Check Check Check

Today, I contacted, via the website 'Fiverr', the girl who designed my Romance Your Life logo and described to her a basic design that The Motivator and I agreed upon for The Happy Abode.

This girl lives in the Canary Islands, so the communication process is a little slow - taking the time difference into consideration and all - but hopefully, by Monday, we will have a new logo that we are both happy with.

I applied for a partnership ABN for The Motivator and I, which took a ridiculously long time. So many questions! So many pages!

I investigated a number of Telcos for our phone and internet requirements, but it looks like our only option is Telstra. Bugger. (Only because their plan is the most expensive)

I taped newspaper to our shop windows for privacy and security.

I registered with two wholesale providers and am waiting for their reply, which should take about 48 hours.

I made Adoring Husband's lunch and delivered it to him, touching base with The Motivator at the same time.

I waited for the Real Estate Agent to get back to me regarding my two messages yesterday, and even though she was in the office and approximately ten steps away from our shop, she did not make an appearance. It's time to keep a record of our interactions I think.

I spoke to the electrician who turned up at the request of the previous tenant to explain that the wiring and work done on the removed lights was safe and secure. (This means that she received my message, because that was one of my questions)

I cleared some more of my workspace and took two boxes of 'stuff' to the shop.

I played tradies assistant again.

I went to the club for raffle night - won nothing - but did have a little luck on the pokies.

I cooked dinner.

I gave Adoring Husband another leg and back massage.

I cleaned up the kitchen.

I watched the football.

Now I am here, signing off, because it's midnight!

Got stuff to do tomorrow!

Nite all.

Work in Progress

Adoring Husband worked his little butt off today moving an entire wall.

He fixed the dodgy work done by the previous tenant and reconstructed the wall so that it's safe and strong .. not quite finished yet, but very close.

The Motivator worked her butt off today, cleaning all the messes that were left behind by the previous tenant, like paint in the kitchen sink, messes in the drawers and on the tiled floor. She filled the kitchen with crockery, cutlery, food, tea, sorted out her work space, moved furniture and tried really hard to motivate me to do stuff too. She did a lot of other stuff too and filled her day completely with productivity.

I did not work my butt off today.

The following list seems long and makes me look like I was flat out, but seriously, each of these things took a couple of minutes, so it's not as impressive as it looks!

I phoned St Vinnies to buy the door that we looked at yesterday and make sure that it was delivered with the rest of our goodies.

I partially cleared my desk, packed one box with the purses, wallets and some journals, filled my trike basket with framed pictures and quotes, a floor rug and a teal table cover.

I helped The Motivator fill a bean bag with 4 bags of beans - which was ridiculously hilarious because I totally lost control and we ended up with half a bag of beans on the floor! I wish I'd taken a photo! The Motivator came up with an ingenious way to pick all the beads up ... which didn't include a vacuum cleaner, so we cleaned it up much faster than expected.

The Bunnings delivery man thought we were the funniest thing he was likely to see all day!

I tried to speak to the Real Estate Agent twice, but she didn't come into the office today.

I tried to speak to the previous tenant to find out how she had her phone and internet connected, but we didn't have her current phone number, so I left a message on the number attached to her website AND I sent her a message via her website. Hopefully, she will contact me.

I made lists.

I rode home and collected a kettle, an extension cord, the box of purses and some cups and a teapot. While I was there, I made a quick cold meat and salad lunch for AH.

I acted as a tradie's assistant a couple of times.

I bought AH a coffee.

I helped The Motivator move some furniture around.

I looked at a wall mural website with The Motivator and we selected a couple of murals.

I rode to the water and photographed the gorgeous sunset ... I can't show you now because the extension cord to my monitor is at the shop, so I can't download the pics from my camera. I can't do it on my laptop either.

I came home and cooked dinner.

I cleaned up the kitchen - giving AH the night off considering all his hard work today.

I gave Adoring Husband a leg and back massage to ease his aching muscles.

I cleared some emails.

That's it.

Now it's almost 11pm and I am ready for bed.

Tomorrow, I'll get to that list I wrote.

Still a work in progress ...

Nite all.

Another Day Closer

I wrote this about my Adoring Husband and posted it in Facebook early this morning because I wanted him and every one of my Facebook friends to understand how wonderful he is...

"I'm not generally one for sharing deep feelings on Facebook, but I just have to tell the world how freaking amazing my Adoring Husband is.

I have not consulted him throughout the process of creating this website business or even in the decision of opening the bricks and mortar business (because he has this habit of saying BUT and then coming out with lots of negative stuff, which I know is not meant to dampen my spirit and he believes he is being helpful and real - but it kills me!) so I have made decisions, which ultimately will affect 'our' lives and 'our' futures on my own.

