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, April 29, 2017

Art for Art's Sake

Today was the first time that I felt a touch of disappointment in my art during class.

We painted our clay tile ready for firing and my Tawny Frogmouth just doesn't look the way I envisioned.

I was so disappointed that I didn't even take a progress photo to share here!

We are doing a second tile and I'm creating my house number inside a heart with some swirling curvy lines and patterns around the outside - however - that could change between now and next Saturday! I've brought my drawing home and could quite possibly change it completely between now and then.

On a more positive note, it was nice to have The Motivator join us today and she made a really good start on her clay bust. She obviously has arty, farty, crafty talent in her blood and I think she will fit beautifully with the group.

I returned home and made lunch before retreating to my workspace to get the work done that I deferred from yesterday when I did a Bay run with The Motivator.

I need to contact my domain host to work out what to do next to acquire a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate, which will make my shop safe and secure for you if you want to buy anything.

I didn't even know that I needed one of those until I received an email this week, from an unknown source, telling me that my shop wasn't secure or safe for possible purchasers. So I did some research and still can't figure out why none of the instructional videos that I watched, made any mention of this.

Despite all of that, I do need a SSL, so that is my next mission.

One of the girls from Art is having a birthday lunch tomorrow at Arkarra Tea Gardens. There are twelve of us attending and it should be a nice afternoon, but I really need to spend more time on my website.

This is something that I need to work on. My work and life balance. My self discipline is, and always has been, a weakness that I need to work on.  That may have to be the next course I complete in the Academy.

My thoughts are that I should set myself daily work hours - although I expect my hours will need to be quite long in the first year, if I'm going to commit to making this a success. Like a marriage, the first year of business is the hardest.

I also noticed that even though my site looks good on my own mobile phone, some of the words in the titles are still overlapping on other people's phones. That's annoying too! I need to figure that out and fix it.

Anyway, I'm certain that you don't want to know the ins and outs of my website woes, so I'll sign off and head to bed for an early night. Adoring Husband took a while to turn off his alarm this morning and it startled me into a wakefulness that took me a while to recover from. I hate that.

I will use my essential oils to assist in a solid sleep tonight.

Nite all.

Friday, April 28, 2017

Food Glorious Food

Against my better judgement, I chose to spend the day in The Bay with The Motivator.

It was a foodie's dream.

We started at the Asian grocery store where I stocked up on fish sauce, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, coconut vinegar, coconut milk, tapioca and other assorted bits and pieces.

We then swooped on Go Natural and filled the shopping basket with hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, blanched almond flour, coconut aminos, some fresh pestos, raw cacao powder and lots of fresh fruit and veg.

The new Aldi store was next in line and what a pleasant shopping experience that was! So clean and fresh and so few shoppers! It was quiet and there was lots of space and some amazing products to choose from, like grass fed meats, fresh fruit and veg, maple syrup at a very reasonable price, more coconut milk, organic raw cacao powder at half the price of the one I got at Go Natural and lots of other lovely deliciousness.

The staff member at the checkout was very friendly, polite and helpful too.

We decided, before heading home, to go to Kauangan Bakery where a news story last night described the gluten free products that they bake every week. Unfortunately, they only had two GF products in the store because they bake on Wednesday and had sold out quickly because of the news story.

I bought a custard tart, which was lovely, and a pear and raspberry loaf - O - M - G!!! I would like to buy a dozen of them and sit down to a massive pig out!

We took a price list of GF items and were advised to phone in an order on Tuesdays to guarantee receipt. Apparently they sell out very quickly! Understandable, if everything tastes as good as that pear and raspberry loaf!

I had a lucky night at the club tonight and it was good to see everyone. Our table had no luck in the raffles and we were home in time to watch the second footy match .. not that it was very successful for me. I have only got 2 out of 3 correct so far this week.

It's moving towards midnight, so I'm off to bed. I've been up since 3am because I stupidly decided to drink a coffee at 7pm last night and the caffeine kicked in at about midnight. I slept restlessly until 3 am when my body decided to be wide awake.

Ugh.

I have art class tomorrow, so I need to rest.

Nite all.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Hit The Wall

I sit here on the couch watching the footy at 8pm and I cannot stop yawning.

I think I've hit the wall and I should go to bed before I get my second wind!

Adoring Husband woke me this morning from a a very deep sleep where I was dreaming - I can't remember now what I was dreaming about and when I went back to sleep, the dream didn't continue .. because I couldn't return to that sound sleep. I hate that.

My first job this morning was to ride to the supermarket to grab a few items for my party today, so I bought a coffee and spent fifteen minutes with the boys at the Seat of Knowledge. It has become a regular car park with three of them now in mobility carts.

I came home and cleared an area of the back bedroom so that I could put all of the clothes, shoes, handbags and jewellery that I'm clearing in there, and still provide enough room for the girls to try them on.

