A Quiet Vote

I saw my boys this morning. I don't see them as often as I once did. They are doing well.

It was beautiful down by the river. The water is so clear and clean, that you can watch the different varieties of fish swimming and you can actually see the bottom of the river.  It was high tide and I walked down the steps near the boat ramp until I was knee deep in what was very tepid water. It was very serene and calming.

I planned some time in the kitchen, so I stopped off at the supermarket to stock up on some necessities before I pedalled home and slipped straight into cooking mode.

Adoring Husband's favourites were first off the mark - apple and walnut muffins - next was a new recipe for carrot and raisin muffins. I added flaked almonds to the recipe and they are delicious too! I roasted a chicken in the oven and we had that with salad for lunch.

After lunch, we watched the movie 'Paddington Bear' on Foxtel. That was a bit of fun. Then it was time to vote! We left it later in the day to vote, so that we could go for a walk along the beach afterwards, and still get home in time for the football.

The advantage to leaving it late in the day, is that there are no queues! We walked straight in and it took us all of five minutes to scan our paper, tick and lodge our ballots and make our way to the beach.

Considering how warm the weather was today, it was very pleasant on the beach. The tide was out, but on it's way in, so we were able to paddle knee deep in the very warm water and there was a nice cooling breeze blowing. The puddles and channels in the sand contained uncomfortably hot water, but there was plenty of birdlife around, including two white bellied sea eagles soaring overhead.

I didn't take my camera or my phone, so there were no photographs taken, but we enjoyed the walk and since I wasn't holding my camera, we got to hold hands for a change, which was lovely.

We arrived home in time to catch kick off for the first NRL game. There have been some upsets today and while I started off well yesterday, my tips are looking a bit the worse for wear this evening. But I am not alone there.

Some more fun from Scamalot ...



... and I could really relate to this ...

Adoring Husband was called out tonight for a search and rescue on the Mary River at Maryborough. Some kids were seen in a boat (which they stole) on the river and later the boat was seen upturned floating in the river, and no sign of the kids.

The first two rescue boats that were sent out, broke down, so a boat was brought in from Tiaro and also from Burrum Heads. This all happened at about 8.30pm. At 11pm, AH phoned me to say that the kids had been found, alive and well and that he would be home soon.

I imagine that those parents are feeling a mixture of relief and anger right about now!

I'm feeling a bit tired right now so ...

nite all.

Friendly Friday

There is a full documentary on Youtube, but just this short video is amazing!



Today has been a nothing kind of day.

I spent a lot of time monitoring Griffith's weather via the BOM and eldersweather.com, after I saw a weather warning for that area on FB. They had storms and terribly strong winds all day, with gust reaching 102kmh!

BGWLBH said that a tree in the school playground split apart and another friend reported a mini tornado on the outskirts of town. Fallen trees caused blackouts to 2000 residents. It all seems to have calmed down now, but the bad weather lasted for hours, and I'm glad that I wasn't there to experience it.

Here's an interesting article from the Paleo magazine How Paleo Can Help Cure Your Chronic Illness

It was very quiet at the Club tonight with only six of the usual fourteen of our group there, and only four people on the bus to come home. No fighting for a seat tonight!

I'm two out of two in the footy tipping so far! Wahoo! Good to see Parramatta defeat the Bulldogs tonight.

That's all I have to say.

Nite all

 

Making Sense

I follow a young woman on FB named Jessie Reimers. She has high functioning Aspergers on the Autism Spectrum. She is both inspiring and worrying.

I met her eighteen months ago, in The Bay, at a health seminar. We shared common beliefs as far as food and medicine and health is concerned and she was fighting her inner fears, to stand before a crowd of about fifty women, to talk about essential oils. It was her first experience talking in front of a crowd as she endeavoured to sell Doterra Essential Oils.

Since that day, she has become one of Doterra's highest selling members. She has come a LONG way and in 2017 will be embarking on a year long tour of Australia, spreading the Doterra word.

She is very open and honest and really doesn't have a filter (an Asperger's trait), so she often purges her negativity and self doubts on FB for all the world to see. On the other hand, she also regularly counts her blessings and talks about all the wonderful positive experiences that she has welcomed.

