Flare Up

Last night, after I finished the blog post, I took the dogs outside for their final pee before bed and I found this!

It was a little disconcerting and difficult to go straight to bed until I'd checked the QFES updates a number of times to make sure we were not in immediate danger.

This morning, the sky was still very smoky, but the fire was much smaller and here we were, feeling safe and believing that the worst was over.

When BAM!!

The sky became dark with thick brown and black smoke, there were planes with sirens, helicopters and fire trucks all over the place!

The wind had changed direction and strengthened and here we were in the danger zone again.

The Motivator took these photos (she took the video that I put on yesterday's blog post too!)

That lasted for about three hours until the wind changed direction again, which didn't reduce the danger, but DID clear the sky. As of this afternoon, things appear to have calmed somewhat ...

For the third night in a row, we are still with bags packed, ready to evacuate if necessary and we are currently on the "STAY INFORMED" list, which is our best status so far. They are still concerned that conditions could change at any time, so we are not completely in the clear.

While I was waiting for the fire to make a decision about how bad it wanted to get, I decided to do some art. Adoring Husband had to go into town for some medical tests, so I had the house to myself.

I'm quite happy with the results of this one and in this case, the real thing looks better than the photo.

Tomorrow is Saturday and I'll be working at The Happy Abode, so I'd best get some sleep.

Nite all.

Not Quite Over

It was a restless night for me.

We packed a bag each and put them in the back of the car ready for a quick getaway and went to sleep hoping that the fire would turn on itself as predicted.

The skies were clear when we woke and there was no sign of the fire, which was a relief, but as the day wore on, it flared up again and now we are on alert for a second night, and the bags are waiting at the back door, just in case!

I spent a lot of today cleaning dry paint out of 34 plastic cups and their lids to return to the shop tomorrow. Not an easy job considering how small and fragile the cups are, but I got it done and then cleaned my own cups and tools ready for my next stint of painting.

Trouble is, after 2 hours of cleaning, I didn’t have the energy to paint! I wasn’t sure what to paint, so I spent 30 minutes going through my bucket list of “art to try” and by the time I decided, my energy was not high enough to spend another 2 hours at the studio table mixing paints and then concentrating on the art - because I didn’t pick something simple from my list.

I had to make an early dinner because Adoring Husband was off to SES training tonight. Did I mention that he has decided to go back in an Admin role? Needless to say that there was no training tonight because some of the crew were out in the flood boat monitoring the river banks for runaway flames, so he wasn’t gone for too long.

My photography crystal lens ball arrived in the mail today!

I think I’m off to bed now and hope for a less restless night!

Nite all.

One Extreme to the Next

My day has been both fabulous and scary.

It began with shopping and lunch with the girls at ‘Salt’ restaurant on the waterfront to celebrate a special birthday for Lady Lynn.

One of my favourite shops in The Bay is called Luxe. They sell the same brand of silk clothing as we do at The Happy Abode but their prices are MUCH higher, like 30% higher! They also have other beautiful clothes and I purchased a top and two Summery cardigans.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the original plan was to sit out on the deck, but the gale force winds soon blew us inside. We enjoyed delicious food and I selected freshly squeezed juice in place of an alcoholic beverage.

Much to Lady Lynn’s surprise, we presented a gift to her. She read the card and cried. She opened the gift and cried. She loved it and told us we were naughty. Our banter and cheekiness and laughter filled the room and we had such a good time together. I really enjoyed myself.

After lunch, I visited the gift shop nearby and introduced myself to the owner. When I told her about The Happy Abode, her eyes lit up and she told me that she had heard about us from a LOT of ladies and they always said amazing things about us. It was nice to hear.

We jumped in the car, drove to pick up my photos from the framer and then stopped at Eli Waters, initially for one of the girls to get something in Woollies, but while she was there the rest of us had to check out the dress shop.

More money was spent. We departed that shop feeling very happy ... still!

I checked my phone as we drove home to discover messages from Adoring Husband saying that he was hosing the grass roof of the Bali hut because there was ash floating across the river and that the town of Woodgate had been evacuated.

As we drove into town, we chose to go to the boat ramp to investigate the fire situation. This is what we saw.

The SES advised that they were concerned about the fire possibly crossing the river and we would have to evacuate, so that caused some concern.