 I prepared some food. A couple of cheese platters, a fruit platter and two different flavours of marinated chicken wings.

Adoring Husband returned home in a loan car after he had dropped our car in at The Bay for repairs, so he cleaned the floor and the loo for me while I made up a couple of jugs of Margaritas and set out the tea and coffee area and tidied up the kitchen.

Much was achieved in the morning and I was dressed and ready to greet my guests as they arrived from 1pm onwards.

Maid Marian was the first to arrive and was able to take her pick of the goods available. Even though I had told the girls to come early to look at the clothes before the party, none of the others arrived until right on 2pm which is when the party should have started.

I believe the party started at about 3pm, which was ok because almost everybody knew all about Le Reve anyway. Stephanie didn't have to explain too much and everybody knew what they wanted to order.

This meant that the girls were all in the back room trying on clothes by 4pm, giggling and shrieking and falling over each other and pretending that it was a Boxing Day sale in Myers. They made a good dent in my stash and what remains will be taken to St Vinnies or another charity organisation in the next few days.

On my way to the shops this morning, I came across this very beautiful, but very dead python in the gutter. So sad :(


Well, 8.30pm and I'm heading to bed.

Thanks for listening.

Nite all.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Romancing it

What a big day!

I listened to an instructional audio book before I left my bed this morning. It was called "Buy Buttons. The Fast-Track Strategy to Make Extra Money and Start a Business in Your Spare Time"

I didn't get much out of it, because it was written by an American and talked more about resources available in USA and UK. He did mention Australia once or twice, but the information wasn't relevant to me.

Don't get me wrong, it provided some interesting information and I did take a couple of notes, so I'll see if I can apply any of it to my business.

Then I had to select an outfit to wear to our lady's luncheon!

I washed and blow dried my hair, made my face presentable and was ready with time to spare before my lift arrived.

We got stuck behind a tree lopping, wood chipping truck that was towing a wood chipper trailer. It did not drive faster than 80kph at any point during the trip to The Bay. The traffic was such that we never had the opportunity to overtake it, so the drive, which usually takes about 35 minutes took us 45 minutes.

It almost caused WWIII in the car while half of us dared the driver to overtake at risky points and the other half of us demanded that she keep us safe and alive!

Anyway, as you can tell, we made it! Safe and alive!


Thirteen of us enjoyed delicious meals (Except for one person .. and no it wasn't Reality TV Queen! She didn't attend today) and the range of GF options at AquaVue has improved considerably! I got to select salt and pepper calamari, which I've never been able to order before and it was very nice!

This will, once again, become my favourite place to eat in The Bay.

Before we left The Bay, we stopped at Dr Dan's so that I could stock up on my Margarita ingredients for the party tomorrow.

We stopped at the Bowls Club for a quick play of the pokies and then drove to Reality TV Queen's house to have goodbye drinks because she is heading off on a 6 week holiday!

The Blonde Bombshell (AKA YipYip) provided delicious South Australian oysters with lemon and caviar. I haven't had oysters for about 15 years because I had what I thought was an allergic reaction. It was around the same time that I developed allergies to sea perch and sea scallops, so I assumed that the allergy extended to oysters!

Well, I'm happy to say that six hours later, there has been no reaction!! I can eat oysters again!!  

*happy dance*

The Facebook page for my website is still doing very nicely, but I won't be able to do much with it tomorrow, with a big day ahead of me. I'm hosting a La Reve party and the ladies will be coming early to go through a huge stack of clothes, shoes, handbags and jewellery that I'm getting rid of.

I have to prepare Margaritas and some nibblies too.

So I'd best get some sleep. I think I'll get to bed before midnight for a change!

Nite all.  

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Cool Bananas

I'm pretty happy that after less then 48 hours, I had more than 100 people 'like' and 'follow' the Romance Your Life Facebook page!

How exciting!

So I celebrated by announcing a competition where somebody can win a 2017 My Shining Year Workbook and Diary Planner.




I'll announce a winner on 9th May.

If you have a Facebook account and you're interested in entering the competition, go here to find out the details.

This has contributed to me having a really good day, which all started with the usual Tuesday coffee morning with the girls. There were only four of us and The Blonde Bombshell (AKA YipYip) talked a LOT. Even though I teased her incessantly, coffee mornings really have not been the same without her and we've missed her while she has been travelling. Don't tell her I said that though :)

It was 11am by the time I returned home and I prepared an early lunch and headed off to my workspace.

I was trying to figure out how to adjust my website so that it could be viewed on a mobile phone without the words in the headings overlapping each other. I KNEW that I KNEW how to do it, but my memory failed me.

I searched Youtube and couldn't find any familiar information and my frustration was welling, when I received a phone call from my friend 'Woman of Many Talents' asking me to go visit and help her make a decision about the colour of a kitchen tile.

