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What a lovely morning we had at the Howard markets! 

We left home around 6.50am and arrived at 7.10am immediately finding a rock star car park.

More than 200 stalls, apparently!

Today I purchased a coffee, a Christmas present for BGWLBH, a bracelet, 3 cap sleeved t-shirts, a cotton top, some borax capsules (for human consumption), some zeolite capsules, a soap, a lemongrass drawer deodoriser, a jade facial roller, magnesium spray, dog treats for Harley, GF pita breads and GF hamburger buns. I think that’s all.

We had good chats with some stall holders and were in the car heading home at 8.50am.

We dropped off all our goodies, wrote a note for Adoring Husband who was out on his coffee date, gave Harley one of his new treats and headed into the Bay.

We stopped at Arkarra Tea Gardens for breakfast where we share food with the bird life. The magpies and blue cheeked honey eaters are very friendly but we shoo the bin chickens away because they are big and cumbersome and clumsy! They have a habit of breaking crockery!

We did a grocery shop, a butcher shop, Choice and fresh juice. Just those few shops seemed to take forever, with long slow queues that had us waiting and waiting and waiting! Lucky we weren’t in a hurry to be anywhere!

Home before 2pm.

Unpacked the groceries, got changed into slobberdog clothes, took a hamburger patty out of the freezer for my ‘fend for yourself’ dinner - I wanted to try one of the new GF hamburger buns, hung out some washing and took Harley out to play.

I waited for AH and BGWLBH to make their chicken burgers and BLT so that I could make my hamburger with the lot.

Patty, onion, cheese, tomato, beetroot, lettuce, pineapple, bacon and runny egg. Of course it was too big to wrap my mouth and weak teeth around, so I used a knife and fork. Not quite as messy or as enjoyable, but it was still delicious.

Three games of footy this afternoon. I’m in bed watching the Sharks vs Storm game and the score is 18 all.

I have to set my alarm for 3am to watch the last Aussie standing at US Open tennis, Dane Sweeny, play the 21st seed Luciano Darderi. Dane has a good chance, but it depends on how his nerves hold out. 

Time for me to get comfy under the covers now.

Nite all.

Freedom Friday

I thought I’d ‘hippify’ myself today.

I was watching tennis from about 3.45am, showered and washed my hair, played with Harley, did a load of washing and prepared myself for a visit with The Gypsy.

Patchwork bib and brace overalls with a black fringed open vest, white leather shoes and a straw cowboy hat.

Jumped on my trike and because I was a little early, I decided to visit the river first…

Another glorious Spring day in paradise.

Three fabulous hours on the back deck with The Gypsy and this was the view for that entire visit…

It was a good visit, as always, and time flew, as always.

I was home in time to play with Harley again, waited for Adoring Husband to make his early dinner and then made my own honey soy prawns with eggy rice.

Two games of footy tonight and I’m laying on my bed watching the first one. 

There is also a preliminary finals game in the AFL and my team, Carlton, are playing Geelong. Should be a good game.

The Omega European Masters golf is being played in Switzerland as we speak.

Play in the US Open tennis recommences at 1am.

Sport, sport everywhere!

Gotta get up early for the markets tomorrow so it will be an early night for me.

Nite all.

Spring has Sprung

Wednesday was a day in the Bay, where I purchased 3 t-shirts, 3 singlet tops and 2 dress tops.

Now I need to declutter my wardrobe again. Every time I buy a new garment, my rule is to remove an old garment, but I haven’t done that for the last 5 or 6 times! I need to remove at least 8 items, but I think I can go as high as 12 items, maybe even more 🤷🏼‍♀️

I also bought some Matcha Powder (which was much more expensive than I expected) and some Chlorella. I haven’t taken any of it yet!

We were home by 1.30pm.

I cooked three different dinners.

I’d forgotten that I had 2kgs of lamb mince in the small fridge in the art room so I had to cook it. Luckily it was cryovaced so not urgent, but necessary.

I did a Rogan Josh curried mince and it was hot but delicious. Adoring Husband chose that for his dinner and I served it with boiled rice and papadums.

BGWLBH chose the leftover chicken with creamy lemon sauce which I served with boiled rice and salad.

I had my last two chicken, mushroom and garlic sausages with salad.

I fell asleep reasonably early (for me) and woke at 2am to pee, so I turned on the TV for US Open tennis which I watched on and off as I dozed through the remainder of the night.

I took Harley out to play at 9.30am but he got freaked out by some strange noise and wanted to stop playing quite early. Turns out he’s scared of the ironing board, which BGWLBH was setting up inside the house. We can’t figure out what triggered this fear, but he’s freaked out the last three times she has done the ironing.

Go figure 🤷🏼‍♀️

I decided to go for a ride on my trike, so I made myself presentable, took BGWLBH’s order for the supermarket and off I pedalled. 