We have packed the back of the car with all our important goods and chattels so if we get called out in the middle of the night, all we have to do is grab the psychotic dogs and go.

Right now, they’re hoping that the expected wind change will turn the fire back on itself and there are SES boats monitoring the river banks keeping an eye on everything. Fingers crossed that it pans out that way and everybody, along with their property, will be safe.

It’s quite scary!

We’ve had no dinner tonight.

Now it’s time for some trashy TV before bed.

Nite all.

Break Time

This post, I’ll give you a break from health education, except to say that today, I am feeling physically strong and pain free. I feel GREAT! Better than I have in a long time!

Strangely, I did not get to sleep until 2am on Tuesday morning and Psychotic dog Jack woke me at 5.05am. After I took him outside, I returned to bed and dozed on and off until 7.30am.

Even though I knew I was meeting the girls for coffee, I didn’t get out of bed until 8.45!

It took me 15 minutes to shower, wash my hair, put on my make-up, get dressed, gather my goods and climb in the car for Adoring Husband to drive me to my coffee date.

Everyone was already there waiting for Yours Truly. Two of the girls had to leave early so I didn’t get much time with them, but the rest of us yabbered on for another hour before visiting The Happy Abode for a little while.

After they left, The Motivator and I cleared the training room in preparation for meditation class on Wednesday. I chopped up some cardboard boxes, vacuumed the entire shop and emptied the bins ready for bin night before AH picked me up.

We planned on going into The Bay, but by the time we got ourselves organised, I remembered that I had to be back for hooping class and we didn’t want to rush the trip so we stayed at home.

I visited the new butcher in town and purchased some meat. We had marinated chicken wings for lunch, which were juicy and tender, then lamb cutlets for dinner with roasted cauliflower, sweet potato and Brussels sprouts. The lamb was divine. AH also cooked three of their “mongrel” sausages on the barbecue with the lamb.

Apparently they are a combination of meats and they too were very tasty. So at this point, we are very happy with the new butcher!

I started to clean some of the paint mixing cups in the studio so that I could return them to the shop, but I didn’t get very far because hoop time snuck up on me!

Again, I was the only one to turn up for hooping so lucky me got one on one attention and learned a few new tricks. I really must practice these tricks at home so that I can be more impressive in the next class!

I had a whole lot more energy and ease of movement today and I left the class with a bounce in my step instead of dragging one foot in front of the other like the last two weeks.

It was a great class.

This evening, I’ve enjoyed my Love Island trash TV and now I’m ready for bed.

Tomorrow we are having an early celebration of Lady Lynn’s birthday over lunch. I’m looking forward our day together!

Nite all.

Systems Of Us

Did you know that the human body has an Endocannabinoid system?

It goes on the list with the other 11 systems in the body eg circulatory, muscular, nervous and immune systems to name a few.

It is a newly discovered system and appears to be more important than the immune system when it comes to protection and healing.

To be strong and effective, this system requires the cannabis herb.

For thousands of years, humans used cannabis very effectively for pain, health and healing. Drs prescribed it for almost every condition from small cuts to chronic pain and diseases. It was given to children for childhood ailments.

Cannabis is non addictive and nontoxic. You can’t overdose, it has no negative side effects and it is a curative ie it helps the body mend itself.

It was legal right up until the end of prohibition.

Prohibition created a LOT of employment and new departments which were highly funded by the government, so when alcohol became legal, they needed to find something new for these government departments to police.

Cannabis became the new ‘something’.

They created scare campaigns and advertising through the media to frighten us into believing that cannabis was the new gateway drug to even worse addictive drugs.

THEN with cannabis out of the picture, they had to create new prescription drugs to take its place, which included opioids and any number of toxic synthetic poisons that we use today.

The trouble is that those drugs have earned pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and governments billions and billions and billions of dollars, so the last thing they want is for cannabis to become legal again.

In a nutshell, there are CB1 receptors in the central nervous system which deal with pain and there are CB2 receptors in the immune cells that deal with inflammation. When there is noxious stimuli (a potentially damaging event in the body), the endocannabinoid system naturally reduces pain and inflammation and attempts to heal the body.

This system needs cannabis to do this effectively.

