Loving it!

This morning, before I left my bed, I went onto the website of Denise Duffield Thomas - one of the women who inspired me to create the website and start the business. I've been so busy since July, I've barely had time to read any more of her stuff, so I wanted to see what she was up to.

She had just announced a challenge for her followers - to write down 50 things that you're proud of from 2017.

I went in search of a little notebook and began to write.

It was so easy to think of 50 things! I was amazed at how wonderful 2017 was for me. I've achieved so much and tried new things and am in a completely different place to twelve months ago.

Here are my top twelve memories for 2017 ...

1. Attended two Journey workshops in Sydney and Byron Bay.
2. Attended the Health and Wellness Festival in Canberra by myself.
3. Attended the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney.
4. Created and launched my website.
5. Wrote a book.
6. Babysat Chicklet in Melbourne.
7. Created and launched The Happy Abode with The Motivator.
8. Celebrated Adoring Husband's 60th birthday in Big Bash style.
9. Experienced a fabulous road trip with my BFF.
10. Sold 17 of my photos!
11. After 30yrs as friends, had my first Christmas with Primrose.
12. Began designing my first photography course.
13. (I know I said 12, but this needs a special mention) Stood up and spoke at Mum H's funeral. 

Listing the 50 things certainly helped me start the day with a flourish and I was feeling pretty good about myself.

I was even ready early enough to visit the boys at the Seat of Knowledge before work.

I loved my time in The Happy Abode today. I always love my time there, but today was especially great, not for any reason except there were so many tourists who came in and were happy, smiling, laughing and relaxed.

It felt like a party was happening all day and I was in the middle of it.

So it was a good day and I reluctantly left the shop some time after 2pm.

My first job when I arrived home, was to put the beef curry on to cook. After that, I just had to lie down. I was feeling exhausted and needed a power nap, so I lay down on the bed and every time I dozed off, I got a cramp in the middle toe of my right foot.

Ugh.

Twenty minutes was enough for me to feel energised, but then realised that I didn't have everything that I needed for dinner, so I rode down to the shops with Primrose on foot beside me.

I did a grocery shop and she got herself a coffee, then we rode to where she last sat on the beach so that she could retrieve the empty coffee cup that she accidentally left behind earlier in the day.

By the time we returned home, it was almost 5pm. I had missed my date with The Blonde Bombshell and friends, so I served dinner up nice and early - 5.30pm - strung one thread of beads on my arty farty work in progress and then decided to watch some Youtube videos on how to set up my camera.

Well, it may have been a decision, but it never came to fruition.

I still don't know how to set up my camera!

It's now almost 10.30pm and I need to sleep.

Nite all.

A Busier Day

The caravan park is full and the tourists are finding their way into The Happy Abode.

It was even busier today, but a third of the customers bought very small, inexpensive items which didn't add up to much. A number of people came in for a look and didn't spend any money at all, and then there were the fun spenders who came in groups and who competed against each other to see who could buy the most snap buttons for their selected jewellery item.

And then there were the customers who returned later with friends or family to show off the shop as if it were their own!

Word of mouth has such high value and the tourists are telling each other all about us.

We even had a lady, still wrapped in all her hairdressing towels and cape, come in to shop while she waited for her colour to take and she selected a snap bracelet and two buttons! We may need to make a deal with the hairdresser to send all of her customers over to The Happy Abode while they are waiting for the timer to go off!

Primrose came to the shop this morning and got to work. She helped open the shop, she put hooks in the shelves for our paper bags, cleaned our kitchen, vacuumed the floor, cleaned the glass doors and did some dusting. She bought me a coffee for morning tea and then went home, made my lunch and delivered it to me.  What a champion.

Adoring Husband arrived at the shop just before 3pm to help me bring in the signs before closing, but right on 3pm, a customer walked in and began floating around the shop oohing and aaahing and singing our praises. She decided to buy some snap button jewellery, but couldn't make a decision until her daughter suddenly appeared.

Between them, they took an hour and twenty minutes to select three snap bracelets and a few buttons. They must have tried thirty buttons each on their selected jewellery.

At 4.10pm they asked what time I closed and I said "An hour ago."

Even though they apologised profusely for taking so long, they still took another ten minutes to make their final choices!

Needless to say, I arrived at the Bowls Club a little later than usual.

It was another losing night for our group and none of us won a single thing.