This is what greeted me …

The most perfect Spring day that you can imagine.

I had received a text from the PO reminding me to pick up a parcel before the 10th September, so I showed the text to Amelia and she searched high and low without success. I left empty handed and she promised to contact me by phone later in the day.

She phoned and left a voice mail apologising and advising that the parcel was nowhere to be found, so I did some Sherlock Holmes work of my own and following the clues and facts, discovered that AH had picked up said parcel exactly one week ago!

Amelia was at lunch when I phoned back so I left her a message advising of my findings.

I still can’t figure out why I received the text 🤷🏼‍♀️

I arrived home at midday, made myself some lunch and returned to bed with Harley. As beautiful as the day was, it was lovely in my bedroom to while away the hours watching Jet Lag, journaling, watching tennis and napping.

I didn’t leave the room until it was time to cook dinner.

Lemon butter barramundi done in the oven, with fried rice (I had cooked extra rice on Wednesday night for just this purpose). Quite delicious.

After dinner, I came straight back to bed.

Tomorrow (Friday), I have a catch up date with The Gypsy while she house and pet sits around the corner.

BGWLBH is working, so AH will be in charge of Harley and the house for a couple of hours.

Right now, I’m watching my Broncos play their final game for the season and at half time the score is 10 all. They are playing the Bulldogs.

I might be asleep very soon.

Nite all.

Meditative Epiphanies

I was late to mediation class this morning.

It was my own fault for procrastinating and attempting to fit too much into too short a time period leading up to class.

Class was a bit overwhelming for me today because it brought up unhealed “stuff” that has been triggering me a lot and bringing up anger, fear and frustration for quite some time.

That in turn, raised issues for others in the class, and deep conversations ensued.

I left feeling fragile and vulnerable, but with a plan to set in motion upon my return home.

I spent some quality time soaking up the beauty of the river on this first day of spring.

After chatting with Adoring Husband and BGWLBH, working on my patchwork jeans for about an hour, I made myself a cup of soursop tea which I took to my room with the raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake treat that I bought myself so that I could get comfy on my bed and commence my healing plan.

I found this journal in Tinkerbells Mystical and Fantasy almost a year ago and I’ve been holding on to it and waiting for just the right purpose. 

 

What does ‘self love’ look like for me?

I responded with five written pages and included:

• Using traffic control - stopping frequently during the day and checking my thoughts and actions while reminding myself that I am a peaceful soul.
• Recognising my triggers before they make me react in anger and frustration.
• Feeling grateful, not just for all that I have now, but for all the lessons, struggles, obstacles, difficulties and challenges that I have faced, overcome and worked through to become who I am today.
• Remembering that I am a soul, caretaking and driving this physical body.
• Independently providing my own love, acceptance, tolerance, strength, kindness, peace etc., and not expecting others to provide those things for me.
• Forgiving myself for being angry about how Parkinson’s has affected my life and remembering that I am still loved by Adoring Husband, myself and The Divine.
• Removing self-doubt, self-judgement and self-criticism from my inner dialogue.

That’s just a select few ‘self love’ actions that I wrote in my journal. It will be an ongoing project and I already feel lighter for it. The test will be putting it all into practise on a daily basis and not fall back into bad habits, which I know is easily done.

I played with Harley around the pool and felt gratitude for this little oasis in my own back yard.

Tonight’s dinner was a creamy, lemony sauce over chicken breast for BGWLBH and a pork loin chop for AH. I served it with roasted pumpkin, spinach and pine nut salad and boiled buttery potatoes.

Now it’s after 11pm and I need to get up early for a day in the Bay.

Nite all.

Golf to Tennis

I’ve been awake since 3am because I set my alarm to watch the final round of the FedEx cup.

Scheffler proved exactly why he is number one in the world and truly deserved the win.

I was hoping for better performances from Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee and Rory McIlroy.

I switched it straight over to the tennis before the golfing celebrations began.

At first I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see Djokovic play because they were televising the Australians playing. They announced that we could only watch the Djokovic game on Stan Sport and I cancelled my subscription to Stan Sport last year.

At the beginning of his match, it started to rain and the outer court matches were cancelled! Because he was playing on the Arthur Ash arena, which has a roof, they switched the telecast to his match!

I was so happy.

Until, early in the match, Djokovic began to fade, and he struggled through the entire five setter. I’ve never seen him so bad and while he had a slight recovery in the 2nd and 3rd sets, he just couldn’t get to the end.

There are no players remaining in the draw that I would sacrifice my sleep to watch play, but the time difference between New York and Australia means that play continues until after lunch here, so I may get to watch some good matches anyway.

Tonight’s dinner was crumbed chicken, wombok salad, garden salad and boiled potatoes with sour cream.

I also read a book today …

It was a quick, but interesting and insightful read.

Now I’m going to sleep because tomorrow is both the first day of spring and meditation day.

Nite all.