The New Abode

I'm done!

It was an interesting day.

So many people, new faces, came to the shop today, all singing praises about how beautiful it was, how reasonable the prices were, how it was like the secret shop tucked away, how did this town get so lucky to have such a wonderful shop?

Unfortunately, praises don't equate to sales.

It was The Motivator's day off and I spent the time in between customers/visitors cleaning the glass and polishing the chrome on the new display cabinets. They were all in pieces in the training room which made it easier to clean.

I didn't realise how grotty they were until I began to wipe and found some interesting spots, sticky tape, inky marks, thick dust in the tracks where the glass sliding doors fit, glue spots, sticky splashes, grease smudges and more.

With interruptions, it took three hours to clean them, but the sliding doors still need some work.

Adoring Husband came to the shop at midday and began helping me empty some of the old display cabinets and shelves so that they could be moved and rearranged to make way for the new ones.

We spent so much time agonising over where to place everything to maximise the space and have it still look welcoming. The original plan that was imagined in my head, did not work at all, so the process was painful! I almost tossed one of the cabinets altogether!

Eventually, we found a layout that was acceptable, however, it still needs to be approved by The Motivator. We removed the table that was at the front door to make way for a cabinet and then had to find space for all the stock that was on that table.

I rearranged a LOT of stock, but did not fill the cabinets. Some of the new stock that's being delivered in the coming weeks will find a home there.

We had to clear the training room and vacuum all the mess that was left by the roof repairer last week, in readiness for the meditation class on Monday morning.

Adoring Husband left the building at about 5.15pm and I arrived home on my trike at 6pm.

The job is still not complete, but I'll return tomorrow afternoon and tie up the loose ends.

Right now, we both feel like we've been hit by a truck!

Those cabinets were awkward and heavy and fragile, so it was quite difficult manoeuvring them through the space and we had to move other furniture to make room to squeeze through.

I'm looking forward to crawling into bed tonight and sleeping late tomorrow.

There will be a trip into The Bay tomorrow to find something that will dress up the cabinets and hide some flaws.

Monday is my day off, so I'll spend the entire day in bed! Can't wait!

Meanwhile, have a fabulous Sunday!

Nite all.

What do you practice everyday?

I just had a local gentleman (of dubious character) in the shop complaining very loudly and very aggressively about the new real estate agent.

The old RE had a direct debit system in place so that his rent could go directly from his bank account to their bank account and he never had to worry about it.

The new RE doesn't have that system in place and it means that he has to organise with his own bank to send his rent payment to their account, which in turn, means a bank fee that he has to pay.

I suggested that since he only lives around the corner, he could drop into the RE office once each fortnight and pay the rent over the counter. After all, he comes to the shops to buy bread and milk - it would be easy to do that and he wouldn't have to pay fees.

Without even pausing, he cut my idea down in flames stating "WHY should I have to do that? It's not my problem that the new RE hasn't got their act together! They should be accommodating their customers! If they don't fix the problem, I'm just not going to pay rent!"

My next suggestion was that he may need to begin looking for new accommodation for when they evict him.

He didn't like that idea either haha.

I know this gentleman (still dubious) quite well from his visits to the Seat of Knowledge and his life is filled with dramas. He plays the victim beautifully and his middle name should be 'negative' probably in capital letters. I generally like to avoid contact with him because he loves to spread his anger far and wide.

Right after he left the shop, I received this in messenger from a friend ...



Amazingly appropriate, and I almost ran out of the shop to chase him and have him watch the video!

Today (2nd March) marks the 39th anniversary of my oldest child's passing. He would have turned 40 this year in October.

I'm feeling a bit sad and melancholy, just momentarily as I remember.

At the same time, I'm trying to coordinate the purchase and pick up of some shop display cabinets in Maryborough this afternoon. It seems the Universe is conspiring against me, but I think that between Adoring Husband and myself, we might be able to work it out.

