How it all began.

It didn't happen overnight. I didn't just wake up one day and say, "Hey, I'm going to change everything." Oh I'd tried time and time again to do that. But this change has been gradual.

If I can even mark it's beginning. It was November 2006 when my sister visited and talked to me about building a business with Melaleuca. It was also right after I got my ipod and started listening to The Bends and Radiohead.

Starting to build a Melaleuca business gave me some hope to change our financial situation and by doing so somehow help my personal situation as well. I've always equated money with happiness. (If I were only rich, I could be thin you know!) Suffice to say that I was hitting bottom in most areas of my life.

I was seriously overweight, drinking daily, and leading a primarily sedentary lifestyle. Because of money issues, we didn't really do anything. Just stayed at home and watched TV and drank.

So those two things.. the prospect for change and earning an income outside of our current business and the connection I got from listening to Radiohead started it all.

Over the last year and a half, I've worked and stopped working my Melaleuca business of my own free will. I was doing pretty well when I stopped, but I was miserable. I hated doing what I was doing. The idea of having to convince people to do something that was good for them, well, that just didn't appeal to me.

Working in the network marketing field for that year and a half really brought me to some information that I'd been ignoring for a while. Like the reality of my true self, and true nature of the universe. Through our team and training I found many teachers to remind me what I had chosen to forget since we came to New York. Was I happier for the forgetting? No way!

See, I've been here before, the cusp of change and truth.
Sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn, right?

Gosh, without getting too wordy, you'll need some background. Well, October 4, 1990, my beautiful daughter was born. October 17, 1991, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. They gave me a 40% chance of surviving 5 years. Suffice to say they were wrong.

My cancer diagnosis, treatment and survival was a jolt to all of us to say the least. It caused me to ask why, as it does most cancer patients. I spent the years while I was going through treatment investigating many things including spirituality, nutrition, meditation, etc. I've always been drawn to the esoteric and shunned organized religion. So naturally I gravitated to alternative therapies and thinking. Not that I wasn't traditionally treated for my cancer, I was. I did everything they told me to do.

I thought hard and long on what I should be doing for my career. I felt strongly that my job and being away from our daughter was one of the stresses that may have activated my disease. So I got my real estate license.. because I thought I always wanted to do that. Turns out selling just isn't my thing. Oh, I was moderately successful, but it wasn't enough money for the time invested.

When our daughter was 3 years old, we went camping (something we often did) at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. We stayed at a themed campground and watched our daughter have tremendous fun with all the activities and interaction with the campground staff. We had long ago seen ourselves living an outdoor life, perhaps owning a campground would be the perfect business for us.

So save we did and with some miraculous help from the stock market, we were able to fulfill our dream and purchase a campground in the spring of 2000. Although we enjoy our work, we have struggled financially since getting here, and it is all that we do.

To make matters worse, the minute we walked in the door, I unwittingly decided that the business and it's survival were of primary importance and let all of my spiritual work fall by the wayside. The property we bought was akin to a large resort vs. a small family facility. We've been running since we walked through the door.

Fast forward to today, on the cusp of change. The past year and a half have been an exciting journey, though I didn't realize it during most of that time. Only now can I look back at the wonderful things that happened that brought me to where I am today.. one of the joyous places I've ever been.

This blog is going to be my diary. Hopefully it will help others make monumental changes in their lives as I have in mine.

Check out the links to some of the things that have helped me get to where I am now. A year and a half is a lot to catch up on in one day.

Decide in your mind that it has already changed.
And don't let appearances convince you otherwise.