Which explains why you hear so many stories about cannabis stopping or reducing seizures, reducing or stopping pain in the chronically ill, reducing the size of tumours, reduces and/or removes the symptoms of arthritis, heart disease, anxiety, depression etc etc.

It’s not just masking the symptoms, but actually helping the body heal itself.

Cannabis comes in tinctures, balms and salves, capsules, oil and many other forms for various uses and treatments.

In the USA where in some states, cannabis is legal, prescription drug use has dropped considerably, so it’s proving to be very effective.

Anyway, that’s my medical information for the day and I still have four more hours of this Docu-series to watch, so you could hear more about this yet.

I swam a lot today. No art because there is no space left until the other 6 pieces dry. It was a very relaxing day which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Now it’s WAY AFTER midnight! I’d best get some sleep!

Nite all.

As Promised

Ok, so I have gathered most of my information about “lectins” through researching and living the Paleo lifestyle and more recently via Dr Steven Gundry who was a Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Heart Surgeon until he realised that the human body can prevent the damage that he was working so hard on repairing.

He now focuses on diet and lifestyle while performing all kinds of research and scientific tests to prove his health theories.

Most of you know that Adoring Husband and I decided to go Paleo in late 2013 just after he was diagnosed with PD, high blood pressure and GERD (Gastroesopageal Reflux Disease).

In the first 3 months AH lost 17kgs and I lost 13kgs. AH’s blood pressure returned to normal and the GERD disappeared.

Removing foods with lectins from our diet was part of the Paleo plan.

There is a long list of foods with high lectin content which includes tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant, potatoes, squash, zucchini, goji berries, beans, peanuts, wheat, dairy and eggs. Wholegrains are off the list - pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, peanuts, cashews, oats quinoa, rye, barley,buckwheat, corn, rice and spelt.

So ... what are lectins???

Lectins are microscopic proteins that plants evolved to defend themselves from predators, including insects and animals (that includes humans!). They are essentially indigestible and have the unique ability to increase the permeability of your intestines. That means that they can pass through the wall of your gut, and will be treated as foreign invaders by your immune system. This causes an inflammatory response, which can set the stage for a host of diseases, as well as weight gain.

The people who have followed Dr Gundry’s dietary guidelines have reversed diseases/conditions like heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, all forms of arthritis, blood pressure problems, auto-immune diseases, digestive issues and more.

Just like Paleo, there are tens of thousands of people who will tell you their stories of going from chronic illness to good health.

There also many stories of people who tell you that it didn’t work for them, but they are the people who did not commit long term or only made a half hearted attempt.

With Paleo, it takes the body 10 weeks to release all the yuck from a life time of bad eating and drinking and reset itself ready to repair and thrive on the new lifestyle.

Since we opened The Happy Abode 2 years ago, our commitment to Paleo has swung and wavered wildly and our well-being has definitely suffered for it. We’ve recently talked about making a new commitment to our health because all those so-called symptoms of ‘old age’ are creeping back and we don’t like them!

We know how strong, vibrant and energised we felt while we were focused before and we want that feeling back. AH has gained 10kgs and I’ve gained 3.5kgs and we are feeling it in all the worst ways - even to the point of needing afternoon naps!

I’ve talked before about how the human body replaces itself. In a healthy human, the stomach lining replaces itself every 4 days, the skin every 35 days, the liver takes 6 weeks to replace itself and the skeleton every 3 months, just to mention a few.

That’s a healthy human. One that is fed lots of nutrients full of vitamins and minerals, NOT damaging processed foods, toxic chemicals, poisons like alcohol and synthetic drugs and I could give you a list a mile long of everything that damages your body and hinders the healing process.

The first thing I’m doing for myself is removing the lectins from my diet. There are really only 5 on that list that I need to remove and they are tomatoes, capsicum, potatoes, cashews and dairy (coffee). Those five have been almost my staples, especially tomatoes of which I was eating 2 or 3 every day.

The rest on the list haven’t been in our pantry for a very long time

It will be interesting to monitor the changes in how I’m feeling.

Just a quick mention that Google is now a Pharmaceutical Company, so any searches that you do related to health will be directed to mainstream medical information and it will be more difficult to find a wide variation of natural or alternative health treatments. Ugh!

So that’s just some basic and very summarised information on lectins and how relevant they are to our health, or lack there of.

I’m off to bed now.

Oh and I painted these today!

Nite all.

