The world as we all knew it changed. The uncertainty, fear and homeschooling was not a fun time. I remember thinking that we were doomed and my Thermomix business was going to fall apart. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Who knew home cooking and the ability to share the Thermomix virtually was going to be so awesome. And 2020 ended up being the most successful year for my Thermomix team to date. We even managed to be the number 1 team in Australia and New Zealand in September. And finished in 6th position for the whole year. Not bad for a bunch of chicks (and one guy) from the most regional parts of NSW. I am so grateful for this on so many levels. But the main one is because of what happened in my personal life.

On April 19, my beautiful Mum fell ill. And so began the most horrendous 7 months of our lives. I am not telling this story to go into a lot of detail about that, but in short, she spent the next 7 months in hospital with us having to advocate for her every single day. My sister, Dad and I took it in turns and did the 4 hour round trip to be with her and fight for her every single day. We got her home for about 3 weeks but she still wasn’t right and then we began to get really desperate because she was dying right before our eyes and no doctor could tell us why, nor help us. We had the help of our beautiful local GP who helped us to fight for her and we finally found a specialist who listened to us and did a CT scan. On November 6 we got the phone call saying “I’m so sorry, it’s cancer, she may only have hours to live”. We then brought her home and looked after her. She sadly passed away while we held her and surrounded her with love, on November 26.

The reason I tell this story is that without the incredible success of my team in 2020, and the amazing support of my team and colleagues, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my business going and be where I needed to be. I will never be able to adequately articulate how grateful I am that I got to have so much time with my Mum in 2020.

So now here we are in a New Year, when we are all supposed to be filled with new possibilities and goals, but to be honest, it’s been f@#$*&^ hard to get in that headspace when all I want is my Mum. If she were here, she’d tell me to get my shit together and keep doing what I love. I know she was proud of what my team and I were achieving with Thermomix. I heard her telling one cranky nurse that was nay-saying everything about Thermomix that she was wrong and her daughter is “the Thermo Queen” and she was “the number 1 Team Leader in Australia”. Once that cranky nurse left she said we should’ve shown her my beautiful website.

Starting this website was my “iso”project. I used to take my laptop with me to the hospital so I could show Mum what I had been working on. She was so impressed. She really was my biggest cheerleader. So, I decided I needed to get back into that project, give this blog some love, and keep sharing the Thermomix with as many people as I can. I promised her I would try my best to put myself back together and be the best version of myself again and keep making her proud.

Yesterday (January 15) was her first heavenly birthday. She would’ve been 77. For her 70th birthday party, my sister made a citrus mud cake. So when we were deciding how to best celebrate her birthday we remembered how much she (and we) loved that cake. We didn’t have Thermomix’s in our lives 7 years ago so I converted the recipe. I’ve had a few people ask me for the recipe so I thought this was a good place for me to start when it comes to giving my blog some love and a share a little tribute to my Mum.