I had a very quiet morning in the shop but it's been much busier this afternoon - which is unusual because it's usually the other way around.

I'm feeling a bit peckish - might be time to order some lunch!

This is a very early post because I wanted to talk about the angry man and the video coinciding.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend.

Afternoon all and ...

Nite all.

Back to Work

Now that the carpet is dry, I started the day putting the shop back together.

It took a bit longer than I expected, but we got there in the end.

We took delivery of a small order that I'd made a few days before I went away, so those items needed to be checked off, priced and displayed.

I unpacked the few things that we brought back with us from Sydney, priced them all, set aside the special order for Tweedle Dee and placed the remainder on display (except a one-off chain that I fell in love with and had to buy for myself!).

We listed and tallied up all the orders that we made in Sydney and then audibly gasped at the total!

We also rubbed our hands with glee at the thought of all those lovely items arriving through our shop doors at staggered times in the coming weeks. It will be an entire month feeling like Christmas.

There were also a few customers to tend to during the day.

Between us, we were pretty much done in at the end of the day.

For me, looking after the shop on my own, dealing with the stressful weather event/damage and then tearing through three intense days at the fairs in Sydney, I felt a little low on energy.

For The Motivator, who endured long hours of travel, some incredibly intense emotional cleansing over 8 days, more long hours on the plane home, not being able to access our room for quite a few uncomfortable hours in Sydney and then tearing through three intense days at the fairs in Sydney, she too was feeling low on energy.

But we made it through the day, have each selected a day either side of Sunday to take off work and try to regain some of that energy that we're lacking.

I'll be in bed immediately after Gogglebox tonight. I love Gogglebox!

Happy Friday everyone ...

Nite all.

  

Jiggedy Jig

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.

We were totally organised this morning and left the motel at exactly 8am as we planned.

Our taxi fares from the airport to the motel when we arrived were $42.50 for The Motivator and $57.00 for me. These totals included tolls.

We decided to use Uber to take us to the airport this morning. I ordered the Uber at 7.55am and our driver was putting our suitcases in the boot at 7.58am. Obviously, it was peak hour traffic and our driver asked us which way we wanted to go. We told him to go whichever way he thought was best.

If you're not aware, no money changes hands with Uber. When you sign up to use the service, you provide your card details and they take the money automatically when the trip is over. Uber send a confirmation email after every trip with the total of the trip and give you the opportunity to rate their service.

This Uber trip took twelve minutes during peak hour (my taxi trip from the airport via taxi on Sunday took 18 minutes and I'm certain that he went through every toll known to mankind) and the total cost today was $25.05!

Our driver's name was Yao and he was lovely. Very polite and helpful and efficient.

Every Uber experience that I've had (5 times now), has been positive and very satisfying. If I have a choice, I won't use the regular taxi services in future. Uber is always at the door within 5 minutes, always take the shortest most direct route and always costs about half the price of a taxi.

Anyway, there was hardly anyone (compared to my last visit to the Sydney airport) waiting in the queue to check in so we were fairly quickly checked in and also passed quickly through security.

We found a nice little cafe called 'Chur' for breakfast where we ordered avocado smash on GF bread with tomato salsa. I had a latte and The Motivator had peppermint tea. It was all nice except for the bread which tasted more like a cake than bread. I had two mouthfuls and decided to just eat the smash and salsa.

Before we went to our gate, I ordered a 'heartbeet' juice from the juice bar - pineapple, avocado, beetroot, apple and banana. It was divine!

It was a great flight home. Good weather and we had three seats between us to spread out and enjoy the flight. The landing was a bit 'iffy' because the pilot aborted on the first attempt and we circled around to try again and even the second attempt was quite a heavy landing.

Adoring Husband was waiting at the gate and once we collected our luggage, we drove straight home and dropped off The Motivator before doing some grocery shopping and grabbing a coffee and then heading home.