She has many loyal followers and she has appeared, a number of times, on TV promoting her petition to stop The Heart Foundation and their 'tick and star' programs.

Today, she posted this link about Aspergers, which I found very interesting. Many of these traits I could strongly relate to, and I wonder how many of my friends feel the same way? As BGWLBH often says, "we all have a little bit of autism in us".

It was raining this morning, so I didn't pedal to the Seat of Knowledge. Instead, I spent thirty minutes standing at my ironing board and then showered and washed my hair. I sat at my desk for about an hour editing some photos, then Adoring Husband and I went for a drive to check the mail and drop the usb stick with photos off at Mardi's place.

I cooked a big lunch and spent the afternoon watching a couple of movies. Adam Sandler in 'Bulletproof' and Gwyneth Paltrow in 'Emma'. I really enjoyed 'Emma', which surprised me, because I'm not generally a fan of period movies.

AH picked up the FROG box this afternoon and has tonight, attended SES training at the local shed.

Great to see Cowboys thrash Roosters 40-nil tonight in the first NRL match of the weekend!

That's if from me.

Nite all.

Intermittent Kind of Day

Word of the day: 'Ubuntu' (n) A quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity.

What a 'weathery' kind of day!

Intermittent heavy showers. Intermittent strong gusty winds. Intermittent sunshine.

The day started out warm and steamy. At morning tea, three of us used our fans to cool down, but by mid morning, the rain came and the temperature dropped briefly. In Queensland, the rain doesn't cool things down, it just creates more steam and humidity!

There were eight of us at morning tea today and there was lots of loud chatter going on. Many different conversations happening at once. I wanted to be involved in all of them! Unfortunately I'm not talented enough to listen to four conversations at the same time.

Later, I gathered my camera gear (for the first time in months) and took photos of Mardi's house, inside and out. I haven't edited the photos yet (FYI Mardi and The Life Saver), so that job is on top of my priority list!

By the time I arrived home, I was starving! I'd only had a lemon and ginger tea all day and it was 11.30am, so headed straight for the kitchen and cooked up a concoction of chicken, mushrooms, leek, kale, garlic, chilli and cashew nuts. It was quite delicious and very satisfying.

Adoring Husband was called out to an important SES meeting for the afternoon, so I took the opportunity to do a couple of jobs around the house. I had to pedal down to the butcher between rain showers this afternoon because there was no dog food for the psychotic dogs.

I used my intuition to determine when AH would return home, and timed dinner to perfection. More chicken and lots of vegetables. Steamed broccoli, roasted cauliflower, roasted zucchini, steamed beans and baked sweet potato discs. Two main meals today and I'm feeling very sated!

It's a pretty boring kind of post today.

I'm looking forward to another early night.

Nite all.

Jiggedy Jig

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.

After a morning of playing hide n seek with Chicklet, it was then time to leave.

The Bare-chested Chef and I took Vegan Chickie and Chicklet to the bakery, where we said our goodbyes and then he and I drove to Cooroy, where he dropped me off with my luggage and I spent a very pleasant morning browsing and shopping and savouring a delicious fresh juice made with beetroot, celery, cucumber, spinach, apple and ginger. I also bought some fresh fruit to munch on. The red grapes were divine!

When I made my way to the train station, there was, just like my last trip, a large group of young people waiting for the train.

They were part of an adventure tour and were heading to Rockhampton, where they would disembark and travel further north. This is information that I caught by listening to snippets of conversations. All of them had back packs and other assorted travel bags, which covered a large area of the platform.

One of the girls was sitting beside me on a bench seat and asked if I had a pen that she could borrow. As I searched through my handbag for a pen, she pulled out a beautiful leather bound journal. She expressed overwhelming gratitude when I handed her a pen, explaining that she had lost her pen at the last place where the group stayed.

She had a Canadian accent and it was obvious that she was keeping a journal of her travels in Australia, so I told her to keep the pen. Again, she expressed her gratitude and I know, without a doubt, that my pen went to a good home!

