Pleasurable.

Adoring Husband had SES duties today, all day.

I arose early and cooked up a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomato, mushrooms, spinach and avocado so that he could make it through the day, particularly because yesterday was not as nourishing as it should have been and he was lacking energy when he awoke.

After I visited my boys and got my coffee this morning, I came home and spent more time in the kitchen, making a big pot of tomato sauce and I have another batch of chicken stock brewing as well. For lunch, I made the same breakfast as Adoring Husband enjoyed earlier.

I have to say that the organic, nitrate free bacon from Wippell's is absolutely delicious. It's how I remember bacon was as a kid. It's cut thicker and it's not pink like the dyed stuff you get in the shops these days. The rind turns to crackle so easily under the grill and the smokey taste is delightful. I will double my order next time.

While we were in town yesterday, we bought some Cleaver's grass fed beef from Coles. That's what we had for dinner tonight, and I can't recall the last time I had such tender and juicy steak at home. I can't even remember what cut it was, but it was like a fillet mignon. I seared it on both sides and then put it in a hot oven for 10 minutes. Perfectly delicious.

I'm not usually a fan of beef, but I would eat this cut from Cleaver's on a regular basis.

I also spent some time sorting through my wardrobe and the massive pile of clothes that I had in the spare room and filled two big bags, one with jeans and capris and shorts and the other with dresses and tops. I was quite brutal. I needed to be.

I framed my Rainbow Bee Eaters photo (I will take a photo of it tomorrow, to show you) and got all my washing up to date and even though it's only 9pm, I'm feeling very weary, so I think I might head to bed and see how many hours I can snooze before my body thinks it's had enough.

I have a date with the girls tomorrow, which I am very much looking forward to,

Nite all.

Saw the Movie

Saw 'That Sugar Film' tonight, with Adoring Husband and Apple.

Begin whinge ...

The ticket stated that the movie commenced at 6.30pm. We arrived at about 5.50pm and were about 5th & 6th in the queue, which started almost at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the various cinemas.

The host arrived and took our ticket numbers to mark us off his list, advised us that we would be announced into the cinema at 6.20pm.

We waited and waited and waited.

We wanted to buy water to take into the cinema, but the confectionary bar didn't open until 6.15pm, by which time there were 80 other people attempting to buy popcorn and other junk food, so we gave up on that idea.

The queue grew until it reached all the way back to the building entrance, and one of the staff asked us all to move closer together, so that people could fit inside the building.

Finally, at about 6.45pm, the host announced that the movie wasn't starting until 7pm and we could make our way into the Cinema.

It was a BIG crowd, almost completely filling cinema 1, and in front of us, were two women who I guessed to be mother and daughter .. the mother being about 75-80 yrs old and the daughter being about 20 yrs younger.

They both walked into the cinema eating a choc top ice cream cone. They chatted to each other all the way through the movie, so they missed quite a bit of the information being conveyed, and at the end of the movie, the mother loudly declared "everything in moderation".

The woman beside them decided it was a good idea to play with her phone for the last 20 minutes, so I had a glaring bright light in my eyes for that period of time .. very distracting.

There must have been half a dozen people in the cinema with terrible barking coughs and each took turns coughing loudly throughout the movie. If I knew exactly who they were, I would have walked over to each of them, grabbed them by the ear and led out of the cinema demanding that they take their dirty stinking germs home and go to bed!!

... end whinge.

The movie was interesting and very informative. It was also entertaining and had people like Hugh Jackman and Stephen Fry providing some of the facts. It was certainly an eye opener and quite shocking in parts.

I can't wait for it to be released on dvd around the end of July and will definitely get a copy .. perhaps some of my friends and family will receive a copy for Christmas!!

Adoring Husband and I actually drove into town at about 1.30pm because we had a few things to do before the movie. I got some great bargains .. a pair of jeans, some shorts and a top at fantastic sale prices. I printed some large copies of a couple of my photos and bought a nice frame for one of them. We priced some laptops and desktop computers for AH - depending on whether his current devices can be repaired or not. We had coffee at a new coffee chop and did some grocery shopping.

So, it's fair to say, after 5 hours in town, that we were not in the mood for waiting in queues or attempting to listen to a movie over the top of elderly chatter, or barking coughs. Also, AH had very little for lunch and I had nothing .. so I guess you could say we were a little 'hangry' (that's a combination of hungry and angry).

On a more positive note, this morning I caught up with a friend who I haven't seen for a couple of months. I'll call her 'The Motivator'. She has recently had major surgery on her shoulder, so has been interstate and out of action for a while. We don't get much time together very often, but when we do, it's quality time and we fit a lot into it, so I had a great morning.

I also bought and shelled 6 crabs,  four of which, I ate when we got home from the movie tonight.

I am sated. I am tired.

Nite all.

Where did it go?

My study plans for today seemed to have evaporated into thin air!

The morning started out so well, while Adoring Husband was cleaning out the back bedroom so that it could, once again, become his office, I was studying hard.

But .. as I've mentioned here in the past, Adoring Husband has a love/hate relationship with technology .. he has some kind of negative electrical energy swirling around him and when he touches anything electronic, everything turns to .. you-know-what!

