A Day To Reset

I had big plans for today, until I was reminded of our Frack Free meeting which was to start at 9am.

As passionate as I feel about this cause, right now I have other important things on my mind, which are starving for my attention, so I felt a bit 'put out' having to attend this meeting.

Having done the hard work to get the signatures from the two outer sections of our town, I feel that my job is done, until we need to hit the remaining two sections.

What is being planned right now is outside my scope of interest, so I would like to withdraw until the next wave of surveys need to be completed.

All things considered, (like the time of the year being silly season) it was a good meeting with eleven of us in attendance, and plenty was achieved.

From there, I had a lovely morning with The Motivator. She gifted me some delicious natural body products and this beautiful timber box with a tree of life lid. It is now the new home of my many and varied bracelets.

She made me feel very spoilt and very special!

Adoring Husband spent the day selling Christmas Cakes door to door, raising money for the SES, but had a two hour break in the heat of the day, which he spent at home, eating lunch and watching the 'Twilight' movie with me, which was being aired on one of the Foxtel channels.

Not long after lunch, my Le Reve lady delivered all the goodies that were bought at my party last week, so tomorrow I'll be pedalling around town delivering them to their new owners.

This afternoon, I made a list of everything that I hope to achieve with my website this week leading up to Christmas. I plan on being very productive and at the end of the week will be awarding myself a gold star for 'solid achievement'.

Right now, the only achievement I have in mind, is getting a good night's sleep.

Nite all.

Home Once More

Well, it was difficult to leave the Chicklet house this morning, knowing that our next visit is such a long way off and I'll have to travel much further. Chicklet was not happy either and requested that I put her in my iPhone with my collection of Pokemon characters!

The Bare-chested Chef dropped me at Cooroy, where I embarked on some much needed retail therapy which eased a world of pain. I followed that up with some RSL poker machine love. I figured that since I haven't gambled for some weeks now (while the club is under renovation), I could afford to have a little play today.

The poker machine gods were not as kind to me as I'd hoped.

The train station was the busiest I've ever seen it, with the platform full of people waiting in the heat and large family groups there to say farewell to other members heading north.

There were two cheeky males, who appeared to be father and son, and who boarded the train without tickets, found two spare seats and then avoided the gaze of the train steward as he checked the rest of our tickets after boarding.

I didn't dob them in, because I enjoyed watching their pleasure in hitching a free ride from Cooroy to Gympie.

Another man in a seat behind me, introduced himself to his fellow passengers and proceeded to tell them the story of his accidental swallowing of a false tooth and then went on to describe the necessary search for said tooth every time he needed to use the bathroom!

Far too much information for such early conversations. One wonders what form of sterilisation was used before returning the tooth to it's rightful place????

The mind boggles.

I was happy to arrive at my destination, along with a dozen other passengers, and Adoring Husband and I had to fight our way through the crowd to reach the car. We had to sit in the car and wait because somebody had kindly parked directly behind us and we couldn't get out.

They certainly took their time - long enough for me to make idle threats while sealed in air conditioned comfort.

The psychotic dogs were very happy to see me arrive home. Ruby gave me her signature wide smile, baring her teeth by raising the top lip and lowering the bottom lip and wagging her bum and tail with wild abandonment. Colli ran around in circles barking endlessly, while Jack lurked behind them both waiting for me to notice him.

After the warm welcome, I quickly put Hainan Chicken on the stove to cook, while I unpacked my suitcase and then made myself presentable for my evening at the club.

As usual, it was a pleasant evening with the girls, even though none of us won a single thing and then, much to the shock of the bus regulars, I rushed out and stole the front seat, which is usually reserved for one of the old local blokes. He realised he'd missed out, so returned inside to grab himself another beer!

Here it is, rapidly approaching 11.30pm and I have been ready for sleep for about two hours now. I shall go and lay my head on the pillow before I get my second wind.

Nite all.

Dinosaur Dress-ups

Yes, most of our day consisted of dressing up, rearranging appendages and fancy dressing multiple dinosaurs.

No chasing Pokemon today, but we did watch some Pokemon cartoons.

Did a little creative and artistic digital colouring in on the iPad.

