No Coffeeeeeeee!!

The world, as I know it, has shifted on it's axis and I don't know what I'm going to do!

The coffee machine where I get my daily coffee has broken down and nobody will even look at it until Monday and then who knows how long they will take to fix it!!

Best Cousin in the World is coming to visit me tomorrow to experiment with her ginger and my dehydrator, so I've requested that she drop in to Sexie Coffee on the way here and buy me two large lattes.

That should get me through tomorrow and then Monday morning!

Ugh!

Our local markets were held this morning and there were quite a few of the regular stalls missing. There were two new stalls. One that looked deceptively like a hippie woman selling crystals and semi precious rocks and gems, but in reality, she was selling dyed rocks and some semi precious gems, of which she didn't know the names. She was a bit ditzy, but I like to support the local market, so I bought a cage pendant with an amethyst stone inside.

I bought a hanging crystal from the jewellery lady who is a regular, a string of colourful stained glass hearts for my scarf window, some blank cards with beautiful artwork on the front from a local artist and a $3 cane fan. The gentleman wanted to reduce the price to $2, but I wouldn't let him.

I was hoping that the coffee van would be set up at the markets, because the baker in town doesn't open on Saturdays, but unfortunately there was no coffee to be had in town. Luckily I had one in the fridge from yesterday that I heated up when I got home!

My scarf window got a make over today. I had to pull all the scarves off the rod so that I could put the crystals and hanging hearts in between them. It's difficult to see them in the photos though ...

Bubbles was part of the wedding party today at her best friend's wedding in Noosa. She sent me this photo ...

I would love to show you a photo of the bride, but I think that one has to remain private until the bride decides to share.

Knight in Shining Armour phoned tonight to confirm the time of his arrival on Monday. Getting closer now!

I'm off to bed so that I can get up early to prepare lunch for the fam.

Nite all.

Bizzzaaaarrrroooo

The weirdest thing happened to me this evening.

Every so often, I do a search on Facebook, for people from my past. I rarely find any of them, but about 2 years ago, I searched for a guy who was a neighbour at the time that I split from my first husband, and with whom I had a brief relationship which lasted about 6 months. We broke up when I discovered that he was already in a long term relationship and that I was 'the affair'.

Anyway, two years ago, I thought I'd found him. The photo certainly looked just like him, except he was greyer, after all, I knew him thirty years ago. His FB page gave away no real information about him and it showed that he lived in Calgary, Alberta and nobody on his friend's list was from the Riverina, so I figured that I must be mistaken.

Roll on to today, two years later, and I'm Facebook stalking The Motivator, checking out her friend's list ,and amazingly, I come across this same guy's profile pic!

So I decided to message The Motivator and ask her if he is Australian and how she knows him.

She replies to my message with 'Yes, he's Australian and omg, I think he is from Griffiths (sic)'

The only information that she gave me, was that they met at Thredbo years ago and that she thought he was a nice guy.

Instead of having long detailed chats online, I'm going to visit her tomorrow so that we can gossip about somebody from my past. How freakish that the two of us know him from so many years ago!

That man broke my heart. When I discovered his deceit, I sobbed so uncontrollably, that I had an asthma attack and I'm not even asthmatic!! He was not a nice man.

Weird huh?

Today, Adoring Husband and I went to the cinema to see 'Bad Moms'. Great movie! Put it on your list!



While we were at Stocklands, there was a book kiosk set up in the middle of the walkway and I grabbed two boxed sets. One for learning the guitar and one for meditation ...

Adoring Husband has a three day SES flood boat exercise coming up, so this afternoon I whipped up some energy balls for him to take with him. He will need all the energy he can get!

It's raining here!

Nite all.

Practise Makes Perfect

I say that with hope in my voice!

Most of you know that I have never been a fan of photoshop. It's a complex editing program that takes a long time to master. Especially for me.

My closed mind has only made it more difficult to learn - it was the same for me, years ago, when I was learning to work a computer for the first time. I believed that I wasn't smart enough ... and so became the self fulfilling prophecy ... until one day, I believed that computers weren't THAT difficult to use ... and so my mind opened up to the possibilities.

My mind has now opened to the possibilities of photoshop, which is kind of funny because I think that most professional portrait photographers use photoshop for very basic editing.  Presets, filters and actions are the popular way to go, to enhance photography these days.

I guess I'm falling behind the times and need to catch up!

The most frustrating thing, is that I want to know it all NOW and I lose patience when there are so many steps to each process!

Anyway, just to keep Rebel Mardi happy, I am sharing one more photo from the shoot, which includes her beautiful grandson ...

I hope that one will keep her happy while I work on the remaining photos. Three fabulous smiles!

Even though there were only four of us, morning tea with the girls was very enjoyable today.

It's date day with Adoring Husband tomorrow, so I need to get to bed. It will be an early start!

Nite all.

Govt Fail

Well! What a big hullabaloo over the ABS website going down while everybody was attempting to complete their census online!

My Facebook feed is full of very angry people, all over Australia, complaining very loudly about the site going down before they had a chance to do it.