Firstly he turned his desk top computer on, only to discover that it's power supply had failed. Much swearing and loud frustrated grumbling occurred, which seemed to go on and on and on and on.

Then he tried his laptop. Same problem. Much louder swearing and frustrated grumbling occurred. He announced to the entire neighbourhood that he could not believe this situation in which he found himself!

In between all of this, he brought piles of notepads, paperwork and photos to my desk, asking me where he should put it and asking me to go through it when I had a chance.

Considering how long it took me to get my desk clean enough to commence this semester of studies, I had to go through the piles immediately, so that took 20 minutes out of my study time.

That's about when I decided that the last hour or more of my studies had been wasted and that I should just give up.

I gave AH a piece of my mind and decided to prepare lunch.

After lunch, I attempted to study again, but then remembered that I had to send a parcel to Best Cousin in the World (should have been sent on Monday!), so I rode to the Post Office and by the time I got home, realised that the dog food needed to be made up, so that took over an hour.

I had an hour to spare before preparing an early dinner for AH who had SES duties tonight and had to leave home earlier than usual. So I cooked Butter Chicken - nice and easy and pretty fast.

All thoughts of study now slipped far, far away from my mind.

The day is gone and here I am at 11.30pm wondering what I've achieved for the day. Zip.

So, I guess I shall go to bed and attempt to make tomorrow more productive.

I'm looking forward to seeing 'That Sugar Film' tomorrow night, but disappointed that I'll be missing out on my Friday night at the Club with the girls. That's my favourite part of the week!

Nite all.

Being Present (or not)

Here's an interesting read ...

When did we decide women should shave their legs?

We ladies had a great day at The Boat Club in town today. There were about 16 or 17 of us and the club bus drove all the way from The Bay, out to our town to pick us up and drive us back in to the club.

Some of us shopped at the little boutique near the marina before heading into the club where some of us ordered coffee, or played the pokies before lunch.

Lunch was delicious and I enjoyed salmon steak and salad while sharing a bottle of wine with Lady Lynn.

We presented Cuddlepie with a farewell bottle of champagne and a card - just in case - and we hope that she is still in town for next month's luncheon, but you never know and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to tell her how much we have appreciated her humour and her company over the last few years.

At 2.30pm we all climbed aboard the bus which brought us home again.

I took my camera with me and lugged it around all day, then didn't even take a photo!! Honestly! Not even with my phone!

Sometimes I question my 'presence'.

Anyway, tonight is the first State of Origin match and it's about to begin, so I'm outta here.

Nite all.

Bee Amazing

I discovered this today and found it captivating, so thought I'd share it here.



My local people were very happy with their photo restoration and showed me another that they hoped I could fix. I'm pretty happy with the finished product here too. It's actually a very large photo - slightly bigger than A4 size.

Considering the median age of this town (59), I could probably make a nice little income doing this on a regular basis!

Anyway, I sacrificed study to do this job (you can tell how sad I am about that, can't you?).

I spent a couple of hours with four lovely ladies for morning tea, then I delivered a parcel to The Speckled Hen at the hairdressing salon, took the restored photos from yesterday to their rightful owners, visited 'Apple' to check on the details for tomorrow's luncheon, came home and scanned the new photo for restoration, worked out what I'm wearing tomorrow, cooked a late lunch for Adoring Husband who arrived home from SES duties, did some research and sent emails to two companies on the Sunny Coast, restored the above photo, cooked dinner and watched junk TV all evening.

What a busy, but fairly unproductive day for me!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's luncheon with the girls. Best get some sleep.

Nite all.

Back Garden Ruckus

I was in the kitchen when I heard a ruckus outside.

I looked up, and even though I wasn't wearing my glasses, I could see through the sliding doors, a large bird sitting on the trailer outside. The trailer where the ride on mower lives, and a Willy Wagtail was making a hell of a noise while dive bombing the bird, which was completely ignoring Willy.

So I hurriedly grabbed my camera from the bag, which was conveniently on the floor near the door, and checked the settings (which is unusual for me because I usually take a dozen shots and THEN check, only to find everything is overexposed, and while I'm fixing the settings, my subject suddenly disappears) and then I stood in the open doorway and fired a few shots.

At this point, the Goshawk, jumped up onto the ride on mower seat and ruffled his feathers, as Willy got angrier and louder and closer.

I got a couple more shots in and then checked what I'd done and by the time I looked up again, the Goshawk had disappeared.

I rushed outside to check that he wasn't attacking the chooks because I remembered 'The Nikonian' telling me once, about losing a number of her chooks to a Goshawk. My chooks were very quietly huddled in the chook pen waiting for the coast to be clear.

Today is the tenth anniversary of my Mother's passing. I can't believe it's been ten years. Life zips by so fast. As most of you know, she died at the end of the first State of Origin match in 2005, so even though that game was on 25th May, the first SoO match will always be the anniversary to me .. especially because she loved football, and SoO in particular. Miss you Mum xo

I had a good study day, although ironically, by the end, my brain was hurting from studying about the brain! Still a lot to learn.

Nite all.

Hard Work

I've spent the evening attempting to restore some old photos that were given to me by some local people.

Before ...

After ...

They also wanted me to crop the groom out of the wedding photo to match the photo above.

Now I am definitely ready for bed.

Nite all.