.

We don’t call each other anymore.  Nobody is picking up the phone and saying hello.  We are all texting instead.  Even when texting doesn’t make sense, our little thumbs are busy busy busy, furiously typing out what might be easier to just call with.  And the worst part of it, we don’t sign our names,  we assume that whoever is getting that text knows who we are and what we are talking about.  Take this obscure text I received a few days ago:  ”I am Grandma twice over, Matt and Laura, Aug 7, Matt and Teresa Sept 1o.”  Now  I stood there staring at my phone and thinking …Who is Matt and why did he get 2 gals pregnant?  And who is going to be a grandmother?  And why are they telling me this?   Is this how we reach out and touch someone these days?  Well I suppose if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  I stopped calling people too.  I think I was the very last person in the Northern Hemisphere to give it up, but it’s finally a done deal.  The problem is…my business is all about the phone.  Hence the title: Phone on Fire. Well network marketing has a little practice called “The 2 foot rule.”   The idea being that as you go out into the world you connect with people with whom you come into 2 feet of.  Like standing in line at the grocery etc.  Now this rule could be easily bastardized.  You could be a fresh greasy-nosed new networker hell-bent on getting every single person you come into contact with to sign up.  Or you could just stay open and organic to who might you meet, and be open to the possibility of where that conversation might take you.    There is something very powerful about this little practice.  I started doing this little practice about 6 months ago.  Did it improve my business?  YES.  Did I sign up every person at the grocery?  NO.  This is what happened: I began to walk out into the world open to the possibility of meeting someone new in my life.  Invariably I found I enjoyed life more.  I made more eye contact.  I was more sincere when thanking a cashier.   All I truly did was reach out with the intention of making a sincere human connection, then let that connection take me where it might.  It brought new and wonderful people into my life that I am now friends with, that otherwise I might never have met.  I even found on days I didn’t feel like playing this 2 foot rule or game of connection, people began reaching out to me.  My world just gets larger and more interesting for the practice of it.  I suppose at the end of the day it’s about being open,  being willing to say Yes to what life has to offer and to see where that takes you.

I don’t have a TV.  I lost it in a divorce over 10 years ago, and I never looked back.  But I do love TED.  www.ted.com/    Ted is my TV.  When I need to reach out and find out about my world I ask TED.  Today I stumbled upon a wonderful little lecture by Sir Ken Robinson about creativity and learning.  He tells this delightful little story about children performing the story of Christmas.  When the three little kings came to bring their gifts to the baby Jesus, each little actor steadied themselves and delivered their most important lines.  The first King said: “I bring you Gold”  the second little King wiped his nose and said: “I bring you Myrrh.”  The third eager little King blurted out: “Frank sent this”

The moral to this punch line:  If you’re not prepared to be wrong- You’ll never come up with anything original.  We are taught that being wrong is not okay.  We get big red marks in school when we are wrong.  When we grow up we defend our position of being right, even when we are wrong.  When something doesn’t work out, we’ve failed.  Our loved ones around us are quick to help us see that what we are doing is failing.  After all failing is a bad thing.  Or is it?   What if we were open to failing and being wrong?  Would we take more risks?  Would we look upon what is not working with a curiosity instead of a judgement?  If we were okay with failing forward, would we become more creative in our solutions?

Sir Ken asks one more question that got my goat.  Why don’t we teach dance in school?  Why don’t we?  Tony Robbins blares hot dance music every 20 minutes or so, has everybody get up and shake their booty for a few before you sit back down with your heart pounding to learn something new.  It’s an awesome way to learn.  What if we could dance at gym class instead of playing volleyball?  Crank up the “ol Billy Idol and scream:  ”In the midnight hour she cried more! more! more!, with a rebel yell she cried more! more! more!.  more! more! more!