If he had done the same thing to me, I'd have been pissed off and offended and resentful.

But my Adoring Husband has stepped up big time.

He spent all day at the shop yesterday measuring and listening to what Tracey and I envision. He began pulling down walls and reconstructing the mess that the previous tennant left behind. He cleaned up his mess and vacuumed the floors at the end of the day.

This morning, he has calculated our costs and written up a quote and then discussed it with me.

He has taken 2 weeks off from SES duties, with the intention of giving us all of his time, energy and skills so that Tracey and I can open our dream space and become entrepreneurs.

He is an amazing, loving, supportive, selfless human being and I am so grateful that I am on the receiving end of his love and attention.

I love you Barry Smithurst ❤️ Thank you xo"

Today, he and The Fisher King spent the entire morning, taking a few loads in the ute, including desks, bookcases, tub chairs, lamps and other bits and pieces that we will use for displays and furnishings in the shop ... all from The Motivator's house.

We had all of that done by noon and then AH drove into The Bay to Bunnings to order all the timber and gyprock and other necessities for building walls in the shop, and organised for delivery to happen tomorrow.

Not far behind him, were The Motivator and I. We were pricing chairs to put at the tables in our workshop room and needed 12 of them. The best price we could come up with, for our requirements, was $65 each - which meant just under $800 in total! I suggested that we try St Vinnies and the Op Shops, so that's where we went next.

Sitting right outside St Vinnies were two piles of metal framed chairs with padded seats, 11 in total, at $10 each! We looked at each other, decided that we could make them look as good as new with a little TLC and immediately purchased them!

We decided to scour inside to see what else might be worth snavelling and discovered two very old single seat sofa chairs, possibly from the 50s or 60s, in excellent condition. We sat in them and loved them. $37 each! THAT was a fabulous bargain! We couldn't believe our luck!

Next we found two fabulous pieces of furniture, which we know have been sitting in that shop for a few months. The prices had been reduced back then and were reduced even more today. We loved them back then and we loved them today ... so we got them to reduce the price by a further $40 AND waive the $30 delivery fee.

We left St Vinnies doing some more *happy dancing*

From there, we drove to Office Works and I got myself a beautiful bright yellow office chair. I plan to stand at my desk most of the time, but I know that I'll need to sit sometimes and my old office chair is literally flaking and falling to pieces. We priced some excellent tables for our workshop room and will consider them over the next couple of days.

While we were there, we purchased our Square Card Reader - the newest alternative to cash registers and eftpos machines. 

Our next stop was Bunnings to get some paint swatches, price some paint and get some new blinds for the shop windows.

We went from there, to the Optus Shop, to find out how to get our new phone and internet connected, but we were somewhat disappointed to hear that, according to them, there was no connection available for our shop - so this may require a bit more effort than first thought!

We did a very quick grocery shop.

By now, we were desperately in need of a beverage, so we made a brief stop at The Coffee Club for some sustenance before purchasing some bean bag beans and a couple of hand towels. 

Finally it was time to head home, so we dropped all the purchases off at the shop and then The Motivator dropped me home where I only had about 40 minutes until Adoring Husband and I had to leave for our monthly trivia night.

It was a fun night, but we came second last!!! I think that is our worst effort yet!! We did win two bags of lollies and chocolates, which were no good to AH and I because firstly, they weren't gluten free and secondly, they were full of sugar!! Ah well.

It has been another full day and I am exhausted! It's almost 11pm and I am ready for making some ZZzzzzzs. 

No doubt it will be another big day tomorrow!

Nite all.

Woopsie!

Ok, so I apologise for yesterday!

I posted the video on here, but forgot to take it off 'private' setting in Youtube, so nobody was able to view it!

So here is the link, so that you can view it 'Business Eve'

I took another video at the shop as soon as we entered the premises today.

We were disappointed to walk in and find a big mess.

The carpet hadn't been vacuumed, let alone cleaned. The previous Tennant hadn't repaired the damage that they had done to the walls when they did their renovations and they didn't repair the ceiling where they removed their lighting. They'd left boxes of rubbish on the floor, there were a lot holes in the walls where they had removed shelving and pictures ... and the list goes on.

The previous Tennant offered us the glass topped counters, a desk, the bench that held the cash register and the cash register, which we accepted with gratitude. She left all of those things except the cash register, which was very generous of her ... although the shimmer of our gratitude was dulled by the mess she left behind.

Our original plan for the layout had to change considerably when we discovered a couple of problem areas with the air conditioning outflow and wall mounted power boxes, so this new video tells you our original plan. I hope to show you the revised plan in the next couple of days.  



I had left our coffee morning earlier than usual this morning to meet with The Motivator to get the keys, so about an hour later, the girls all turned up to have a look at the space and wish us luck, which was lovely and it felt good to share it with them.