Lectin-less

I promise! Lectins tomorrow!

For some reason, I could not sleep last night, even with 2 meditations and my sweet sleep essential oil.

There was nothing on my mind, but I lay in bed for 3 hours with my eyes closed and unable slip from my conscious state.

Psychotic dog Jack woke me as Adoring Husband left for work at 5am-ish so I’ve been running all day on two hours sleep.

AH and I arrived at the shop just after 8am and finished setting up for the art class.

There were 6 people playing today ...

And they made some beautiful art ...

I’ll create a Facebook post tomorrow to show the world how fab everyone was.

AH and I had a brief swim this afternoon, but even I was cold and lasted about 10 minutes before climbing out and jumping under a hot shower!

Barramundi and salad for dinner.

A one hour phone call with Vegan Chickie.

Off to bed for a decent sleep.

Nite all.

Friendly Friday

Again, no lectin post because it’s late and this will be a short one.

I woke up at 8.40am - actually, I woke at 5.45am, reached across and cancelled my alarm before it went off, then rolled over and went back to sleep until 8.40am.

I was a bit shocked when I realised how late it was, however, I stayed in bed until 11.30am.

The pool was my next destination and I spent an hour swimming 21 laps, doing water aerobics and floating.

I’d made plans to meet The Motivator at The Happy Abode, so I ducked into my studio and threw some paint on a canvas ...

At 1.30pm Adoring Husband dropped me at the shop where TM and I linked arms and skipped around in circles while she showed me everything that she had done during the week, then I got dizzy 😵 so we chatted for a while before finishing the set up for tomorrow’s art class.

While I was doing that, a man came into the shop and asked if he could join the art class! Adoring Husband is going to join the class too so it’s going to be interesting with a couple of blokes in the mix.

We left the shop at around 3.30ish and arranged for TM to come home for a swim.

In the 20 minutes until she arrived, AH and I rushed around like headless chooks attempting to make our house and pool area look somewhat presentable. We’ve been slack home owners of late.

She and I had some real quality time in the pool until it began to get chilly at 5.30pm.

After she left I cooked up some duck with asparagus, carrots, zucchini and a mushroom, shallot and walnut sauce. Delicious.

Now it’s almost 11pm so I’d best get some sleep so that I’m bright and breezy for class tomorrow.

Nite all.

Check it.

Ok so I decided to save the lectins for another post.

Instead, I’m sharing this YouTube video of Anthony Williams (The Medical Medium) talking to Jelena Djokovic (wife of No 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic) about the liver and finding the road to good health.

It’s 47 minutes long but has many great snippets of useful information for those who want to take some control over your health and not have to rely on prescriptions to mask the symptoms of whatever condition you are suffering from.

While your meds are masking symptoms, the disease is still in your body creating internal havoc AND the medication will surprise you with long term side effects and damage in the years to come.

If you want ‘quality’ old age, you really need to be your own health care advocate and create a healthful environment in which your body can ‘thrive’ instead of a toxic one that it has to ‘cope’ with.

I loaned Aggie one of this guy’s books “Liver Rescue” and I have just purchased his “Life Changing Foods”. I sent “Thyroid Healing” to Beautiful Girl With Long Blond Hair for Christmas last year and I know a number of my customers (in their 60s & 70s) who follow his dietary guidelines and are feeling more vibrant and strong since making the change.

These things always have more meaning for me if I can see positive results in others who’ve tried it.

So without further ado, here is the video.

Jelena and Anthony

Everyone is different and there is no single health miracle that suits everyone, but you owe it to yourself to understand your body and learn how to nurture it with a healthful diet and lifestyle to make you the strongest healthiest version of yourself possible.

We don’t want to be limping to life’s finish line feeling like crap if we can avoid it.

Let’s move on!

Today, I did washing and spent quality time in my studio. It took me two hours to create these ...

I like them both. I may even squeeze one more in before bed tonight 👩‍🎨

We had barramundi with roasted cauliflower and zucchini and a big salad for dinner.

Junk TV is on my agenda for the moment.

TGIF!

Nite all.

I'm a Loser!

Tenth out of Eleven teams!

We did very poorly in trivia tonight. Unusually so. Now that I think about it,  instead of passing our answers to the table beside us to check and score for us, the organisers, for the first time, allowed each team to score their own rounds.