I went online at 6.45pm and had it completed and submitted by 7pm without a hitch. I would have completed it faster, except I had to call Adoring Husband into the room to ask where his parents were born and what his ancestry was.

I've had a fairly crappy day today (pardon the pun) ... meaning that I spent a good deal of it on the royal throne. My tummy has been very unhappy since yesterday afternoon and it has made it very difficult to concentrate on the fabulous videos that I selected for my photoshop tutorials.

It could be my body detoxing since I commenced taking some very strong probiotics. It usually takes about two weeks for the body to release all the nasties in the gut, and I may have to cut back and take one every second day, instead of one daily.

I guess it could be a tummy bug, but it doesn't feel like any tummy bug that I've had before.

Whatever.  It's not pleasant at all.

I did get a little practical work done with the photoshop tutorials and I found a really great guy on youtube whose channel is called Phlearn. His name is Aaron Nace and I really like him a lot. He explains photoshop in a way that I can understand, and that means a lot because my brain puts up a big barrier to photoshop. I don't know why!

The Flickr challenge this month is 'head and shoulders portrait'. It must be an adult human portrait. So I will put my photoshop skills to good use and create something worthy of submitting into the challenge.

I'll be able to practise on Bubbles and Knight in Shining Armour while they're here next week. I might even talk the boys at The Seat of Knowledge into sitting for me. A wrinkly face with a bit of age to it, might make for an interesting portrait!

I wanted to stay awake to see how the Australians perform in the equestrian event tonight. The Aussies are in first place at this stage of the three day event and are looking good for the gold medal, but I don't think I can stay awake for much longer.

I guess I'll have to catch the news in the morning.

I'm looking forward to morning tea with the girls, so I'd best get my beauty sleep!

Nite all.

Forgotten Skills

Oh my gosh.

I spent quite a bit of time sorting through the MANY photos that I took yesterday and selecting the best shots for editing, but I'm feeling a bit pressured to do a 'better than usual' job, so I spent some time this afternoon watching some youtube videos on editing in photoshop.

I've created a list of short tutorials to watch tomorrow before I begin the task of editing, so hopefully, by the end of the week, I will have them ready to share with the Mardi family!

I have to say, I don't think I've ever seen a more photogenic family. It almost seems silly to edit them at all.

Pork belly was on the menu for lunch today, and for the first time in my life, the entire crackling was crunchy! The meat was tender too and it wasn't even marinated! I did a fried rice with the basic bacon, egg and onion plus home made sweet potato chips, roasted beetroot, feta cheese and balsamic dressing.

That was for Adoring Husband. I ate a section of the crackling, and for dinner tonight, I toasted some Paleo Bread and had some pork belly sliced onto it with raw onion. I can guarantee that tomorrow, I will be craving vegetables, so luckily, I have a crisper full of bok choy, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, cabbage and sweet potato. I feel a veg nosh up coming on!

I think I'm all done with my Olympic viewing for today, so I'm off to bed. I'm feeling a bit weary tonight .. brain weary, rather than body weary.

Nite all.  

Welcoming

This morning I woke to the sound of rain on the roof.

It was a lovely way to start the day, and to make it even better, I had my coffee from yesterday, in the fridge ready to heat up, so that I didn't have to pedal to the shop in the rain!

I sat up in bed until 10.30am, drinking coffee, reading, Facebooking, checking my emails and listening to the rain. I couldn't even imagine a better way to spend a wet Sunday morning.

At about the same time that Adoring Husband would have been boarding his plane in Sydney, I decided it was time to get out of bed and do something productive, like housework - ugh.

The ironing board had been set up in the family room since last Wednesday, so I decided that this morning would be a good time to do the ironing that I'd planned on doing last week, so that I could put the board and iron away with a clear conscience.

I made the bed, tidied the kitchen and did a couple of loads of washing, fed the chooks, put my camera gear away and put lunch in the oven so that it would be ready when Adoring Husband arrived home.

AH's lift stopped in the driveway at about 1pm. The psychotic dogs were very excited to see him and they all did their crazy bark and ran around in circles. Ruby was even squealing, she was so happy!

I was happy to see him too, but I didn't put on the same show as the dogs.

By the time we ate lunch, and caught up with all the news, the Sunday football had started, so we spent the afternoon watching TV and complaining loudly about the results! The only saving grace is that everybody else picked the favourites to win too, so even though they lost, there is no change to the positions on the tipping score card.

Tomorrow's plan includes editing the photos from yesterday, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them all on the big monitor and then sharing the best ones with Mardi and her family.

The countdown has begun for Vegan Chickie's trip overseas and she is preparing Chicklet with a bat countdown ...

... and care packages for each day she's away, which I assume are full of activities and ideas to fill our days ...

The ideas that Vegan Chickie comes up with, really make babysitting a breeze. Even 'I' get excited about what each day has in store for us!

Meanwhile, we are just one week away from a Bubbles and Knight in Shining Armour visit! It's all happening!

Time for me to sleep.

Nite all.