Drizzling

It has been a wet day with drizzling rain.

Aside from cleaning up all the messes that both Adoring Husband and Harley have made today, I spent some time in the art space - not doing art - but enjoying the space.

I have a Sports Bet account which I use once every couple of years - every second Melbourne Cup, if that - last year in November I put $50 in the account so that I could bet on the cup but didn’t spend it all so today I decided to watch the live racing and make some quinella bets at $2 a pop.

My first one came in and I won $20! Wahoo!

Then I proceeded to lose all of my money.

I put $2 each way on a horse called ‘Harley Fat Boy’ that was paying $126 for the win.

It didn’t win.

I had fun losing the $24 that I started with.

After I lost my money, I watched the World Championship Figure Skating on ice (couples) which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I cooked bangers, salad and fried rice for dinner.

Harley was a bit naughty today - no swimming in the pool on cool rainy days and too drizzly to play outside so I think he was a touch bored.

It’s Number One son’s birthday tomorrow (15th) so HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU! 🥳🎁🎈

I can’t believe how tired I feel and it’s not even 8.30pm! I had a restless sleep last night because Harley kept rolling over against the walls of his sleeping pen and banging against the door. I woke at least 5 times.

Hopefully I can sleep soundly tonight.

Nite all.

Silence

BGWLBH drove Adoring Husband into The Bay today so that he could attend a Drs appointment and run some errands.

It was a long day, especially because the doctor was running 90 minutes overtime with his appointments.

He did purchase a new desk chair for me (which I still have to put together) so I’m excited about that!

AH has an infection in his foot which has a crush injury and he has to wear the moon boot for 6 weeks and is now on a course of antibiotics. I swear that man is going to be the death of me.

However …

I got to spend over 3 hours alone and in silence. It’s the first time in almost 8 months that I’ve been alone at home so I turned off the TV and set aside my devices and simply sat there. It was quiet and peaceful and meditative and lovely.

Harley was asleep or playing in the back yard for most of that time but we did spend about 20 minutes playing together.

I cooked some cheese and bacon muffins and served them with salad for their lunch when they arrived home.

Tonight we watched the Djokovic vs Kyrgios exhibition match which I enjoyed very much and I can’t wait for the Australian Open to start on Monday!

For now, it’s 9pm and I’m ready to sleep.

Nite all.

Mini Road Trip

We drove to Dallarnil this morning.

Our cargo was 10 x frozen vegan soup and 6 x vegan ragout plus 2 x containers of fruit salad and a jar of fresh green juice.

It was lovely to see The Gypsy but my goodness she is looking weak and frail. I hope my offerings help to build her strength because it was all made with love and good energy.

We didn’t stay long because she doesn’t have the strength and stamina to manage long visits, so after about 20 minutes, we hugged our goodbyes and were back on the road.

We stopped at Childers to check out the shoe shop (no luck for me), the cheap discount shop where we got some art and craft goodies, the dress shop (no luck again), one of the op shops, the PO gift store and we stopped for drinks and lemon meringue pie at a cafe.

As we drove through Howard, we decided to stop at the new rural produce place and discovered chook poo! We’ve been searching high and low for chook poo, so this was an exciting find for us.

Instead of driving directly home, we stopped to check the mail and pick up our weekly butcher order and were home by 12.30pm.

I prepped an easy lunch for we girls (AH had already eaten) and then played with Harley for a while.

Spent an hour in front of the TV.

Played some more with Harley until he dropped his toy and walked over to the pool fence where he sat and looked at me. I opened the gate and he went straight into the water and swam a couple of laps, got out, shook himself off, picked up his toy and brought it to me to continue our game! 

He’s so clever.

I cooked curried chicken for AH and BGWLBH. I wasn’t hungry for dinner.

It’s now 9.30pm and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open so …

Nite all.

Vegan Cookery

Not much happened yesterday.

Nothing to write home about.

Nothing to blog post about.

This morning was coffee with the girls at the Lions Park and there were nine of us squeezed around the table!

I rode the trike with Harley in the back …

He was very good at the park and only got fidgety in the last 20 minutes. He received lots of cuddles from the girls which made him happy AND the girls happy.

We arrived home at about 11am and then drove to the supermarket for some supplies so that I could make some vegan meals for The Gypsy who, after major surgery with complications, is on a slow road to recovery. Now that her partner is back at work, we thought it would be helpful to make some meals.

I’ve made an anti-inflammatory vegetable soup with turmeric and a Vegan Tuscan Butter Bean Ragout. There are two weeks worth of meals if it’s just The Gypsy eating them. 