Adoring Husband has already started work on the walls and The Motivator and I have made a 'to do' list and 'to buy' list and a 'to acquire' list.

We have a big day planned for tomorrow, so I'll be heading to bed very soon.

AH and I were only home a short time before we realised that it was our monthly barbecue at the Lions Park, so we didn't even have time to prepare food to take. We took some alcoholic beverages, planning to have drinks with everyone and then come home to eat.

We were having such a good time, that we sat through dinner with everyone. I ate some of the delicious salads that everybody else had prepared, but AH decided to wait until we returned home.

I had two glasses of wine while we were there too, which has made me very sleepy.

I'd partially prepared a baked dinner, so the boneless leg of lamb was almost cooked in the oven, as were the baked vegetables. It only took another 30 minutes to finish up and we had a delicious, if late, dinner.

I have to say that I am mentally exhausted after such a big day. I've been awake since 5.19am, so I'm ready for bed right now.

Yay for day one! I apologise if this is difficult to read, but my brain doesn't seem to be working very well this evening. I'm definitely done for the day!

Nite all.

It's me!

So I've been wanting for some time, to make my first video.

The very idea of it scared the 'you know what' out of me! Eventually, when I've practiced enough and know what the hell I'm doing, I hope to post videos and Webinars on my website and on the Romance Your Life Facebook page. 

Quite obviously, I'm not ready to do that yet - you are my guinea pigs!

This one is done in very low light in my lounge room and using my iPad. I'll try again, on my next courageous day, using my iMac in the daylight hours and in my study where the light is much better. I also need to work on the sound - the volume is a bit low.

I thank you in advance for your patience and tolerance while I find my way in my little video world and for being my 'safe place' to build up my courage!

By the time you even see this, I will probably have already done the happy dancing and the champagne drinking and the measuring and the journey will have begun!

It's all happening! 

I'm off to bed. Big day tomorrow!

Nite all.

A Festive Day

It was so worth getting out of bed at 6am today.

We arrived in Childers before 8am and our car was the first through the gates to park in the Church grounds, which is a 5 minute walk from the main street where all the stalls are displayed. There was one small disadvantage to that. We were parked furthest away from the road, so I had to walk across wet grass for quite a distance in my leather sandals, and my feet were cold and wet by the time we reached the road. Hardly worth complaining about really.

There weren't too many people at the Festival at this stage, so we got to see all of the stalls without having to fight the hordes of people. We received the undivided attention of the stall holders and I got to spend my money freely! Ya gotta love that!

Before the crowds arrived ...

After the crowds arrived ...

We found some gluten free food and sat down to listen to the live music. It just happened that our favourite local musicians, The Twine, came on to play about ten minutes after we sat down, so we listened to them for the duration of their set before moving on.

There didn't seem to be quite as many stalls there this year and I really wanted to find a brass singing bowl, but none of the stalls had them. We also wanted to find our favourite curry man, but he too was not in attendance. There was a message on his website, which we checked when we got home, to say that he wasn't doing markets any more and that all sales could be made via the website.

We will do that.

My purchases included a new hat...

My old hat is beginning to fall apart and has a hole in the top of it. I don't want to part with it because I love it so much, but it's not going to last much longer.

I also bought a cross body bag and a backpack, along with two pairs of shoes ...

I got this beautiful blue Kyanite pendant which was hand crafted by a guy from Elemental Formations ...

Some Citrine ...

and I got two tops made with hand printed fabric. I didn't try them on, because there were no facilities there to do that, so one top looks fabulous and I'm extremely happy with it, but the second one is a bit tight. I might be able to fix it if I find the inclination.

We were on our way home at 10.30am and by that time, the crowds were overwhelming. The queue of cars coming into town was crazy and the road out of town was completely clear.

Adoring Husband decided, without consultation, to turn right at our designated turnoff, instead of left and we drove to Bamboo World. It was a good decision on his behalf.

It's been a few years since we were last there and it's changed a lot. A lot more work and landscaping has been completed and it's a lovely area. I think it would be a great location for weddings and wedding photography.

We were there for more than an hour walking around and taking in the sights ...

At the end of all that, AH bought two lovely plants for us to use in the new shop and I bought a timber bowl come basket, which I want to use on the counter top for some 'special deal' snap buttons.

The girl in charge took me to a shed where they store some beautiful bamboo and timber sculptures ...

... and I was chased by a crazy ape!!

We were home by 12.30pm but it felt like 5pm!

Adoring Husband then hooked up the trailer and spent the afternoon mowing and edging at the shopping centre. Needless to say, he is exhausted and was in bed by 7.30pm.

Only two more sleeps until we get the keys to the new premises!! Woot! Woot!

I'm off for an early night too!

Nite all.