So I took the opportunity to rest my brain and went for a trike ride to visit her. I was halfway to her house when I had an epiphany!!! I remembered everything!! I knew what I had to do to fix the site!

I had a lovely time catching up with WOMT and we chose the perfect tile for her kitchen.

I came home and fixed 95% of the site, but there is still part of it to which the rules that I remembered do not apply, so I still have to figure that part out yet.

Late this afternoon my FB page reached 100 likes and I worked on the competition details.

So, my day has been more than satisfactory and I'm looking forward to the lady's luncheon tomorrow!

Time for bed.

Nite all.



Seven Years!

Happy anniversary to us! Seven years today and going strong.

We both wished we could do something more romantic and adventurous together today, but without transport, we decided to make it a foodie day and also do romantic things like walk hand in hand along the beach. We like to make our anniversaries special and just be together.

So it all started with breakfast in bed ... and if you know me, I don't eat breakfast haha. I have coffee, which is exactly what Adoring Husband provided for me while I lay back in bed and enjoyed a slow start to the day.

It was nice to sit and watch as people logged into Facebook and saw my post about the new website. The encouraging comments and watching the numbers climb as people joined my Facebook page was quite exciting!

Adoring Husband gave me a lovely card in which he had written beautiful sentiments, as he always does on our special occasions. When I find the card that I bought for him 2 months ago, which I've hidden in a very safe place, I will present it to him hehehe.

I did spend some time in my office this morning.

We prepared a delicious smoked salmon salad with a home made dressing and a big container of fruit slices to take down to the park, where we were married seven years ago. We drank iced water, so no alcoholic toasts were made.


After lunch, on this very dull day, we decided to drive to the beach, kick off our footwear, and walk as far out along the sand as we could. It was low tide and our tide goes out for kilometres ... so far that you can't even see the water!

I attempted to take a panorama photo with my phone camera and just as I mastered it, Adoring Husband decided to be a fool and bounce around in front of me. This is the result!


He appears 'armless' lol

Here is the next attempt ...


We walked until Adoring Husband's legs hurt and then returned to the car. It was a competition to see whether the big black cloud or us would reach the car first!


Very dark and gloomy and threatening, but we won the race.

I had arranged to buy some sand crabs from The Motivator this afternoon to have for our anniversary dinner, so we picked up six sand crabs, which I spent almost an hour removing the meat from and made avocado and crab toast with the leftover salad from lunch. They were still warm, having just been cooked by The Fisher King. They couldn't have been any fresher!

It was a delicious dinner which we enjoyed very much. We've had a lovely day together. Happy Anniversary to us :)

Anyway, I forgot to show you my birthday gifts to myself yesterday! Here are all the gifts that I received - except for my jewellery organiser that Bubbles sent me (I will show you that tomorrow) -


The 'Clean Eating' recipe book and the Bambi and Thumper ornament were my gifts to myself. I've been very spoilt by my friends this year and I'm feeling the love.

This is the card that I gave myself.



I can't even explain the wonderful feeling that enveloped me when I opened the card on my birthday and read it out loud to myself. Who knew that something so simple could bring such warm happiness?

Anyway, it's time to be kind to myself and get to bed! It's way past midnight!

Nite all.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Drum Roll Please!!!!!!!!!

The psychotic dogs woke me up this morning at 4.10am for a toilet break.

I couldn't get back to sleep, so I made my way to the other end of the house where my website awaited further construction.

I discovered that sometimes it takes me a long time to use common sense, but it dawned on me where I needed to go to get the information that would fix my glitches. What an epiphany!!

This sent the adrenalin pumping through my veins and I was so excited about the possibility of completing the task today, that I cancelled all of my birthday plans, sent Adoring Husband off to SES duties and planted myself firmly in my desk chair, pyjamas and all, for eleven hours of solid website work.

I received a phone call around lunch time from The Speckled Hen inviting  me for birthday drinks at the Bowls Club with a couple of other girls. She gave me the time of 3.30pm and I figured that would take me to eleven hours of solid work and I should definitely have a break by then!

At 3.10pm, I reluctantly changed out of my pyjamas (gosh I can't even remember the last time I stayed in my pyjamas all day. In fact, I don't think I ever have!) into presentable attire for the club and the girls picked me up right on 3.30pm.

Two vodka and tonics later and after lots of laughing and nonsense, they dropped me home at 5pm. They were heading off to one of their houses for more drinks, but I wanted to get dinner done and return to my website.

So it took another three hours, and there are still a couple of problems to sort out. It's by no means perfect, BUT, it's presentable enough to show the world and I will iron out the problems as I go, because IF NOT NOW, WHEN?????

SO!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!

I present to you Romance Your Life with Roz

Let the games begin!

Nite all.