We’ll drive out to Dallarnil tomorrow morning and drop them off to her. She is still too sick and very weak to be entertaining visitors so we’ll stay long enough for a hug and a 5 minute conversation.

I made spaghetti bolognese for our dinner tonight, which was delicious. 

Now it’s after 10pm and I’m exhausted.

Nite all.

Toy Boy

BGWLBH and I drove into The Bay early this morning.

While we were out, I purchased a couple of new toys for Harley. He really only liked one of them, a rope tugging toy. The other two make weird noises that he doesn’t like - which is strange because he loves all of his other noisy toys, but these sounds are a bit louder and he doesn’t get to control the noise. They make random noise depending on how you throw them or roll them, where his fave toys need to be squeezed to get the sound.

He was not so good for Adoring Husband today, knocking over a plant cover which had a dish of egg shells drying in the sun. He squished them into the grass and made a big fat mess on the lawn.

He can now jump on the family room furniture and AH found him sleeping on the couch …

AH’s foot is still very sore but he’s doing ok.

I had an afternoon nap on the couch and cooked some pork ribs that I’d been marinating for two days in home made mulberry chilli. Served with fresh coleslaw, leftover roast veg and a garden salad.

We played trivia.

I watched ‘The Bachelors’ … interesting.

Time to sleep.

Nite all.

Got the Boot

Well Adoring Husband’s foot was looking pretty nasty this morning so he drove himself to Hervey Bay Hospital. It’s his left foot that’s injured which is not required for driving. 

He was issued with instructions to not let them vaccinate him and to refuse any RAT or PCR tests.

As it turned out, they didn’t even ask if he was vaccinated and even though he was the only person not wearing a mask, they did not question him.

It only took three hours from when he left here to when he returned home and he even stopped at the drive through coffee place on the way home.

At the hospital they x-rayed his foot and fitted him with a moon boot. No fracture.

To top off such a surprisingly easy morning, at the coffee drive through,  he was told that the person in the car before him had paid for his coffee! How nice was that!?

It has been a good Harley day. The only hiccup was when BGWLBH and I drove out to Farm Gate this afternoon, AH left Harley’s treats on the little table so Harley stole them and we found the empty bag outside. Cheeky bugger.

He had a swim this afternoon and we played fetch a few times. He played with his toys by himself in the yard and he slept at my feet when we played trivia. He can now jump on the furniture under the Bali hut AND in the family room. He’s a growing boy.

In two days we ate almost all of the Farm Gate produce that we bought on Friday so we returned today and stocked up on more tomatoes, cucumber, watermelon, plums, garlic, green apples, eggs, ginger beer and mulberry jam (delicious in my chilli sauces and marinades!).

We stopped at the supermarket on the way home to grab some extras.

BGWLBH got very arty today and produced some nice work while I spent time in YouTube searching for ideas for me. No luck.

Tonight was roast chicken night with roast potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot, onion and steamed broccoli and beans topped with home made gravy. It was delicious.

It’s already 9.30pm and I’m feeling weary.

Nite all.

Completed

My vision board is complete.

It now takes pride of place on my bedroom wall.

The first half of today was an excellent Harley day, but at some point around 2pm, he started to go loopy and out of control for about 4 hours.

Ugh 😩 

Adoring Husband dropped a tree stump onto his foot today and did quite a bit of damage. At first we thought it might be broken but now we think it’s soft tissue damage.

We did the cold compress every 15 minutes for three hours and kept the foot elevated. The swelling has reduced and the bruising is coming out but he is in a lot of pain.

BGWLBH played nurse because she’s a nurturer. I supported her.

During the three hours of cold compressing we played trivia and she defeated me 3-0. I was terrible.

I took Harley for a swim today and he swam a few full laps and also sat in my arms for about ten minutes!

For dinner I did crispy skinned chicken and made a chilli mulberry sauce to go with it.

Bloody delicious!

I served it with broccoli, carrots, zucchini and a combined sweet potato and potato mash mixed with spinach, onion and diced tomatoes.

AH asked for seconds.

I am falling asleep as I type so I’d best get some sleep!

Harley on toilet cleaning duties with BGWLBH. Very helpful. Not.

Nite all.

Envisioning

Covid vaccine injury report The CDC was forced to release this report.

I made a good start on my vision board today.

It’s a bit of a different style to what I normally do, but similar in other ways.

I actually pulled last year’s board apart so that I could repurpose some of my favourite pictures, quotes and words.

I hope to have it complete by tomorrow and I’ll take a pic to post here.

