The Price We Pay

I accompanied Adoring Husband to Howard this morning.

He was going to the butcher for Harley food and I wanted to price their lamb mince and chicken sausages, as well as visit the Howard and Torbanlea op shops.

After spending $93 at the butcher, the next stop was Howard op shop.

I was in search of 3 things:

1. A large glass jar with a glass lid.
2. Single serve casserole dishes.
3. Jewellery with real turquoise.

At Torbanlea, I found a tall glass jar with a glass lid. I want this for my “abundance” corner. It will be decorated and filled with different objects, then placed in a specific corner of the living room.

I bought the jar at half price, for $5, then inadvertently left it on the counter of the next shop that I entered and we drove off without it! I realised what I’d done when we were half way home, so AH turned around and we returned to the shop where they were holding it for me. So if you count the extra diesel fuel that we used to go back, the jar probably cost about $15!

I was unsuccessful in my search for casserole dishes. I already have two, which I picked up at an op shop, but there are three of us living here! I will continue searching.

Real turquoise is impossible to find in any shop - even Tinkerbells - because it is rare and very expensive. My only hope is stumbling across something in an op shop. I have joined some online groups and forums that deal with genuine turquoise so I have an idea of what to look for and how to tell if it’s genuine. 

I came across a small, single strand necklace of tiny turquoise pin beads at the Gem Fest this year, but it was $499. Instead I opted for a silver feather with a single turquoise pin bead for $50. I love it, but I’ve seen some stunning pieces online and they are priced at $3,000-$10,000USD. I’ve also seen some stunning pieces online that were picked up in op shops for $15 and later verified to be genuine.

I hope to be that lucky.

Today, I can verify that the op shops in Howard, Torbanlea and Burrum Heads do not have any turquoise jewellery for sale.

When we arrived home, I rode my trike to the local op shop and was surprised at how busy it was! There was barely room to move! Then I rode to the supermarket and JUST beat the rain, so I parked my trike under cover to wait it out.

There I met a lovely 92 year old lady who lives with, and is carer for her 80yr old brother, who was given an overdose of radiation during treatment for prostate cancer, which caused some pretty horrendous injuries and he is in constant pain, can only eat clear broth and has serious toileting issues.

She was lovely and felt like a kindred spirit because she too doesn’t trust doctors. I hope I run into her again. I’ll watch out for her.

I started to ride home, but stopped in the park to take in the view of the river. Because of the rain, there was nobody about and the car park was almost empty so there weren’t many out fishing. It was very quiet and peaceful.

At home, I spent a couple of hours watching YouTube videos, then had a nap until Harley jumped on me.

I rarely shower in the afternoon, but today I felt the desire, so at 4pm I had a shower before playing briefly with Harley and then, for my dinner, cooking the chicken and spinach sausages that we bought this morning. They were very tender, juicy and tasty.

AH and I watched some of the DP World India Championship golf before retreating to our rooms at 7pm.

It’s now 10pm and I’m a little weary.

Nite all.

Footy’s Back!

Chase Hughes - how he controlled his brain disease.

Amazing.

Spent the day in the Bay.

Apart from the usual gadding about, I let Adoring Husband shout me a leg and foot massage (he doesn’t know til he reads this haha), I got an extra ticket in the $100million Powerball which was wasted money because I won nothing.

BGWLBH worked this afternoon so for the last hour, I popped into the RSL, checked and replayed my old keno tickets and sat in their very comfy lounge chairs watching the keno draws. I could easily have fallen asleep if it wasn’t for some old bloke sitting in the bistro area telling caravan stories very loudly and with very colourful language.

Tonight’s dinner was leftover roast chicken, leftover egg and bacon pie and a bunch of salads.

AH and I watched the first rugby league World Cup game between Australia and NZ. What a great game with the Aussies winning by two points. The lead seesawed throughout.

I can’t believe it’s almost 11pm already. AH and I are heading out to Howard butcher tomorrow morning so I’d best get some sleep.

Nite all.

Fairly Productive and Informative

Behavioural Expert Chase Hughes 

I am fully intrigued by this man and find him so easy to listen to. I am going to find him online and learn more about him. His expertise and his experiences with the human mind, and in particular, his OWN mind has me fascinated.

Today was a pleasant day.

I was out of bed by 9am and playing with Harley outside while Adoring Husband was out buying our coffee.

Because of overnight rain, the midgies were out in force and I was bitten a number of times causing horrible itching and driving me to distraction!

I still remained outside for 30 minutes.

I decided to go for a trike ride because I needed to buy some eggs. My new recipe of choice was a bacon and egg pie for dinner, which I served with garden salad, pickled tomato and cucumber, wombok salad and last nights leftover baked vegetables.

With the leftover puff pastry, I made a berry tart. I lined a mini tart tray with the pastry and added sliced strawberries and blueberries. I had egg wash left over from glazing the egg and bacon pie so I mixed that with a little cream, some castor sugar and some vanilla extract, then poured it over the berries. That went into the oven for 25 minutes.

It was delicious! I could only eat half of it so I gave the other half to AH.

The tide was up this morning so the river was looking beautiful …

It was pretty quiet around town.

I watched Mayim Bialik videos and the Diary of a CEO video that I linked at the beginning of this post, did some journaling and added to my art …

I also communicated with an old friend who now lives in Mackay.

We experienced some small storms with some nice rain this afternoon, which meant my exercise program with The Motivator had to be canned til next week. It’s an outdoor program so it’s dependent on good weather.

Now it’s already 10.30pm and I need to be up reasonably early for a day in the Bay.

Nite all.

Spiritual Phillosophy

Fancy that!

Five minutes early for meditation AGAIN!

Unheard of.

Adoring Husband dropped me at the hall because The Gypsy is house/dog sitting on the other side of town and we planned for her to take me there so that AH could pick me up at noon.

As it was, we were so intensely discussing spiritual philosophy, that I texted him to push it for another hour.

So we chatted maniacally for 3.5hours knowing our time was limited. We had so much to say and the time just flies by so freaking fast!

We could so easily have carried on for another 2 hours at least.

At 1pm, AH appeared outside and we drove to the local shops to get some meat for dinner. We decided on a baked dinner.

A whole chook with baked potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot, onion, capsicum and steamed snow peas and beans with home made gravy.

It was delicious!

Harley got his afternoon play and I got the last of my clothes off the line.

After dinner, I came straight to my room to watch Monday nights MKR - because BGWLBH told me that HAD to watch it. It was worth it.

Tomorrow afternoon, I am meeting at The Motivator’s house to do a short, pre-determined exercise circuit  with our limited resources. We have a rebounder, hand weights, hula hoops, yoga arm stretchers and a rowing machine.

For the first couple of weeks, we’ll only do five minutes on each activity because we don’t want too much next day afterpain and possibly put ourselves off in the future.

I’m looking forward to it. I’ve invited BGWLBH, but she doesn’t seem too keen.

The weather forecast is sounding a bit ominous, so fingers crossed it’s ok for our plans.

Now it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

Nothing Much

What are Mondays for?

I mean … when you’re retired, you can do anything you want, anytime you want.

My only real commitment is meditation on Tuesday morning. Without meditation, I probably would never be able to identify any given day!

I took Harley out to play at 8.30am, sent Adoring Husband off to buy coffee, brought some washing in and hung some more out, watched 2 movies - “Doing Life” and “Chaos Theory” - watched my quiz shows, took Harley out to play, made curry pastries for dinner and was in bed at 6pm.

Meditation tomorrow.

Nite all.