I was a winner when I arrived home to find dinner laid out on the table, so that all I had to do was sit down and eat.

I am spoilt.

I love having a number two wife in the house. Life has been a breeze for me this past month since we returned from our road trip. I will have to work on finding a routine again after Primrose returns home.

Tonight I'm feeling a bit lethargic and worn out, so I'm off to bed for an early night.

Nite all.  

A Busy Day

I worked the shop alone today.

The Motivator has family in town for a couple of days so while she is feeling the love, I will be feeling happy in The Happy Abode.

There were plenty of holiday-makers through the shop, each with their own story, and some of those stories were pretty sad ones today. I had to 'shake it off' after I left work, because the sadness felt like it was hanging over me a little.

While yesterday was a big snap jewellery sales day, today saw a much bigger variety of stock walking out the door.

There were people from Kingaroy, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Toowoomba, Coffs Harbour and a farming couple from south west of Kingaroy.

Primrose came to the shop and did some display styling for some rings that we have for sale.

Adoring Husband delivered some fresh prawns for my lunch.

I decided to shut the shop right on 3pm so that I could drive into town with Primrose for an afternoon of shopping and clubbing.

Adoring Husband came to the shop and helped me bring all the flags and signs in so that I could get home quickly. We left the trike in the shop and he drove me home.

I enjoyed my afternoon with Primrose and it's now after 11pm so it's definitely time for bed.

Nite all.

So Much To Do ...

Our 'to do' list includes:

• creating two of our workshop/courses before the third week of January
• creating a questionnaire 
• contacting the people on the photography course list to ask them to answer the questionnaire
• advertising the workshops/courses
• having the training room finished and set up for the workshops/courses
• recruiting for both the meditation and the Qigong workshops
• signage ... oh the drama of signage!

That's just off the top of my head.

I think we are beginning to feel a bit pressured. We've both had so much happening this past month and that will continue for both of us for the next couple of weeks, so there is little time to commit to our 'to do' list.

Everything will fall into place, as it has ever since we began this journey, so I'm not too concerned at this point.

It has been a quieter than expected couple of days in town, but we've had some interesting holiday makers come through the doors and a few women who mistakenly came in with their husbands and who promise to return in the next couple of days WITHOUT their husbands.

We shut up shop right on 3pm today and I rushed home to prepare myself for a triple date.

Primrose, Adoring Husband and I drove straight into town to watch one of two movies - either 'Jumanji' or 'The Greatest Showman'.

We arrived at the cinema at about 4.20pm and both of those movies were to start at 4.30pm. As we walked in the door, the queue awaiting entry into the next movie was all the way back to the entry of the building.

I groaned and said "No way"

We got into the ticketing line and heard the person in front of us ask for Jumanji tickets. They were told "sorry, that movie is sold out"

We asked how busy/full 'The Greatest Showman" was and she told us 'not very full right now, but she expected to get a late rush'.

We got the tickets and bought our mandatory movie junk food.

We did not know that the movie was a musical - so when the opening 5 minutes was full of song/music, we were surprised and I think we all had low expectations - HOWEVER - it was amazing!

The music, the singing, the songs, the story, the acting, the dancing, the characters, the actors and most of all, Hugh Jackman ... just wow. So much energy throughout the movie. We would all go see it again and plan on buying the dvd when it's released. Absolutely brilliant.

Even Adoring Husband remained awake throughout the movie!

Primrose had prepared dinner before we went out, so we returned home and lay the food on the table to eat immediately. That was so quick and easy and meant we could sit and discuss and rave over the movie some more.

Now it's after 11.30pm and I need to sleep because I'll be in the shop by myself tomorrow.

So nite all.

Christmas & Boxing Days

It's been a lovely Christmas.

It began slowly with a lazy morning in bed with coffee.

When I finally felt the urge, I showered and made myself Christmassy presentable and headed to the kitchen to make our breakfast berry smoothy.

I played Aussie Christmas songs while I worked in the kitchen.

While I was doing that, Primrose woke up and poked her head round the corner looking decidedly bemused, before disappearing to also make herself Christmassy presentable.

Primrose made her second appearance in the room dressed and smiling and ready to face Christmas head on!

We all guzzled down our smoothies, decided to have breakfast food AFTER gift giving, and then got comfortable in the lounge room to start handing each other gifts from under the tree.

Adoring Husband was given his first gift and was ordered to wear it immediately ...