Harley has been busy with everybody today. Swimming, running, tugging, chasing, jumping, catching, chewing and getting up to the usual mischief.

Adoring Husband Harley-sat while BGWLBH and I drove out to Raintree to select some fresh fruit and vegetables from the Farm Gate stall. I purchased some mulberry jam which I’m keen to have on my toast in the morning!

We played trivia tonight after dinner (chicken wings) but stopped mid game … to be continued tomorrow evening … BGWLBH is way in front so AH and I have our work cut out for us.

I had a very interrupted night of sleep last night so I’m feeling particularly weary tonight. Definitely sleep time for me.

First a video of Harley with his plastic duck watering can …

Nite all.

Spend Up

BGWLBH and I drove into The Bay early this morning and enjoyed breakfast outdoors at Bean Beat cafe.

First stop after breakfast was Office Works where I had a $200 voucher to spend.

My selections were: 

• a good quality mechanical pencil with some extra HB and 2B leads
• a couple of cheaper mechanical pencils with added erasers
• two folders with plastic inserts to store my smaller art pieces
• two lovely boxes to store photos
• 3 different sized white Posca pens
• 3 x paint brushes
• a ‘goals’ journal
• a lemon coloured pen with a gold letter ‘R’
• some metallic heart stickers
• some white acrylic paint
• a single hole punch
• a gift
• and a couple of other bits and bobs.

I wasn’t even adding up as I selected my items but when I got to the checkout, the total was $197.20! So I still have $2.80 left to spend haha.

It took us 1 hour and 20 minutes and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

From there we drove to Tinkerbell’s where I had a $300 voucher to spend! It took me an hour to select two rings - one labradorite and one natural peridot - and two essential oils (lavender and clove bud).

I eyed off a beautiful bracelet with a beautiful price tag which I’m still considering and MAY put on layby for my birthday.

We then went to Stocklands to be disappointed that our fruit and vegetable kiosk has not returned from Christmas break yet. I can’t remember the return date that they had on their sign so we’ll go to Farm Gate tomorrow afternoon to see what we can pick up.

So we shopped at Coles, the bakery, the chemist, Jeans West and Su Jus cafe.

We had to pick up some TP for Adoring Husband’s work requirements.

Oh and we did our lotto tickets while we were on the Esplanade too.

It was a busy and full day that wore us out.

Harley was very happy to see us return - apparently he barked and howled and got a bit frantic when I first left, which is a worry.

It was fun unpacking all of our purchases when we arrived home and we got to play for a little bit. I put my art in the new folders, tested out my new pen and found homes for all of my goodies. 

I played with Harley for a while and then prepared some salads while AH cooked our snags on the barbecue.

We played trivia and BGWLBH won the game that we’d started last night.

I brought Harley to bed a little earlier than usual because he didn’t have a ‘witching hour’ and seemed to be getting a little excitable at 7.30pm. He settled quickly thank goodness.

It felt like a lot more but the storms only provided 14mm of rain for us last night. It rained for a long time but it was obviously very light.

Now it’s time to sleep. This is how Harley sleeps on the kitchen floor while I cook. He’s getting big!

Nite all.

Early Rise

Harley decided that 4.45am was a good time to wake up this morning.

Luckily I had gone to sleep at 9pm, but I was up twice during the night for my own bathroom needs, so I wasn’t too impressed with this early start.

He’s had a bit of a restless day and couldn’t settle while we were at the park this morning.

He’d had an early morning swim and a game of fetch and when we arrived at the park, I took him for a walk along the path hoping that would tire him out.

No such luck.

We came home and he went for another swim, then slept for about 90 minutes.

All of us took turns trying to amuse him during the afternoon and I brought out the giant stuffed dog, a Tupperware Shape o Ball and an old plastic duck watering can.

He humped the stuffed dog, played soccer with the Tupperware ball and chewed the ducks beak almost completely off.

Tonight while we played trivia, I gave him the duck and he very noisily played soccer with it all through the house! Then he would pick it up by the handle and trot back the mat inside the back door to start the process all over again.

It was hilarious to watch and he was having such a good time with his tail wagging happily as he played.

Adoring Husband got cranky because Harley was too noisy but BGWLBH and I were almost wetting our pants laughing so hard.

Anyway, after an earlier than usual start, I am very tired and we are hoping to go in to The Bay tomorrow so I’d best get some sleep.

Nite all.

Got Arty

"Growing up my mother would let me put on anything I wanted to wear and dance around the house. And I still believe in that. I made this hat from toilet paper rolls."

I wish I was brave enough to be like that woman 🫤

I almost drowned today.

