Productive

I was up bright and early this morning with the intention of checking out the blood moon/eclipse, but there was a heavy fog and I couldn't see any moon from any point in my back yard.

Adoring Husband said he saw it earlier in the morning when he was out and about.

So, instead, I cleaned the bathroom.

I just want to put it out there ... I hate cleaning ... ugh ... I want a cleaning fairy to come to my house every night while I sleep and make my house immaculate. Walls, windows, blinds, floors, cupboards, bathrooms, dusting, ironing, decluttering, pantry, fridge, fans etc etc etc.

I don't think that's asking for too much.

I still had time to visit the boys at the Seat of Knowledge on my way to work, grab a coffee and then walk into the shop at 8.50am.

I hugged The Happy Abode ... I always have that warm and fuzzy feeling when I walk through the door ... and I thanked the Universe for helping us create such a wonderful space ... it's all about the gratitude.

The day was crazy busy!

The staff at the supermarket complained that it was incredibly quiet, but I had people through the door all morning and took almost double what we usually do on a Saturday. If I wasn't committed to an appointment, I would have stayed open til at least 3pm.

After I did a grocery shop, I arrived home and put a batch of bone broth in the slow cooker (I had my last container of broth yesterday and there was none for me to have for breakfast this morning) and then cleaned the glass corner table, cleaned the handles on the fridge and the freezer and washed a window before that 2pm appointment arrived.

We had a third pool company come in to do a quote, which should be sent through to my email tomorrow. So far, just going by the meeting, I prefer this one, but it's all about the price, so we'll wait and see.

After they left, we made our way into the lounge room to watch the footy. I was one of three people in the footy tipping who picked Manly to defeat Penrith and I was excited momentarily when Manly was winning by a BIG margin and I believed that I had moved closer to AH n the footy tipping ladder. Alas, in the final seven minutes of the game, Penrith scored four tries to surpass Manly's score and I was left feeling disappointed and frustrated.

Between football games, I hung out two loads of washing, put another load in the machine, brought in the dry clothes and folded them,  bathed one of the dogs, cooked dinner and then parked my butt permanently on the couch.

I'm feeling pretty energised today. I hope it lasts for tomorrow because we are driving to Childers for the Multicultural Festival. We LOVE this yearly festival and I'm hoping to get some natural crystals while we're there.

I guess this means that I should get some sleep!

Nite all.    

Surprise Surprise

I sold a photo today!

That's two photos in a week!

It was a very slow day in the shop.

I met a crystal healer and a holistic healer - not together - one of them was a big talker and spent 40 minutes talking to me while booking an appointment to see The Gypsy for next week.

The other was very softly spoken and selected one of our lovely selenite towers to add to her healing collection.

There was some gift selections by a couple of customers, and one asked me to set hers aside, promising to return tomorrow to pay for them. We often have people pop in during their daily walk without any cash on them and they either ask us to put something aside or they return later with money to purchase.

We donated some gifts for the big Heart Foundation raffle being run by the Bowls Club which will be drawn next weekend. The gentleman in charge of that dropped by to pick up the package.

I printed out some leaflets for my photography workshop and put them on the tables outside the supermarket.

I spoke to Telstra about our appointment next Tuesday to have the NBN connected.

I booked three appointments for The Gypsy.

I ate a punnet of raspberries.

I filled an online shopping cart with Ivy's products - we are almost out of Ivy's bags and purses!

I was out the door at 3.30pm and pedalling home to prepare for my Friday night at the Club.

I was a winner tonight, winning a variety meat pack!

Now I need to sleep.

Nite all.

Australia's Got Talent

I posted this on Facebook and it was the  highlight of my day ...

*** Weirdest thing just happened ... you know how all of you who know me have told me, at some time, to shut up when I sing? Yes, pretty much every single one of you!

Well ... I was singing a Carole King song in the shop this morning while two ladies were browsing.

I was thinking to myself "Poor things .. but it's my shop and it's the price you pay for walking through the door."

One of them walked up to the counter and looked me straight in the eye. She said "You have a beautiful tone when you sing. Even when you hum, it sounds lovely!"

I looked at her and waited for the punch line and she could see the disbelief in my eyes, so she said "I'm serious!"

She made my day - which is why I'm taking this moment to brag.

Thank you very much (in my best Elvis Presley voice)***

The reason I make such a big deal of this is because I KNOW I have a terrible singing voice. I recorded myself singing "I Honestly Love You" when I was a teenager. Until I heard that recording, I believed that I could sing.

I remember the devastating disappointment when I realised that I was tone deaf and would never be a famous singing star!

Many people, during my life, have laughed hysterically at my singing.

Many people have told me to 'not give up my day job' when listening to my singing.

Even Adoring Husband, who loves me, has asked me to NOT sing.

This is why I make such a big deal of today's experience with the lovely lady who told me I have a beautiful tone.

Aside from that, for the first time, I've signed up a male to my next photography workshop. There should actually be two or three males in this class, so that will be interesting ... and very different.

It was a good day in the shop, with quite a few new customers ... and still the locals' catch cry "I didn't know you were here" is echoing in my ears.

I made an appointment for a third pool quote. This will be a concrete pool, instead of fibreglass, and they're coming to see us on Saturday afternoon. A decision will be made very soon after that.

Now I'm going to watch the second half of the footy between my team and Adoring Husband's team. Fingers crossed that my team wins!

Nite all.

Happy Hump Day

Lots of new snap jewellery arrived today, including the new glasses hangers ...

... everybody wants the glasses hangers and the last customer bought seven of them. She wanted ten, but I only had seven left! Now we have seventy of them!

We have around 900 different buttons to choose from, including these lovely new rose gold buttons on the bottom half of this tray.

