Tayla's Pencil Portrait

And here is a pencil portrait that I just finished now of my beautiful 8 month old daughter Tayla. Isn't she just delightful. She is the happiest little soul ever and such a sweetheart.

And here is the original photo that I took last week.

I was reading a book last night called The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women (really good book by the way - would definitely recommend it). In the chapter I am currently reading, it talks about prosperous thinking and scarcity thinking and what does it mean to feel prosperous. I thought about it and realised that I am so incredibly lucky and so very very prosperous in all aspects of my life. I have a wonderful husband who is also my bestest friend and we have the most beautiful children in the world. We live in a nice house, have enough to eat, drive nice reliable vehicles, have a great dog and cat. We are self-employed so responsible for creating our own work environments and we live in New Zealand which has to be the best place on earth to live.

So many people equate prosperity with money, whereas that is such a small part of life and is given so much more importance than other factors. How many people work in jobs they hate, purely for the money. How many people focus on what they don't have rather than what they do have. That is scarcity thinking, about how everything you don't have impacts greatly and diminishes your gratitude for what you do have.

When I think about what is happening in the world right now, the earthquake that has just occurred in China with thousands of lives lost and many more affected. The tragic situation in Myanmar/Burma and the people that are going hungry and are dying purely because a selfish regime that will not let go of their egotistical power in order to save their people. How grateful am I? Exceptionally.

One of the exercises in this book is to think of 5 things every day that you are grateful for. I think I can name hundreds, from my family to the beautiful cold crisp sunny winter's day outside to my cat purring in my arms through to the soft couch calling me to have a nap right at this very minute while my wee girl is sleeping.......