We had some crazy giant ball fun through the house until Chicklet lost her voice from laughing so loudly and we needed some time out to calm down.

Pizza for dinner. It's been about three years since I had pizza .. not since changing to Paleo .. and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, although I ordered a basic Hawaiian, which isn't very adventurous I know. It did have a fairly decent gluten free base on it.

At the end of today, I think we are all pretty exhausted and need a good night's sleep.

Tomorrow, I head home again .. in one respect, I am not looking forward to it because our air conditioner has had the royal order and cannot be repaired.

We're getting a quote on Monday for a whole new system, but it will be February before it can be installed. It's going to be a long hot Summer and I am not even a little bit happy about that!

I told Vegan Chickie that I would be returning to spend the Summer here in her air conditioned house.

There is something with very large and loud flapping wings outside this bedroom window. I'm not sure if it's swooping down to catch something for dinner, or if it is sitting in one of the trees flapping it's wings, but it's like the sound effects from a horror movie. Perhaps it's a dragon???

Makes my heart skip a beat every time I hear it!

No photos to share and no exciting news, so I guess I'll sign off here and get some sleep. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, you'll know that the giant winged creature has taken me.

Nite all.

Unwitting Collector

Yes that's me.

I have now become the unwitting collector of Pokemon, using the Pokemon Go app.

Here are two of the eighteen characters that I caught today. There are 250 characters to catch and train.

We even went walking in the heat, to the park, where my app told me there had been sightings of Pokemon, and where I caught six of the little blighters!

Apparently, there is more to this game that just catching the characters, but I certainly hope to avoid getting any more involved than the little bit of fun that we had today!

At least it was pleasant at the park under the shade sail.

We also played

• dinosaurs
• created some art with the new felt tip pens 
• painted some ceramic sea creatures
• attempted to put together some skeletal dinosaurs (except I accidentally snapped one of them!)
• played hide n seek
• played Plants vs Zombies
• played on the swing
• played dress ups with my jewellery on the dinosaurs
• tricked Mama into believing that we weren't the REAL Chicklet and Bozzy Wozzy, but a pair of imposters.
• baked a dinner of chicken and vegetables and gravy
• had bath time
• read four bed time stories.

It's quite amazing just how much you can fit into one day.

Congratulations goes to my niece in Mackay, who, after a 40 hour labour, gave birth to a whopping 9lb 2oz baby girl on Monday night! Congratulations to my sister, Squirt, on becoming a first time grandmother too! All very exciting!

On that note, I shall love you and leave you. It's almost 11.30pm and I should probably get some sleep in preparation for another big Chicklet day tomorrow.

Nite all.

All About Timing

For some strange reason, I was certain that I needed to be at the train station at 10.46am today.

I was out of bed bright and early, so that I could shower, wash and blow dry my hair, make myself presentable so that I could rush down for coffee with the girls before heading straight to the station.

While at coffee, I took the train ticket out of my bag and discovered that I didn't need to be at the station until 12.14pm!!

It seems I have been experiencing some difficulties with 'timing' this month. I really must work on that!

We had to put the Blonde Bombshell in a 'time out' this morning ...

... five minutes of silence because she was just talking way too much and way too loud! She even timed herself! She knows we love her. She also knows we love her to shutup sometimes!

Adoring Husband and I arrived at the station fifteen minutes early and the train arrived at the station ten minutes early which caught everybody off guard.

Nobody was actually on the platform.

Adoring Husband and I were sitting in the air conditioned car chatting. The only other person catching the train was standing beside our car, with a friend, smoking a cigarette. So it was a sudden mad rush to drag our luggage up to the platform as the train pulled in.

There were only about eight people in my carriage, so it was a very quiet and uneventful three hours between Howard and Cooroy. I did some reading, dozed for about an hour and then played solitaire for the final leg.

I had taken my own lunch to snack on during the trip, for which I was grateful, because the dining car was about four carriages away towards the front of the train. I would have had to carry my handbag and my computer bag, both of which were very full and very heavy.

Keeping good time, we arrived at Cooroy train station ten minutes early and the Chicklet family pulled into the car park as I wheeled my suitcase down the zigzagging ramp.

