Nice to see you!

Three major events occurred for me last year (2010), all in the space of about 2 weeks. I turned 50. The following day I got married. Two weeks later, my oldest daughter became pregnant with her first child and my first grandchild.

Most middle-aged people will tell you that in their minds, they still feel 20 something. It's the same for me.

Wasn't it only yesterday that I was planning a night out with guys from the surf club? That gorgeous new perm. Flaired, cuffed denims and the red t-shirt with the off-the-shoulder frill. Corked platform wedgies. **sigh**

Suddenly I'm looking in the mirror and wondering how 30 years can flash by so damned quickly!

So here I am in cyberspace, sharing my genuine shock and horror with anyone who'll listen and maybe I'll even meet some other over 50s who find themselves in the same predicament!

Welcome to my dilemna!!

Saturday, November 9, 2019

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.

Friday, November 8, 2019

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.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

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.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

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.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

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.

Monday, November 4, 2019

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.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

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.


Friday, November 1, 2019

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.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

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.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

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.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

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.


Monday, October 28, 2019

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.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

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.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

More Bounding

I did bound out of bed this morning.

I bounded into the day with plenty of energy and lots on my mind to prepare for the art class.

Adoring Husband and I arrived at the shop a little after 8am and had everything ready to go by 9am.

The ladies all arrived on time and we made tea and coffee, introduced ourselves, discussed how excited we were for the class, what we loved about fluid art and paint pouring and THEN we got down to business.

We looked at a series of pictures that I had printed from the internet to demonstrate all the different colours in the water along various coastlines, the varied colours of wet and dry sand and also the whitewash from breaking waves on the beach. These are just a few of the 12 that I had.





Everybody chose the colours that we wanted and then we mixed our paint colours into 7 different cups. Three for the sand and four with the ocean colours.

Then we poured and we scooped and we swiped and we squeezed and we blew and we splashed and we dripped and we torched.






Half the class time was spent in complete silence as we all focused on the work at hand.

The other half of the time was spent giggling and singing in unison to old songs and laughing out loud because we all knew all the words and actually sounded pretty good as a group!

In the end, after a few re-dos and repairing and adding and removing and fluffing and such, everybody was finished and expressing their pleasure for what they had accomplished.

For a first go, they did incredibly well.

We took some photos, shared the cleaning up duties, had more coffee and chocolate biscuits, did a little shopping and everyone had left by 12.40pm.

The shop had been fairly quiet all morning and most of the sales happened between midday and 1pm, so AH had a pretty boring time at the desk.

He reheated some beef casserole for lunch and I had avo and tomato on toast.

That’s when I crashed.

At 3.30pm I lay down on the bed and slept for about an hour and a half. When I woke up, I stayed in bed and that’s where I am right now!

I’m looking forward to an early swim tomorrow and soaking up sunshine/Vit D.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Nite all.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Abounding

I didn’t quite bound out of bed this morning.

By the time I went to bed on Thursday night, I felt a LOT off ... as opposed to the ‘bit’ off that I’d  felt for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, I got a good night’s sleep and woke feeling much better, especially to the sound of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” on my alarm.

Not good enough to bound out of bed, but good enough to ride my trike in the sunshine.

Not good enough to start my day at the shop with a smile, (because of a fruitless search for Adoring Husband’s lost glasses that he had actually left at home), but good enough to set up the training room in preparation for the art class.

Not good enough to finish my day feeling abundantly successful, but good enough to fill it with smiles and energy.

Not good enough to attend the club tonight, but good enough to prepare a nice version of Hainan Chicken for dinner.

Now I’m off to bed for an early night and hopefully tomorrow will feel good enough to do ALL THE THINGS!

It’s the weekend and I hope that you all have a fabulous couple of days of rest. I know I plan to swim, soak up some sunshine, do some art, catch up on my studies and maybe attempt a little housework ... maybe lol.






Nite all.