Eventful Day

I did not venture from under my warm snug blankets until 9am today!  I was awake at 6.30am but stayed cosy and toasty for more than two delicious hours.

After a bit of brekky, we made ourselves presentable and drove right across town to a morning tea with BGWLBH's work friends.

There were six of us.  BGWLBH and I drank green tea and we all chatted and laughed and had a bit of bitch session about their difficult teenage children, whinged about some work issues, giggled about our ages, our terrible memories and our reliance on technology to get through the day.

It was really lovely to catch up with the girls.  I only get to do it once a year if I'm lucky.

From there we drove back across town to 'The Sporties' where we met up with Super Sue, who I was acquainted with about 20 years ago, and we have recently found each other again through facebook. A real friendship has developed between us 'on-line'.

She has done it tough over the last few years and my little 104 challenge has brought her out of a dark place.  She tells me she has found some direction in her life and has renewed a love affair with her camera, as well as having met some new friends in the group.

It's a good feeling knowing that something I started has been so inspiring for one person who needed to be inspired.  The right place at the right time.

The other girl who we met at 'The Sporties' was RaRa.  She is actually from Toowoomba and is a part of my flickr group, as well as the 104 group.

She has been on a road trip with her son, that took her south along the coast through Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie and Sydney, then inland to Temora, which is about 90 minutes from here.

They were heading home today and decided to take a slight detour in this direction to catch up, have some lunch and meet the newest member of our 104 group, before heading off home.

So five of us had lunch together and it was very enjoyable.

Ra Ra and I (her son looking on)

Unfortunately, Super Sue left to return to work before we thought about taking a photo!  So many photographers together and we didn't think of taking a photo til it was too late!

I really enjoyed myself and BGWLBH said to me after everyone had left "you know the nicest people", which I thought was lovely.

This afternoon BGWLBH and I went for a walk around the farm and I took a couple of quick snaps.

I'm looking forward to some early morning walks and hopefully some more spectacular sunsets.

We've had a very late evening playing trivia on-line (as we do) and now it's almost 1.30am!!

Must sleep!

Nite all.

Catching Up

Having a wonderful time here.

Had my hair done by my old hairdresser today and it looks and feels wonderful.

Ran into an old workmate and we'll be having lunch together next week.

One of the girls from my flickr group just happens to be staying in a town about 2 hours from here, so she is driving here tomorrow and we are going to do lunch. It will be nice ... and weird at the same time ... because we are both from Queensland and meeting for lunch in NSW.

BGWLBH and I made a delicious and healthful dinner tonight and filled ourselves up with spinach tarts made with gluten free bread as the base, filled with spinach, onion, chilli, mushrooms, cheese and egg.

I roasted sweet potato, cauliflower, onion, chilli, pumpkin seeds, almonds and capsicum in the oven.  Then we had a salad of tomato, lettuce, mushrooms, red onion with a lemon & chilli dressing and oven cooked chicken breast done in a foil parcel with red cabbage and mandarine.

Absolutely beautiful and we worked brilliantly as a team in the kitchen.

Tonight we watched 'Titanic' in honour of the 100th anniversary of it's sinking.

Then we played on-line trivia til stupid o'clock.

Time to rest my weary eyes.

Still no photos to share, but we have plans for some shots in the coming days, so stay tuned.

There is much catching up to do!

Nite all.

Mini Post

Just a mini blog post to let you know that I arrived at my destination, safe n sound this evening.

The flight to Sydney was uneventful, until we were about to descend, and were advised by the pilot that it was raining with 60km winds at ground level!

So descending through the heavy grey clouds was a very bumpy ride indeed, however, the pilot was obviously very skilled and I experienced one of the best landings ever in Sydney.  I've landed in Sydney MANY times.

I was trying to work out how many flights I've managed to rack up and I calculated very close to, if not over 100 flights.  There would be well over fifty just in the last 10 yrs.

In the early days, I would use a good number of sick bags during the flights.  In fact, on one flight to Griffith, in a small 12 seater plane, I actually used ALL of their sick bags!

In those days, I was so nervous about flying, that I  'threw up' on a number of tarmacs as I found my way to the bottom of the stairways into the plane.

I believe that it took about 40 flights before I found a way to relax and let go of the fear ... without the use of drugs (which I used for about a dozen of the flights).

Even though I still feel uncomfortable about flying, I can easily control the fear and discomfort these days and can force myself to sleep through most flights ... I find that that makes the time go a bit faster.

So I arrived at my destination on a very clear, still and cool evening, where my BFF - BGLWBH (beautiful girl with the long blonde hair) was waiting for me with open arms.

Now I have my fleecy pyjamas on and I am between warm fleecy sheets, ready for a nice sleep.  It's been a long day and I am feeling very weary.

My mini post has ended up a bit longer than I'd planned LOL.

Nite all.

Procrastinating .. again!

I had so many things on my 'to do' list for today.

Actually, I had so many things on my 'to do' list for the whole week leading up to today.

But ... I am the champion procrastinator.  It's in my genes.  I passed it on to my children, and as time goes by, they are also becoming champion procrastinators.