A second group of young people arrived at the station, but without a leader. They had been told that the train arrived at 1.40pm, so half of them walked across the road to get food. By this time it was 12.40pm and train was actually due at 12.58pm. So there was a mad scramble to get them back to the station.

The second group had no idea where they were even going, so the leader of the first group decided to take charge, made some phone calls to Queensland Rail and found out how many there should be in the group and what their destination was.

By the time the train pulled into the station, she had everything under control. She was a high energy kind of girl, not that much older than the people in both groups and she was loud! With 35 young people in their late teens to organise, I guess she had to be loud.

I had a seat to myself on the train and I attempted to read one of my new books, but I just couldn't get into it, so I was a sticky beak and watched and listened to an older woman talking to a younger man about her tattoos.

She may have been a professional tattoo artist because she was scrolling through her phone and showing him photo after photo of tattoos. It seems her favourites were the eagles and she talked about taking pride in the feather detail.

Other than that, even though it was quite full, my carriage was very quiet. I decided to listen to the radio for the remainder of the trip.

The train was running about twenty minutes late, but Adoring Husband was there waiting. It's always so good to see his face when I step onto the station platform at my destination.

The psychotic dogs were happy to see me and I was happy to be home.

I'm looking forward to seeing the girls for morning tea tomorrow. I might even get to bed at a reasonable hour!

Nite all.

To the Point

Just a short post tonight.

Vegan Chickie and I saw the movie "The Lady in The Van" today. We loved it.

It's not a movie for everyone. The pace is quite slow and nothing really happens, but Maggie Smith is absolutely brilliant in this role (as she is in everything!). The other characters in the film are perfectly cast and you almost feel like you're part of the neighbourhood.

I'm so glad that I got to see it, because it's one of those films that you can easily put off seeing, until it's finished at the cinema, and then you forget all about it.



After the movie, we browsed through a second hand book store, where I bought a series of Susan Howatch books, enjoyed lunch at the Canteen Cafe in Noosa and then partook of a little retail therapy. I got a nice shell pendant for myself, and a little decorative owl to hang in my frangipani tree.

We arrived home to house that had been turned upside down because The Bare-chested Chef and Chicklet had built a dragon fort out of all the furniture and blankets in the house!!

Chicklet said to me as we drove home (they came to pick Vegan Chickie and I up) "You won't believe your eyes!!" and she was right!!

It was a very good day and I am feeling quite worn out. 10.30 seems like a good time to close my eyes and drift into dreamland.

Nite all.

Lack of Control

So I am a Grey's Anatomy fan and I watched all four episodes last night, which meant it was after 12.30am when I turned off the light and fell asleep. I am certainly a glutton for punishment, but I just have no control when it comes to Grey's.

You simply cannot keep up with a crazy Chicklet after a late night like that!!

Chicklet was struggling with life today, so we decided to not go out for breakfast as planned, and stay at home for some quiet time, so that she would be ok for her swimming lesson tomorrow.

It was 'touch and go' for most of the day, but we had fun none-the-less.

We started by creating some artworks to send to BGWLBH, including an invitation to Chicklet's sock party, which was today, so BGWLBH didn't attend.

At the sock party, we each wore socks and we danced. I taught Chicklet how to do the 'Dead Ant' which was a crazy thing that our group did at the club and at our parties. Someone would yell "Dead Ant" and everybody would drop to the ground onto their back with their legs and arms pointing skywards and flailing about. Yes, I see the frown on your face. It's a true story!

We also played Knight vs Dragon. Chicklet set up a shop and we played 'shops', where I would come to the shop as a different creature each time (dog, cat, dinosaur, dragon, giraffe, bunny) and buy her wares. When I ran out of money, she would give it all back to me so that I could buy more stuff. I wish all shop keepers were so generous!

We played in the sand pit and made sand castles and sand muffins.

We walked around the garden and picked the 'wish flowers' so that we could make a wish.

We watched the movie 'The Little Prince'.

Finally, it was bath time, story time and then bed time.

A fairly full and busy day considering it was 'a quiet day at home'.

I'm looking forward to seeing how much Chicklet has improved with her swimming tomorrow and then catching a movie with Vegan Chickie afterwards.

Bed time for me now.

Nite all.