I have a sneaking suspicion that people may have had a little cheat here and there. Just sayin'.

Instead of going to the movies to see the movie "Judy" with the girls this morning, I decided to stay at home and have some 'me' time.

I felt like I needed to quietly reset.

I got out of bed at 9am, tested the pool water and decided that a swim was definitely part of my plan for the morning so I changed into my swimmers/bathers/togs and made my way to the Bali hut with my iPad for playing, my iPhone for music, a bottle of water and a towel.

The first hour was spent sitting on the lounge playing on my iPad and listening to 70s music, enjoying the mild weather with the gentle breeze.

The second hour was spent in the pool. I dived down to pick up a few leaves that had settled on the bottom after those strong gusty winds that we experienced in the last couple of days. I meditated in the pool nook for about twenty minutes, swam a few laps, floated for about twenty minutes and then lay in the big pod seat for about ten minutes enjoying the sunshine.

It was absolutely perfect and left me feeling completely energised.

I threw a load in the washing machine, changed into dry clothes and decided to give my studio a good clean out.

I took me about two and half enjoyable hours to tidy up and reorganise my 'stuff', of which I have a LOT!! I could almost open a shop selling art supplies!!

I feel excited to get in there tomorrow and throw some paint around. A lovely clear space to start making a new mess!

Adoring Husband and I teamed together to make dinner which was kangaroo fillet with salad. He cooked the kangaroo beautifully on the barbecue, but still it was a little chewy.

We left ourselves half an hour to get ready for trivia.

Even though we were disappointed in our poor performance, it was a good night and we won a special prize for providing a ridiculous answer to the big baffler question. We got a few good laughs and snorts during the night.

Now it's already 11.30pm so I'd best get to bed.

Tomorrow I hope to tell you all about 'lectins', my new discovery in the area of health.

Nite all.

I’m a Winner

I sat in bed this morning practicing some EFT/tapping.

I tapped all the points on my head, face and chest while reciting how open I was to receiving money. I  announced how welcome money would be and that I deserved to have extra money in my life. I tapped for about eight minutes.

I won $120 on the Melbourne Cup sweeps! I still have a keno ticket to check so you never know!

I had been looking forward to spending today with friends, but as the time drew near to get ready, I could feel my energy levels lagging and I struggled to not only get ready, but to even be social during the 2.5 hours that I was there.

The Motivator closed the shop early so that she could join us and the customers sure kept her busy right up until the very last minute!

I didn’t realise that everyone was arriving at 11am so I didn’t lob up until almost midday! Lady Lynn very kindly saved two seats for TM and I. By the time I got money out of the ATM, bought raffle tickets, sweeps, put keno on and bought myself a drink, we were being called in to get lunch.

The $40 that I paid for the event didn’t go very far. All I could eat was 4 prawns, 2 pieces of calamari and some salad. I didn’t like the barramundi and due to my dietary requirements, I had to be selective of the salads.

I bought $34 worth of sweeps tickets, $20 on keno and $8 for my one and only drink.

So I actually finished the day $12 in front - but that depends on whether Keno was kind to me.

I didn’t get any photos of myself or of me with anyone else so there is no proof that I was there! I didn’t have the energy or the motivation to move around the table or around the room to chat with the people I knew.

I did feel good in my new top!

At 2.35pm I called Adoring Husband to come pick me up because I had hoop dancing to get to at 3pm. This gave me just enough time to go home and change into more comfortable attire, grab my hoop and for AH to drop me at the hall.

At first we couldn’t get into the hall because Elders Real Estate, where The Gypsy collects the key, had closed for the day (for staff to attend the same function as I was at), so after an initial panic, we were able to locate another key and the hall was open for just The Gypsy and myself!

It seems our hooping group were all enjoying Melbourne Cup celebrations, but most failed to let anyone know.

So I received a very intense one on one hooping lesson that once again left me dragging one foot in front of the other to reach the car at the end.

When I arrived home, I had to bathe Psychotic dog Ruby’s eyes before I could sit down briefly before preparing dinner.

I cooked up a couple of lobster tails for dinner and served them with salad.

I sit here now, realising that I haven’t had coffee today and there is a headache building in the back of my skull. Perfect.

My pillow is calling my name.

Nite all.