Even now, there are things that I could/should be doing, but I am procrastinating by updating this blog so early in the evening.

I leave town tomorrow to start my holidays.

I haven't packed.  I have ironed.  That is all.  I do have a list to check off as I pack.  My suitcase is opened, on the floor, with a few things tossed in there.

I'm very concerned that my suitcase is going to end up very heavy.  After all, I have no idea how long I am going to be gone and the weather is so changeable that I have to pack for both warm and cool weather.

Gotta take all my camera gear and my laptop.

Think I might try to wear my heaviest clothes on the plane.  Jeans, boots and heavy-ish top, with lots of jewellery.  That should give me a bit more than a kilo to play with in my suitcase!

You know, if this is the biggest dilemma that I have to deal with this year, I will be a very lucky lady!

I tried the onion trick beside my bed last night to help cure my cold.

I did wake up with a dryer nose, but who knows if it was the onion that did it!  I'm going to cut a fresh onion tonight and try it for one more night before I leave - just in case.

I didn't take any photos today.

I know.  Difficult to believe :D

My next post will be from my holiday destination - or maybe it will be from the airport in Sydney!  I think I have a few hours to wait for my connecting flight.

So I'm signing off because I cannot procrastinate for a minute longer!  Things to do!  So let's do it!!

Nite all.

Sniffle Sniffle

My friend Kaz phoned me today and suggested an illness 'remedy' that we've both known about for a while, but haven't had the chance to try.

Half an onion in the bedroom next to the bed.

I'm going to try it tonight - I'll give you the results tomorrow.  Hopefully, I'll wake up cured!

I just took the dogs outside to pee.  I opened the laundry door and the dogs went tearing outside barking like they were chasing something.

There, at eye level, draped along the top of the fence was this unhappy chappy ...

It's an Eastern Brown Tree Snake, considered venomous but not dangerous - which kind of seems a bit contradictory to me!

Psychotic dogs didn't even know it was there, although they may have smelt it and that's why they were barking as they were.

It crawled along the fence towards the clothes line (which is attached to the fence), so goodness only knows where he came from or where he went!  I hope we don't find out the hard way!

I do know that I won't be leaving the laundry door open all day and half the night, as I have in the past for the dogs' convenience!

That's the second snake I've seen on that side of the house.

They are probably eating chook eggs!  That may be why we are only getting one egg each day!

Adoring Husband is not a big fan of snakes.  I guess I'm not either, but only because I'm not confident identifying them and I wouldn't know if I'd found a deadly snake or not.  As it was, I did a google search to discover what this one was.  Thank God for the internet!!

Enough of this frivolity.  Time to get myself and my medicinal onion ready for bed.

Nite all (sniffle sniffle)

Healthful and Delicious

I've been checking my diet over the past couple of days to make sure I've been getting enough vitamins and minerals and nutrients to fight this cold off.

It's putting up a good fight to take hold, but it needs to fight harder if it wants to win this one!

Since Thursday morning, (four days) I've had lots of fresh honey and lemon.  I would have taken some good doses of Olive Leaf Extract too, but I've run out and our Pharmacy has been closed all Easter weekend... very inconsiderate I thought!

I've also dosed up on chilli, garlic and onion.  Adoring husband makes a delicious chilli and garlic paste with our abundant chillies from the garden and I use it in everything.

I mix it with the little oil that I use in cooking.  I mix it with every type of dressing that I make for the salads and rice paper wraps, as well as the dipping sauces.  I added it to a favourite lamb and tomato rice dish for the first time the other night and it was delicious!

I dab it on the veggies that I bake in the oven for a bit of zing, and to the gluten free pita wraps that I use for a pizza base on footy nights.

We love our chilli.

The rest of my diet has included green tea, lemon myrtle and macadamia nut yoghurt, avocado, tomato, shallots, carrot, red capsicum, cucumber, pineapple, mushroom, rocket, orange slices, pine nuts, walnuts, pepitas, almonds, cashews, onion, sugar cabbage, wombok cabbage, asparagus (fresh from the garden), eggs (fresh from the chooks), king tiger prawns, mud crab, lamb, lettuce, spinach, artichokes, zucchini, sweet potato, pumpkin, potato, watermelon, plums, grapes, apple, rice and a little grated cheese.

My less than healthful food has been 1 take away latte with 2 sugars each day, two rows of dark almond gluten-free chocolate each day, a 175 g packet of plain smiths chips eaten over two days and a couple of gluten free snakes/jelly babies.

Lots of water.  Probably 4 - 6 x 600ml bottles each day.

Oh and freshly blended orange, apple and plum with an equal portion of water = two large glasses.

I should be bouncing off the walls with energy and vitality!!  Not fighting off a stoopid cold/flu/virus!!

To catch up on the April Photo a Day photos...

5. Tiny

6. Lunch

7. Shadow (that's me!)

I think that I will go pop some Vitamin C and make another honey and lemon drink before bed.

Tomorrow, I will be even more healthful and delicious and make myself some chicken and vegetable soup - it cures EVERYTHING!

Nite all.