Everyday Hero Cristen Cable fits a lot into a very busy schedule. Cristen owns a successful marketing company, Kis Marketing, has four children and is taking on the challenge of learning ballroom dancing for a very special cause. She is an everyday hero. Family is everything to Cristen, and it is family that has inspired a monumental step out of her comfort zone. “Having a grandmother who was a cancer survivor, as well as losing a grandmother and a cousin to this awful disease, this cause is extremely close to my heart. Ironically, the grandmother I lost to cancer was a professional dancer, so I will definitely be giving this competition my best efforts in her honour.” Cristen is excited to be participating in the 2017 Stars of Newcastle. Now in its third year, Stars of Newcastle is a dancing competition raising funds for Cancer Council NSW. Showcasing local celebrities and prominent business figures as amateurs on the dance floor, the stars are each paired with a professional dance partner and attend lessons to learn and perfect their routine in the genre assigned to them. Cristen remarked “I’m using muscles I never knew you needed to dance. Ballroom dancing is much harder than it looks!” […]

My missing Link. There’s a certain type of love that I think we all crave in this lifetime. A love that mends a broken heart, a love that fills a void. A love that comforts us, a love that feels like home. A love that makes us feel whole, like we’ve found our special place in the world. A love that let’s us breathe. Finally… In 2016, I found this type of love. I grew, nurtured, protected and fiercely loved this love for 8 months. It was the perfect manifestation of my entire life’s dreams. The dreams I had as a lost little girl, a desperate teenager, a reckless 20 something young woman. I longed for this love, and for this life, from the deepest depths of my soul for as long as I can remember. Finally, a baby. My son, Link. Like all expectant Mothers, I was eagerly anticipating the birth of my baby. Nervous, excited, emotional. All the feels. Among the nesting, nursery decorating, last minute shopping trips and ticking off the never ending to do list, I was also thinking about my families future. My future. I spent my days looking at tiny, bright, hypnotising squares, scrolling and scrolling into […]

Every Day is Washing Day It was one of those ‘I don’t feel like facing the world’ kind of days. I was in the bathroom applying my make-up. Masking my weariness so that the outside world would think I was actually OK. My eldest son came in. He was about 13 at the time. ‘Are you OK mum?’ ‘Yes honey. I just don’t feel like being a grown up today.’ ‘But Mum… that’s your job.’ He’s right. It is my job. I am a grown up. I am responsible. I am a solo mum of two amazingly beautiful teenage boys and I am extremely grateful for that. But there are days I want to stamp my feet and have a little tantrum. I don’t want to be responsible and grown up. And that’s OK. Some days I still need my mum. I miss my mum. I only realised when she was gone how much she did for me and my two boys. When I came home from work I would get cranky at her for hanging up my washing. She was having chemotherapy at the time and yet her obsessive compulsion for making sure the washing got dry in the winter months couldn’t […]