Finished Business

Today was spent finishing all the incomplete business from Friday.

I picked up the photos from the printers, dropped them into the framers, got the price of the metallic photo, took my iPad to get the SIM card (and it only took 27 minutes instead of 3 hours!), bought some bras and a new pair of white pants to wear to the Melbourne Cup luncheon tomorrow then did a quick grocery shop.

We sat down to some GF battered snapper, bought a coffee via the drive thru and came home.

I think it was about 3pm when we arrived home.

I did nothing for the remainder of the afternoon, while Adoring Husband read his new book about Paul Gallen. The silence in the house was quite lovely.

The pool water was warm but I still didn’t go in. I don’t know why.

Dinner was super easy because we’d bought a roast pork from Coles so no effort required.

It’s now just after 9.30pm and the rain has started. I’ve been watching this system on the BOM and it started way way out west and has got weaker as it got closer to us, but there is still some nice wet stuff falling out of the sky. We need it.

Well I hope you all have a fun Melbourne Cup day. I’m off to bed now.

Nite all.

Seriously?!

Missed it again.

Doing my blog post that is.

😳

I spent Saturday morning at the shop with The Motivator and we tried on all the new clothes that arrived on Friday ...

Two of those tops now hang happily in my wardrobe.

It was around 1.30pm when I arrived home with a bag full of groceries and my new tops.

I tested the pool water but chose not to go in and I wasn’t in the mood for art so after I prepared lunch, it was time to veg in front of the TV.

After a good night’s sleep on Saturday night, my Sunday was a bit disappointing.

Adoring Husband gave me breakfast in bed and soon after I got up to again test the pool water - it felt a bit chilly so I decided to get artistic.

I was disappointed in both of my efforts and have decided to give my studio a good clean out before I attempt more art.

It feels so messy and cluttered - one cannot be creative in a cluttered environment!! 😳😳😳

AH and I watched Netflix all afternoon.

So productive!

Now I’m off to bed. We have to go into The Bay tomorrow to do all the things that I couldn’t do on Friday.

Nite all.

Down Side

I had today all planned out.

1. Drive into The Bay early to print out some photos for a customer.
2. Go to the framer to drop the photos in for mat boarding and get a price on one of their framed metal photos.
3. Pick up some super strength probiotics from Go Natural.
4. Take my iPad in to get a SIM card.
5. Go to the butcher to get chicken frames to make broth.
6. Get dropped off at Goodies before midday for Aggie’s birthday lunch.

These were my obstacles.

1. The printers have changed their pricing so ‘while you wait’ pics are now almost double the price of ‘next day’ pics. To make a profit on my pics, I had to leave them overnight, which immediately threw a spanner in my works.
2. I visited the framer to get the price on the metallic framed photo, but the doors were locked with a sign advising they were closed due to illness.
3. I picked up the probiotics from Go Natural.
4. My iPad was very inconveniently left at home. Ugh.
5. The butcher was selling chicken frames for either $2.50 (crazy!) each OR 20 for $10 so we got a giant box of chicken frames. That’s enough to make broth for a year I reckon!
6. I DID get dropped off at Goodies before midday.

The girls and I waited for The Brains Trust to arrive before we ordered our lunch from the menu. I ordered GF Salt n Pepper Calamari which came with sweet potato fries and salad.

The waitress brought my meal to me and as I took my first mouthful, she came running back to the table declaring “I’m sorry! That’s NOT the GF calamari”

Ugh. (Insert ‘F’ word here)

I spat the mouthful out, but we all know how sensitive I am to gluten. The effects began before we even left the restaurant and have continued into this evening. Not at all pleasant but I will survive.

The GF meal was delicious and even though I was tempted to have the GF brownie with hot chocolate sauce and pouring cream for dessert, I chose to be kind to my body and not give it any more food that would be purged later!

It was a really lovely afternoon spent with fabulous company. The weather was fine and mild. The tide was high providing great water views and we got some snorting laughter. What more did we need? A happy birthday girl and a good time was had by all.

I wish we’d taken a photo!

I certainly wasn’t in any fit state for swimming or being creative when I got home but I guess I got my share of exercise trotting back and forth from the bathroom.

After a good night’s sleep, I plan on spending some quality time with The Motivator at the shop in the morning followed by some ‘catch up on my washing’ time!