It was lunchtime so I went directly to the kitchen to cook up some chicken to have with a salad for lunch. I haven't removed my butt from the couch since.

It has been a lovely lazy afternoon catching up on my recorded programs like MKR and Married at First Sight. Adoring Husband cooked up some chicken wings for a snack-like dinner and here I am blogging early in the evening so that bedtime can also be early.

No photos today.

Have a happy Thursday and perhaps I'll see you at The Happy Abode!

Nite all.

The Next Fair

Honestly the last two days have been so long and so full and so busy, I can't even remember the order that we did things, but this is how I think it happened ...

We returned to the Reed Gift Fair this morning to find the Serenade stand. It was the most difficult stand to order from ... so many beautiful bags and wallets to choose from, we struggled to limit ourselves and ended up spending our entire budget in one hit!

Should I say that we have actually tripled our budget over the two days! OMG

After that stand, we went in search of the stand with those lovely silver chains that have been so popular. I searched for it yesterday to no avail and I couldn't remember the name of the company, so I was looking for the same layout as last year. It was no wonder I never found it, the guy who owns the business decided to do something completely different this year!

I must have walked past it three times yesterday and not recognised it!

Anyway, I finally found it and grabbed a business card and grabbed every chain that they had available, spending yet another fortune.

Next was an amazing company selling beautiful, yet reasonably priced watches for both men and women. Silver, Gold and Rose Gold with really lovely bands and styles. We are now concerned about display space and are wondering how we are going deal with that dilemma.

From there, we decided that it was time to head out to the other gift fair. It was already 11.30am and we walked out to the shuttle bus area to find a bus was leaving in 5 minutes - excellent timing.

It took 30 minutes to shuttle from one fair to the other, and unfortunately, we sat in the seats over the front wheels and within 15 mins I felt like I was going to throw up, so we moved back a few rows, which felt so much better.

When we arrived, we immediately went in search of The Motivator's friends, who had a stand there. We found them quickly and spent about 30 mins chatting and looking at their beautiful wares, before wandering off to check out the other stands.

We stood in the middle of the enormous building and said "Let the Universe take us to where we need to be" and began walking.

The Universe took us to an amazing stand called 'Intrinsic' and a lot of you might recognise the products ...

The gentleman working the stand told us about the products and showed us some of the lines and The Motivator asked "Did your mother design all of this?"

He replied "No! My wife." and pointed to a young lady standing across the way.

She immediately walked over and said hello. I tried to say how much I admired her work and out of nowhere, I burst into tears!! I was a blubbering wreck and I have absolutely no idea why or where that came from! So embarrassing.

This woman's name was Adele Basheer and she wrapped her arms around me and gave the longest, warmest most comforting hug that I've had for a long time. She was so beautiful and kind and then spent the next hour with us talking about her dream for her business and why she does what she does. All through the conversation, I struggled to hold it together - I just felt so much love emanating from her and felt that she genuinely wanted in some small way to change the world and make it just a little bit better.

In the end, we ordered a starter pack and I can't wait for her products to arrive and for us to display them prominently in our shop. She really was a beautiful soul and I love her work.

We went searching for some food after that and found the last GF offering as the food carts packed up - today was the last day for this particular fair.

We said our farewells to The Motivator's friends and caught the bus back to the Reed Gift Fair, where we walked around for yet another 90 minutes and found even more beautiful products - which we did NOT purchase, but took the details so that we can purchase in the future.

One funny thing happened - we were looking at the Oasis line of drink bottles and flasks, when a young man from the stand began chatting with us and giving us price lists and catalogues, when he asked where we were from and we told him the name of our town. He said "Oh I know that town! My Grandfather lives there!"

So I asked him who his Grandfather is and discovered that he lives right around the corner from me! We've had drag races between him in his mobility cart and me on my trike! What a small world it is. This young gentleman will come visit our shop the next time he comes to town.