It was a pretty quick drive home while we listened to Chicklet talking ten to the dozen about Pokemon and Pikachu. It seems that Minecraft is no longer 'game of the month' and I need to download and learn how to play Pokemon now!

Vegan Chickie and I chatted, and Chicklet put together the interconnecting dinosaurs that I brought with me. I had to multi-task and play dinosaurs while chatting at the same time. I'm not good at multi-tasking, so the afternoon felt like a bit of a shambles, however, it was also fun.

The Bare-chested Chef prepared a delicious meal of steak and veg (roasted sweet potato, potato, brussel sprouts, cherry tomatoes, mushroom and asparagus) which was just what my tummy needed to finish the day.

Chicklet removed all the heads, arms and legs of the dinosaurs and reassembled them to create her 'ultimate' team of dinosaurs - or as she liked to call them - the ultimate of the ultimate dinosaurs. They even enjoyed bath time with her.

We seem to have very slow internet tonight and it's taking forever to load pages and send emails and edit photos, so I apologise for the unedited phone photos posted here tonight. I'm feeling decidedly weary and am not in the mood to wait for everything to happen.

On that note, I bid you a fond good night!

Nite all.

One More Sleep!

One more sleep (or no more sleeps by the time you read this!) and I will be on the Sunny Coast with my little Chicklet.

I'm excited to see her.

I hope she's excited too!

My sister Squirt is awaiting the birth of her first grandchild, nicknamed 'Squidgy'. Squidgy has now reached eleven days past his/her due date. I spoke to Squirt on the day that Squidgy was due, but she has made no contact since. I wait with bated breath!

I've had a totally unproductive day (as far as website work is concerned), a lot of which was spent at The Motivator's house, and some of which was spent either packing, or discussing our air conditioning unit with the serviceman. He only had bad news to deliver for our Christmas season and it seems that we have been the victims of a company ripping off vulnerable people after the tornado.

The good news is that he discovered this major problem before it burnt our house down with us in it! He has now disconnected the power to our air conditioner until we can either have it temporarily repaired, or completely replaced.

Well, here it is 11pm and I have a big day tomorrow, so I shall sign off with a flourish *imagine me gracefully swishing my arms about and pirouetting out of the room* as I bid you all adieu.

Nite all.

Plan the Year

After tidying up my desk, I hoped get a lot done with my site, but didn't get very far. I seem to have hit a road block and I have to figure out where to get some help.

Every time I sit down, a big black curtains drapes itself over my brain and I just can't seem to move forward.

I've written a 'to do' list, but I'm not sure about the order that it needs to be done. If I take the wrong first step, it could mean a lot of extra work to fix it. I need help.

So, hoping to get some inspiration, I dragged out the 'My Shining Life' workbook for 2017 and began to fill it in.

I wrote down my hopes and dreams for 2017 and how I'm going to take care of myself. I listed the things that I'm going to stop doing so I can move forward and what I'm going to start doing to move in the right direction. I selected some activities that I want to try (like sculpting, pottery, singing), books that I want to read, places that I want to go, workshops and conferences that I want to attend.

It asked how I would like to treat my body e.g. what I need more of (like sunshine, exercise, sleep) and what I need less of (like stress and potatoes!). I chose which rooms in my house that I need to declutter (I decided on my bedroom and the laundry).

I decided how much income I want my business to earn and then wrote down all the ways that I can earn that income.

I worked out different ways that I could help my community, selected an amount of money that I would like to be able to donate to charities and then selected the charities that would benefit from my donation.

I planned a retreat for myself.

I cultivated some 'mottos' for myself to follow for the year. My mottos will be ...

• Inspire people when you can
• Be kind to everyone
• Follow up and finish
• Believe you can and then DO IT!
• Romance Your Life

I listed ten things that I want to celebrate about myself.

I provided a vague description of how I want to spend my birthday next year (because I'm really not sure about that one yet).

That is as much as I achieved this afternoon.

Next in the workbook, is making a list of good habits that I want to create in 2017.

I'm only halfway through the book and when it's finished, I have a business workbook to complete! They are beautiful books, fun to fill out and definitely provide inspiration.

Right now, I'm off to bed. I'm inspired enough for one day!

Nite all.