We just changed our water filter.  This was one year of junk, as you can see from the picture.  Yikes!  We have one of these super-charged certified water filters.  We love it.  We used to be Britta people.  But who wants their water to sit around in plastic pitchers?  I don’t think the Britta worked very well, you have to be very diligent about changing that filter alot, you get all the fine particles of carbon in your water, and it only can do so much.  The first thing we noticed when we changed it was the clean taste.  We bought our multi-pure from our neighbor, ( it’s another  mulit-level marketing product.)  Now some of you anti-multi level heads will start cringing right about now, at the mere mention of the word multi-level.  (Go ahead, let that point of view run wild in your system for a minute.)  As I stepped boldly into this entrepreneurial world over a year ago, I began to look with fresh eyes at all the amazing products, and services that aren’t on a store shelf, but are rather found through connection with other people.  I fell in love with this concept.  My money directly benefits a Mary Kay lady in Ohio when I am her customer.  I get to connect and support faces, and people I know verses my money going to the mega-conglomerates at proctor and gamble.  There is a strange satisfaction I get knowing that when I support other multi-level entrepreneurs, I am also taking back from these massive almighty powerful corporations, and giving it to a mom and pop shop.   An individual can have an impact, have a voice out in the world, and be a change for the planet.  I know sometimes it’s difficult to hold this vision.  I watch the battle over Fracking in New York State, and sign the petitions,  and pray at the end of the day that our politicians will do the right thing and not allow this environmental devasation.  But the sad thing is, this kind of thing happens over and over, and the powers that be deny creating any harm.  As in, “That’s not our chemicals in the water.  We didn’t dump that shit there.”  Maybe it’s just too damn easy to take the money and run.  Problem is we are destroying things so quick these days we are running out of places to run to.

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I have been teaching my 3 year old how to chew gum.  Make sure you don’t swallow, I remind him at frequent intervals.   “Where is your gum?” I ask.  ”In my mouth.” He says.  ”Good!” I say.  ’Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?”  Not yet, he replies.  Apollo rocks my world.  He tasted his first gum on our road trip to Ohio.  We took off on our 12 hour drive with the kids in that wasteland of time between New Years and Christmas.  I miss the comforts of good coffee as soon as we leave the New York border.  Finding edible food on the road is a caveman challenge.  Everything is lousy corporate franchises with flavors made in test tubes, or filthy pubs that stink of industrial cleaners and stale beer.  Oh my, what has happened to our food?  Tomatoes no longer taste like the good earth, the Costco chickens have no taste and are suspicious labeled with “no hormones added.”  (I don’t believe them.)  There is a funny thing going on with the milk as well.  Milk labeled “No Hormones added,”  also states that “milk from cows treated with rBGH shows no significant difference between cows treated, and cows not treated with rBGH.”  (That is a lie too.) It’s this strange little dance they are doing with words with the intention of training the public to think this is all okay.  It’s not okay.  California has their own way of doing things, which I must say I admire.  I flew out to San Diego to visit the home office of Life Force International.  This is where they make that liquid gold I sometimes speak of: Body Balance.  I walked through pristine offices, past the viewing windows where Body Balance comes off the conveyor belt.  Impeccable, GMP high standards, attention to detail, and room for growth.  I felt so proud of my company.  Then I went back to my cheap room at the Holiday Inn.  Yes, I got the room rate at a bargain, but sometimes you have to look a bargain in the eyes and ask “Is this worth it?”  My answer: No.  Holiday Inn offers what they call a “Hot breakfast buffet” with your room.  What does this mean exactly?  Well let me tell you.  I knew I was in trouble when I came down for my “hot breakfast” and the first thing I hear a fellow traveler say is, “This tastes like rubber.”  Oh boy.  I look at the measly choices.  I plop a rubber cheese omlete onto my styrofoam land fill plate, with a piece of fruit and muffin, some thin coffee and I’m ready to go.  Velvetta cheese oozes out of the omlete sticking to the styrofoam. Nice.  You could tell the eggs were from some pre-boxed egg kit.  Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.  Muffin. okay.  fruit.  okay.  Like a good citizen I bring my faux dishes to the garbage to decompose for the next 100 years.  That’s when I saw it, the sign from California.  Hanging on the wall in plain view: ”WARNING: Chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in foods served at this establishment.  If you have any questions please see the manager on duty.”  I felt a little nauseous.  Was it the egg, or the sign?  I wasn’t sure.  Thea, my business partner and I decided to change hotels.  The Hyatt proved to be better.  No ominous sign on the wall.  Our food system is clearly in crisis and keeps getting worse.  I understand that we  have billions of people on the planet that we need to figure out how to feed.  But somehow we are failing at this.  I don’t know what the answer is.  I do know that we still have choices, that we can refuse to eat things that just aren’t real.  We can supplement our diets with minerals, because the soils no longer carry them. We can put our money where our mouth is and invest in small organic farms, and sustainable farming practices.  We need to rethink our relationship about food, and how we feed ourselves.  It’s so easy not to think about it.  We are creatures of habit, and I realized as I came home and looked in the fridge at the philadelphia cream cheese, and other noxious GMO’d foods that I needed a personal California sign in my  kitchen to.  So as Apollo happily chewed his gum, I made signs, Big GMO labels, and put them on everything suspicious.  Signs point the way to change, and remind me that I alone have the power to change my world, one day at a time.

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