Oh and welcome to November and there are less than 8 weeks til Christmas!!

Nite all.

All Dressed Up

Thank you Grannymus for your message 😘

For the first time ever, in a work environment, I dressed up for Halloween ...

I bought the broom and the black makeup. Fortunately (or sadly), everything else was stuff stashed somewhere in the house that I gathered together this morning!

My efforts received excellent reviews from the staff in other businesses (who also dressed up) and from customers, some of whom took photos.

It was a fun day and those boots, which I wore for the first time today, were surprisingly comfortable!

Sales were not so good today. Lots of lookers and chatters but few spenders.

The tall boy to go with our bedroom suite was delivered today and we discovered that it won’t fit in our bedroom with the new dressing table when it arrives! So it’s home is now in the hallway outside our bedroom where it actually looks fabulous against the short wall.

Adoring Husband bought us lunch today and sat with me in the shop while we ate, which was nice.

The Motivator, when she landed back in town, dropped in for a quick visit, which was fantastic.

AH returned to help me close the shop and we were home before 3.30pm.

I checked the pool water, which was lovely but not good enough to lure me in.

I browsed my drying art in the studio and contemplated my creative options but chose to leave the room.

I changed out of my work clothes, needing AH’s help to get those dang boots off, and then once again plonked myself in my chair in front of the TV.

We enjoy watching Hard Quiz hosted by Tom Gleeson, followed by Think Tank with Paul McDermott and lastly The Chase with Andrew O’Keefe. This gives us a good 2.5 hours of education five days a week, which will hopefully hold us in good stead for our trivia nights!

Speaking of which, the next trivia night is Wednesday of next week.

Tomorrow is a big day for me. The morning will be filled with running errands in The Bay. The afternoon will be filled with birthday celebrations!

Best get some sleep.

Nite all.

She’s Back!

The Gypsy is back.

We had a full house this morning and everyone was excited to return to meditation after a three week break. There was lots of chatter and lots of involvement in the subject matter. They all departed together to enjoy a coffee around the corner.

They have become a lovely little social group outside of meditation.

The Gypsy and I had a lot to catch up on and she told me all about her retreat at Leura and her new class of hoopers. I caught her up on how my obsession with art has not waned and how sore my body was after yesterday’s hooping class! I needed sympathy.

By midday, not a soul had entered the shop. Then for 45 minutes, I got hammered, followed by a few stragglers before closing time.

I had a nice visit from The Brains Trust and The Garden Guru.

Adoring Husband picked up the FROG box before coming to help me close the shop. We did some groceries before heading home.

I couldn’t quite find the motivation to swim OR get artistic so I plonked myself in my chair until dinner time when I prepared duck breast with salad accompanied by a delicious GF focaccia bread that AH brought home from The Bay today.

It was delicious and very filling.

It has now hit 10.30pm and I’m ready for bed. I’ve been up since 4.45am and I’m feeling it.

The Motivator returns tomorrow. It feels like she’s been gone for months but it’s only been just over two weeks! I’ve missed her so it will be good to see her AND it will be good to have some time off as well.

I am dressing up as a witch for Halloween tomorrow.

Had he lived, the 31st would have been Jamie’s 41st birthday. 🥳🍰🎈

Friday is Aggie’s birthday so we are celebrating over lunch. I’m looking forward to that.

Nite all.

Adoring Husband Rocks

I woke before my alarm this morning.

I was dressed for work 30 minutes early so I decided to check the pool water. It was perfect! I wished I’d checked it earlier because a swim would have been a fabulous way to start the day!

Adoring Husband dropped me at the shops so that I could have coffee with the girls while he went ahead and opened the shop and manned the counter for 45 mins. It would have been 30 minutes but I had to collect the mail and that took a bit longer than I expected.

While I was gone, he cleared the training room and folded the tables. Two of the workshop ladies picked up their paintings and customers actually entered the shop.

I arrived in time to serve the customers and after AH departed, I opened the mail, which was a box of hemp hats. 52 hemp hats ... because they gave us extra for free! I love bonuses.

The girls all came back to the shop after coffee, some of them having a little retail therapy, and I got goodbye hugs 🤗

The morning was incredibly busy, just like last Tuesday and I’m beginning to think that closing on Mondays has had an interesting affect on our sales.