I spent a lot of time unpacking and pricing and separating and rebagging and rearranging the trays. Tomorrow I will rearrange the button drawers and the jewellery drawers, because there was a box of new pendants and bracelets delivered today and the drawers are all looking a bit out of control at the moment!

It's just like Christmas when the boxes arrive - there are always surprises because we can never remember everything that we ordered.

Meditation was great this morning and it seems Wednesdays are much better for me, for The Gypsy and for others - especially starting fifteen minutes later than usual. It's amazing the difference fifteen minutes can make.

I enjoyed my chats with The Gypsy between customers today. We always have lively conversations analysing and making fun of ourselves and the strange ways that our minds trick us. Always enlightening and insightful!

The afternoon was VERY quiet and not a soul walked through the doors after 1.30pm. I still had a lot to do so I didn't close the doors until almost 4.30pm, but still ... nobody came!

The Butcher only had five customers all day and he was complaining about how quiet it was. Even The Happy Abode had more than five customers and we're hidden up the back!

As every customer leaves our shop, I ask them to spread the word and it seems that they are all doing exactly that. Some take extra business cards to pass around, some take our postcards and some just walk out the door excited to tell all and sundry about the beautiful little shop hidden behind Elders.

But still the locals are coming through the doors saying "We didn't even know you were here!"

After TEN MONTHS!

If I had a secret that I didn't want anyone to know about, the whole town would know in matter of days! But when we WANT the whole town to know about our little shop, it takes a year or more for the word to spread!

Go figure!

Anyway, it's after 10pm so I'm off to bed. Sleep time for me.

Nite all.  

The Craziness Continues

It was crazy busy in The Happy Abode today with lots of new customers.

A customer on Saturday asked if she could take a handful of our postcards to hand out at the caravan park, so I handed her about twenty postcards.

She returned to the shop on Monday and told me that she had handed them all out to everyone she saw in the park.

I'm certain that all of those people who received a card came into the shop today, all gasping in awe at our shop and all of them wanting to spend money.

I sold one of my photos to a lady who had just moved into her brand new house in town and needed something special for her entry area. What an honour!

It was a big day and I had to draw the winner of our '300 likes' on the Facebook page celebration. The winner won over $100 worth of beautiful products from The Happy Abode.

It's now almost 11.30pm and I need to be up really early for meditation in the morning, so I'm outta here.

I've done my Deepak Chopra meditation for the night - I'm doing a 21 Day challenge - The Energy of Attraction - to bring health and happiness to our lives. Today is day two. There is a message for each day, a twenty minute meditation with Sanskrit Mantra and three or four journal entries where a question is asked and we write our thoughts, experiences and desires.

I do like Deepak Chopra and fall asleep to his 'Perfect Health' meditation every night.

If I don't go to sleep now, I'm going to struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

So ... nite all.

Local Connection

How strange that in the last few days, I've had three different locals tell me that they hadn't been to The Happy Abode because they thought it was a hippie new age type of shop and that's the type of thing that they're not interested in.

There were quite a few locals who came into the shop today, straight from 'craft' because they admired some jewellery that one of the ladies was wearing and were told it came from The Happy Abode.

As usual, they were pleasantly surprised by what they saw and heaped praise in our direction.

Another lady said that we had obviously worked hard to create a harmonious and welcoming environment with a warm atmosphere and that she loved being in the space.

On the weekend, at the markets, I commissioned a lady to create a bracelet for me and today, she delivered it to me at the shop ...

... the light is not good because I took the photo tonight beside a table lamp, but I *LOVE* it so much!  It's blue and silver and I especially love those big shiny silver dragon heads to remind me of Chicklet!

Here is the updated photo of the display that I changed last week ...

I did some more rearranging today and I spent some time with a lady who came especially to see me because her husband has been diagnosed with Parkinson's. Somebody told her that I might be able to offer some advice.

We chatted for about half an hour and then it got busy in the shop, so she left with an open invitation to return any time. We had a good chat and I think she was relieved to get a lot off her chest.

The Gypsy was in today and was booked out for the morning, but had to leave early to run an errand in Gympie. She's almost booked out for Wednesday too.

Adoring Husband was kind enough to come to the shop and do some 'lunch' shopping for me - an avocado, some shallots, a lemon and some smoked ham with a coffee. He then returned at 3pm to help me close the shop.

Some new snap jewellery arrived in the mail today and there should be more arriving every day this week and next.

Before I head off to bed, I must offer some birthday wishes!!

Happy birthday to my 'much cleverer than bubbles' daughter who reminds me of my favourite AA Milne quote ...

I hope you have the most fabulous day ever!

... and to The Motivator who still hasn't caught up to me ...

I hope you have an amazing day in Sydney with your family and you get to feel the love.

Obviously 24th July is a very special date producing very special people!

Nite all.

Super Sunday

I've had a super Sunday.

My only achievement was getting my washing done.

Adoring Husband found this in Facebook, which describes my Sundays perfectly!

Who knew that other people do this cocooning thing on Sundays?

I gained two points on Adoring Husband in the footy tipping comp!

There was a blackout during the night. I got out of bed at around 4.30pm to go to the bathroom, but when I switched on the light, nothing happened. In my sleepy head, I though to myself "Damned light has blown. Must tell AH in the morning."

I realised as I opened the bathroom door to return to the bedroom, that the street lights were out and it was VERY dark in the bedroom. No idea why the blackout occurred and I'm not even sure what time the power came back on, but that's the only thing of interest that happened during my Sunday.

So I'm off to bed for an early night. No early meditation tomorrow because we've changed it to Wednesdays.

I thought I'd share these before I go ...

Nite all.