We finally dragged our tired aching bodies back to the motel room, where The Motivator had a power nap (ten minutes) before freshening up and heading out to meet a couple of girlfriends for a social catch up. I was supposed to join them, but honestly, my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. I ached from the inside to the outside and couldn't bear the thought of moving another inch, let alone attempting to be friendly and social.

I think that the fact that I only had 3 hours sleep last night didn't help. I don't know why I couldn't sleep but I just lay there for three hours. My body was aching and I was cramping up and I felt really uncomfortable. Finally I fell asleep some time after 3 am and my alarm went off at 6am.

So I'm feeling rather battered and I wonder if my body is trying to fight off some kind of virus because I certainly don't feel myself.

On that note, I'm going to sign off and attempt to get some healing sleep.

We fly home tomorrow after our whirlwind shopping trip, and even though we totally blew our budget, we feel incredibly happy with our purchases and with the contacts that we've made. There are certainly fun times ahead!

Nite all.

Ten Thousand

That's how many dollars we could EASILY spend at the gift fair.

That's how many steps we walked today at the gift fair.

That's how many stands there are at the gift fair (perhaps I exaggerate slightly).

That's how many people made their way through the gift fair.

We are exhausted.

So far, we bought Cenzoni bags and purses, LOTS of Ivys bags and scarves, some beautiful SHE jewellery, lovely Cinnamon jewellery and we took the details from some amazing stands that we will order from after we return home.

It took us seven hours to do less than one floor of the gift fair. There is still another floor that we just touched on in the last twenty minutes of the day and which we probably won't get back to tomorrow because we have another gift fair to attend in another location.

We shared a mango this morning as we walked to the gift fair. At 1.30pm I had to buy a coffee because I had a raging headache from lack of caffeine in the morning. We only drank one bottle of water all day and only peed once! So we were absolutely running on empty by the end of the day, as you can imagine.

We sat down for dinner at 6.30pm and each had a crispy skinned salmon with fresh seasonal veg and a lemon butter sauce followed by creme brûlée with raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. We had two cocktails each and the final bill was hilarious!

Back in December, when we first decided to attend the gift fair, we discussed the costs involved and how much of the trip that the business, so early in the piece, could pay for. We decided that we would really be more budget conscious with our meals this time round. That idea went straight out the window!

However, we figured that since we didn't eat breakfast or lunch, the money we didn't spend on those meals could be added to our imaginary budget for dinners! The food has been divine and we have been indulgent and we have also enjoyed every bit of it!

Here is a photo of the clouds as we came in to land in Sydney ...

I need to sleep now. I can't believe it's already 11pm!

Nite all.

The Winner is ... Sydney

The day has gone pretty smoothly.

I arrived at the airport on time.

The plane arrived in The Bay early. The plane left The Bay early. The plane landed in Sydney early ... through heavy cloud, scudding showers and winds at 40kph. We had an excellent pilot and I wasn't scared at any stage ... some passengers applauded when we landed ... but I've had a lot worse landings than todays in my time!

I caught a taxi to our motel where I found The Motivator waiting patiently after she had rested up from her flight from Bali.

I unpacked my suitcase and caught up on some of her news and shared some of my news.

All the while that we were talking, we were attempting to get ready to go out in public, but by the time we walked out the door, it was too late to catch any of the gift fair, so we walked through the mall and did some clothes shopping.

We found a lovely Chinese restaurant and shared Peking duck, Twice cooked pork with hot spicy sauce and a huge bowl of garlic broccoli, which was to die for! The Motivator had a wine and I had a Margarita.

We talked and we talked and we talked and we talked some more. Then we talked and we talked and we talked. So much talking! So much to catch up on! So many ideas spewing out of our heads, hearts and minds.

Now we are in bed talking talking talking some more and I need to sign off because The Motivator keeps talking to me and I can't concentrate on what I'm doing.

I just read that last paragraph to her and she is laughing out loud.

I give up now lol.

Nite all.