At lunch time yet another stock delivery arrived, so I was busy checking that off. A gentleman came in for a chat - he’s a house sitter and will return in December to sit for 6 weeks - and by the time he left, I was rushed to empty the bins for bin night, finish setting up the training room for meditation, pack my stuff ready leave and get changed ready for hooping class.

AH came early to man the shop for the last ten minutes and then close for me so that I could head off to class. He even vacuumed the training room for me.

What would I do without him?!

It’s been 4 weeks since I hooped. I missed the last class and then The Gypsy was away for two weeks. Boy did my body feel it today! By the end of an hour, all my bits were hurting and I gingerly walked to the car park where AH was waiting to take me home.

I couldn’t even sit down when we arrived home because I knew I’d never get back up! I walked straight into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Spaghetti Bolognese with mung bean pasta. LOL yes you heard that right. The box of pasta was in amongst all the organic, GF food that AH’s son gave him to bring home after his visit to the Gold Coast.

He Manages a group of organic supermarkets, so we are lucky enough to be the recipients of some interesting produce after each of AH’s visits

The pasta really wasn’t bad. It’s not something I’d go searching for again, but it wasn’t awful.

Now I’m ready to watch some trashy “Love Island” TV before I head to bed.

Nite all.

The Way I Like It.

Today was just the way I like it.

Easy, relaxing and quiet.

After a less than sound sleep, I got out of bed at around 9.30am and went straight to the pool. I had to clean out all the little brown beetles first .. it seems that when the rain comes, the beetles appear ... then just like yesterday I swam some laps, danced and floated about until about 11.30am.

I sat around the pool until 12.30pm, had a shower, made a snack and I could hear the art room calling so I jumped under the shower and washed my hair before covering up with paint clothes.

Unfortunately I had some tidying up to do in the studio first and that took about an hour.

Ugh.

First I tried a ‘ring pour’ which did not go at all to plan. The colours didn’t come out very defined and I almost completely lost the beautiful metallic pink that I put in the mix. I used metallic gold, metallic pink, teal, peynes grey and white for this one ...

I decided to use the new Elmers Glue-all as my pouring medium for the next one. It was for this Halloween challenge ...

... and I did two pieces for the challenge ...

Dinner was smoked cod (poached in coconut milk) with salad.

We cleared furniture from the pool area as we anticipated a nasty storm heading in our direction, but it petered out to nothing. All we got out of it was a brief light shower.

Thank you Universe.

It’s now approaching 10pm so I’m off to bed. Big day at work tomorrow clearing out the training room in preparation for meditation on Wednesday AND hoop dancing tomorrow afternoon!

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Nite all.

Not Bounding. Diving.

I slept until 9am!

Ten hours of sleep!

Unheard of.

Adoring Husband brought me bacon, tomato, avocado and coffee in bed.

I’m not sure what time I climbed out of bed, but it was after lunch and I immediately changed into my swimmers/togs/bathers and walked to the pool area.

I connected my new phone to the sound bar and played some oldies but goodies as I slipped into the cool water.

Perfection.

I swam.

I danced.

I floated.

About an hour later, I climbed out and sat in my pod chair. AH soon joined me with a plate of nibbles that he had prepared.

The psychotic dogs all joined us.

And THAT’S where the real fun begins.

Ruby walked to the edge of the pool a couple of times (I’m giggling just remembering this) and AH had little mini panic attacks calling her to come away in case she fell in.

She’s deaf and can’t hear him anyway.

At 2pm the filter, which is on a timer, came on and made a very loud sucking noise, so AH jumped up to check it out.

Before he even reached the skimmer box, there was a splash and Ruby, who is also blind, had fallen into the pool!

AH, who hasn’t even been for his first swim for the season because he thinks it’s too cold, had a bigger panic attack and immediately jumped into the pool fully clothed, to rescue Ruby!

Ruby is such a strong swimmer, he couldn’t even catch her lol.

I said to him “Don’t jump in, just wait for her to swim to the edge of the pool!”, but I was too late, he was IN!

I laughed and laughed!

It was a lazy, easy day filled with nothing else. A barbecued chop with salad for dinner.

Now there is a storm approaching and it’s almost 11pm so I’m off to bed.

I plan another lazy enjoyable day tomorrow 👍

Nite all.