Category Archives: kids

Not everything is about money.  Being wealthy doesn’t always mean stock piles of cash.  Living abundantly doesn’t always mean you never have worries.  And being rich doesn’t always mean it’s at the expense of others or that you don’t care or donate or serve. There are many ways to measure happiness and wealth and I have always been a proponent for getting outside of the media box and ancient/out-dated religious outlooks on these things.  Money is not evil.  People who have money are not necessarily evil or happy for that matter.  People without money are not necessarily unsuccessful or for that matter poor.  “Money” is nothing more than a tool.  Many people really don’t realize where their beliefs come from and I often challenge them.  Believe what you want, but life is always better when you choose your beliefs, eyes wide open, deeply with thought and without emotional fervor, instead of falling into them.

However, there are times when money is the only barrier between you and a calling, between what’s right and what’s wrong.

As a mother I am at one of those impasses.  There are a few things right now that only a monetary income can help me with.  I’ve fought a great fight, I’ve been a good person and parent and I’m very successful in many, many ways.  That said, finances remain a concern and it’s time for me to grab the bull by the horns and get more serious about marketing myself online.  And if I’m really in business, to get out there and ask for that sale.

What’s changed?  Why am I suddenly ready to wrestle with this less gently?  My children need me.  Even if I can’t succeed for myself alone, I have to for them.

It’s my son.  And my daughter too.  It’s a lot of things.  But right now, something big is in my focus.  Though we’ve managed to get far with our son’s vision therapy, managed to actually improve his eyesight, we still need more funds to finish his treatment.  Funds we don’t have and that insurance apparently no longer covers.   Managing insurance petitions, etc. has been a full time job alone.  And I just cannot express how entirely stressful and discouraging at times.  Insurance we pay for, but that will not help my son with funds that will give him back the vision he needs to succeed in life.

So it falls to a mother to find a way.  When the future can be changed, when your child doesn’t have to live the life of someone legally blind enough not to be able to drive, when you have found the right doctors and the right treatments, when 90% of his vision issues are correctable and he doesn’t have to struggle through the rest of his school years for comprehension just because his brain and eyes are different – how can a mother not do everything in her power to find the money to make it happen?  The difference between right and wrong.  If you know someone needs help who cannot help themselves and you turn away when you could make that difference, how could you live with yourself?  And how much more so for a mother?  Blame it on the government; blame it on God?  Whine for fairness but never act?  These are not things I understand. I don’t have the time or the luxury.

I imagine in 20 years this kind of vision recovery treatment will be easily insured, just as it took time for chiropractic care to receive any respect or medical coverage.  It’s just too new to be there now.  His type of vision deficiencies too rare.  But the treatment is effective and life altering. The great news is that we have proof – our son’s vision has already drastically improved!  But we’re not done and the funds we managed to gather thus far have run out.  The tool that I need is currently missing.  His present growth could cause him to back-track if we don’t stick with and finish the therapy.

Medical bills, deployments….  There have been no extra funds in a long time.  (Were there ever?)  Smart, frugal decisions have kept us going along with a lot of hard work.  But sadly, hard work and a good heart doesn’t seem to be quite enough right now.

So it’s time to turn up the business a notch.  I’ve had to pass on local shows I would normally work and rely on for income, because most of my “studio” and supplies are necessarily packed away while our house is on the market.  Business goals for the year are having to be postponed to make room for other foci.  I had thought we’d be set with the sale of our house and able to start the next segment of our son’s therapy by now.  Instead, we’re having to wait.  And school starts in less than two weeks.

Which means my answers have to be found in more attention to my online business presence, planning and marketing.  And perhaps even in asking for help.  I meet with my son’s doctor in a couple weeks to discuss a revamp of his treatment plan, retest for new glasses and payment terms.  Terms I have no concept of how I will be able to meet right now.  We are alone in this.  There is no family to help, no funds from elsewhere, no doting grandparents with ample wallets, just whatever self-made outcomes John and I can produce.  We are two hard-working first-born, forging our way on our own.  He’s keeping us afloat on the bills we’re paying off.  I have to figure out the medical funds.  And I have to figure it out now.

Up until now, I’ve been a successful business owner largely via face-to-face sales and public speaking.  Not enough to be comfortable, but enough to help make ends meet, time and again.  Online, well that’s a different energy somehow.  I’m socially successful online, but have as of yet to make a financial dent equal to my physical face-to-face accomplishments.

So I guess it’s time to stop putting online business on the back burner to local shows.  It’s time to switch for a while from producing physical goods to creating an effective online network and plan.  It’s time to finally take full ownership of offering my services online and getting my voice heard.

All of it? In exchange for my children.  So I can have the schedule I need to see those doctors and seize those opportunities, and so I can have the income to pay for them.  I can’t be hesitant to market myself anymore.  And I can’t be worried about how others take that either.

I have a child’s vision to save, and I suppose as well… my own.