Inspired

I've been lucky enough to "meet" so many fabulous people through blogging. They are funny, witty, clever and often inspirational, overcoming challenges life's thrown at them, and writing about it along the way.  One of my favourite new friends is Sharni.  I know I've mentioned her wonderful blog Sharnanigans many times.  She's an online soul sister - we share so many similarities, we both toss our pillow (to get to the cold side - d'ur), we both hate slugs, in fact (haven't told you this one Sharni), we both almost gave our sons the same name.  When about 5 weeks pregnant with our first baby, we decided to give him the middle name Montegue, but made the mistake of telling the In-laws who promptly starting calling me "Mum" and my non-existant bump "Monte".  That sadly put paid to that name, and we didn't mention the pregnancy to a soul for a long time after that.  Sharni has a gorgeous wee man called Monte.  Snap...again!

Sharni is on a journey.  Many of us are happily tagging along on her shirt tails.  We are watching a passion, become a focused, determined effort to make a difference.  Sharni is bulldozing her way to amazing results.  Her passion is The Afghan Womens Writers Project  , and Sharni has challenged herself to get off the couch and onto the roads.  She'll be running 5kms in a few weeks time, and is fundraising along the way.  Sharni hasn't run before, she lives in rural Australia and seriously has been setting her alarm to get up at 3am to avoid the heat and the flies.
We have supported her as she has gone from asking for support from us, her loyal readers, to well known and fantastic women writers such as Sarah Wilson, Jane Kennedy and Mia Freedman, and now she has even asked big corporates like Nike, Gatorade and Dove.  She's even making noises about Oprah.
Because this cause is all about empowering women and giving them the freedom to speak through their writing, in environments where they are not free to do this.  
And as fellow women writers, it's the least we can do.

Noone puts it better than Sharni.   Have a watch here.  Please.