Harley wanted me out of the pool no matter what! He out swam me (and I am a strong swimmer) and attempted to put his mouth around every and any part of my body to get me out. He caught me at the deep end in the middle of the pool and tried to grab me causing me to go under and it didn’t matter which direction I moved, he was onto me.

Far out! I had to physically shove him away from me to give myself a few seconds to reach the edge of the pool. He would not let up!

He was even putting his whole head under the water in order to grab my wrist.

I kept pushing him toward the steps but he just turned right around with that crazed look in his eyes and kept coming for me.

We fought for a good 20 minutes before he finally gave up, exhausted.

Crazy freaking dog.

I finished my umbrella art today …

A couple of swims, some games of fetch and tug of war, some training, an afternoon walk and some discipline and by 8pm Harley was begging to go to bed. He stepped through his crate door and plonked himself flat out on the floor falling asleep almost instantly.

I crumbed some chicken for dinner tonight and served it with boiled potatoes in their jackets, coleslaw and beetroot.

We played trivia and finished last nights game. Adoring Husband was winning and I came up from behind and pipped him at the post! Then we started another game with the ‘baby boomer’ questions.

Some of those questions were before our time but we’re giving it a good crack.

Looking forward to coffee with the girls tomorrow and starting some new art in the afternoon.

Nite all.

Harley Turdburger

That’s his name when he’s naughty - Harley Turdburger - and that’s usually during the witching hour where control is nonexistent. He can’t control himself and I can’t control him either.

It’s an impossibly frustrating hour or two during the day and during those hours I could easily return him to the farm from whence he came.

Ugh 😩

Today he had many swims in the pool, played fetch and tug of war multiple times and had lots of training time to reinforce sit, come and stay.

Tomorrow I’ll take him for a walk in the morning and possibly in the afternoon as well, just to take some of the energy out of the witching hour.

We played a lot of trivia today but didn’t finish any of the games. The first was boxed trivia of the 2010 - 2020 but was 95% USA based so we struggled for a couple of hours getting nowhere. The second was the original box and we stopped halfway through because Harley was a bit out of control and I needed to get him into bed. We’ll finish it tomorrow.

The water in the pool was nice this morning and I swam a few laps and floated around for a while. Harley joined me and swam a couple of full laps too! He’s a strong swimmer.

Nothing else to report. I’ve avoided the main part of town but things should start to quieten down by the end of this week and pretty soon we should be back to normal. Thank goodness.

I felt a little better today than I did yesterday but still not 100% - just feeling a bit elderly and lethargic at the moment. I need a boost of energy but I’m not sure where I’m going to get it. Maybe I need to get into some fruit smoothies in the mornings.

It’s almost 9pm so I’m off to sleep.

Superhero holiday season …

Nite all.

Un Hung Over

NZ Silent No More on Covid Vaccine Injuries

Today was a terrible day!

I haven’t had alcohol for about a month (when my sister was here) and for 2 months prior to that, but this morning when I woke up, I felt hung over. My head hurt, my body ached, I couldn’t think straight and felt very discombobulated.

I got up with Harley at 5.20am and lay on the couch in the family room. I couldn’t even make my usual tea and toast for breakfast.

At 7.30am I felt well enough to make bacon and eggs for Adoring Husband and BGWLBH and I sat at the table with them eating a mango.

Then I returned to bed where I slept until I heard Harley barking which was about an hour. He had, apparently, been behaving like a crazy creature getting into all sorts of mischief and upsetting the household.

I put my swimmers on and took him into the pool area. He chose to swim in the pool with me but was trying to bite my face and attacked me when I touched him - not in an angry way but like he had no control over his mind. It was a bit freaky!

I got out of the pool and played fetch very briefly with him before he fell asleep at my feet.

I was feeling peckish so I made myself some breakfast but only ate half of it.

My head hurt and I was still feeling very lethargic so I sat in front of the TV with AH and we watched an old Aussie movie called ‘The Black Balloon’ which I quite enjoyed - a bit intense - but it had a light ending. It starred Toni Collette.

BGWLBH spent a lot of time in the art space but I wasn’t the slightest bit motivated so I remained in the lounge room getting up every so often to check on Harley who stayed outside for most of the afternoon and didn’t get into too much trouble.

Dinner tonight was wild caught barramundi with coleslaw, boiled potatoes in their jacket and a tomato/onion/avocado/pear/lettuce salsa.

We played some trivia after dinner which was nice.

Now it’s almost 10pm and my head is hurting again. Time for some water and sleep.

Nite all.

PS Happy New Year!