My FIL came safely through his surgery (so far, touch wood), so now it's time for me to get back on track and get back to bullying you lot into taking charge of your lives, instead of having a grizzle about mine.

You're all intelligent, sensible, strongminded, wonderful women, so there's no excuse for not being the guiding force in creating the life you really want. If there's something wrong in your life, CHANGE IT! For the most part you can do that, so why not. If life has been taking you in a direction you haven't been comfortable with recently, what can you do to get it back to where you want it to be?? Attitude adjustment first, then our favourite babysteps. Once you've made the choice, the decision that something needs to be changed you can do it - I know that's the same for all of you, because there's not one weak woman amongst you, and that includes me. We are the best of our generation, capable of anything we set our minds to. So what can YOU do today to make your life just a bit more into what you want it to be?? What can you do this week?? This year?? What isn't working and what would be your ideals?? Aim for them girls, because once we're in the mood, we're unstoppable!!

If you don't know what your ideal life would be like, and that's a stumbling block for money of us, fix the smaller things first. If your family is falling short of your ideals of family life together, is there one small thing you can try to bring you closer?? If you're sick and tired of shouting yourself hoarse over the same kid/DH mistakes over and over (let's say dirty laundry as an example), is there something you can do to minmise your own trauma instead of trying to swim upstream - work with their habits, not against them somehow. If particular rooms are always messy in the same way, find storage that actually works, instead of trying to fit the square mess into the round storage hole. If you want to start your own crafting business, look into it, see what it would involve, before deciding that you couldn't possibly do it.

You are the greatest concentration of absolutely fabulous women on the planet - so stop complaining about little things and fix them. TAKE CHARGE!!!

Kerri.