... then it was his job, as Chief Elf, to distribute the gifts to us all.

We had a lovely time opening all the thoughtful, meaningful, fun gifts from and to each other followed by hugs and thanks all round. Then it was time to cook up a big feed of bacon and eggs for a late brekky.

After the kitchen clean up, Primrose went for a nap in her room while Adoring Husband napped in his chair and I sat outside in the outdoor area beading some more of my arty farty creation that is going to take me weeks to complete!

It was almost 2pm before we decided to get lunch organised.

Roast pork done in the barbecue, ham, turkey, chicken with three different salads. We pulled bonbons and displayed the fabulous hand made Christmas/beachy twinkling table decoration that Primrose had created for this occasion. Much to the shock and horror of AH and Primrose, I even said 'grace'!

Once our bellies were full, and we had the table cleared, we set up for 3 sessions of Trivial Pursuit and ate copious amounts of potato chips, veggie sticks with guacamole dip and Turkish Delight. Primrose won 2 games of trivia and I won one.

After the games, we decided to watch a movie. Primrose recommended 'The Hitman's Bodyguard' so we watched that on Foxtel and even though it was very violent, the violence was secondary to the humour and the star factor of Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson together.

Samuel L Jackson's signature phrase 'Mother-f____r' was prominent and apparently there are drinking games that people play so that every time he utters those words, it's a sign to scull an alcoholic drink. We kind of lost count, but he said it approximately 20 times.

We considered bringing a bottle of Tequila into the equation, but decided that I couldn't go to work with a hangover and Primrose couldn't shop the Boxing Day sales with a hangover. Aren't we clever considering the consequences of our actions like that??? Haha. Imagine the damage that 20 shots of tequila could produce?

Today was Boxing Day and The Motivator and I decided to work because the other business owners in town declared that it was the busiest time of the year in our town ... we didn't want to miss out on what that might entail, so we opened the doors at 9am.

Lady Lynn was the first of the Tuesday morning coffee girls to arrive and eventually there were seven of us chatting away and comparing Christmas Day stories. A few of the girls did some serious shopping before they left at around 11am.

It was 2.50 before we had our next customer and then more walked in the door at 3.10pm. That was it.

The other shop owners all complained that it was the quietest Boxing Day they'd ever seen.

Damn!

I left The Motivator and the Fisher King at the shop at about 3.45pm and arrived home to discover that Primrose had walked down to the beach, so I changed my shoes for a pair of thongs and pedalled down there to find her.

There were a hell of lot of people along the river bank and on the beach ... I wished I'd brought some postcards from the shop to hand out and let them all know that The Happy Abode was in existence and I might just do that tomorrow!

While dinner was cooking (and luckily I had Primrose to monitor the cooking process) I had two different phone calls and chatted with Number One son and Bubbles, which took almost an hour.

Of course, we all had to sit down and watch the Dr Who Christmas special tonight (I kept myself occupied on my laptop while AH and Primrose were engrossed in the show) and now that I have fulfilled my blog post requirements and made up for missing the Christmas night post, I am off to bed.

It's rapidly approaching 11pm and there are storms approaching so it may be a restless night with the dogs who are all still suffering from PTSD after the tornado in 2013. They stress when they hear thunder or rain or if the wind gets strong. If I'm indoors, I'm ok, but if I'm in the car or outdoors when a storm is approaching, I stress considerably too.

Anyway, that's it from me.

Nite all.

 

Christmas Eve

I think we are ready for Christmas.

There is enough food to feed us for a week, including a bit of junk food that only follows one rule ... gluten free.

The tree is looking abundant with both decorations AND gifts ...

... I can safely say that none of my gifts have arrived at their destinations in time for Christmas, so there will be post Christmas gift opening for my entire family.

The shop was surprisingly quiet as far as customer numbers go, but the few that came in certainly handed over plenty of cash.

It was a pleasant four hours of work and at the end, The Motivator and I poured a glass of champagne and 'cheers'-ed ourselves a Merry Christmas before heading home to begin our Christmas preparations.

I tossed a chicken in the oven and then sat down to watch 'Love Actually' with Chicklet and Vegan Chickie - them in Melbourne and me in QLD. It was, as always, a real pleasure with lots of texts and videos being sent back and forth between us.

A quick dinner of roast chicken and salad and then me declaring exhaustion after a very early morning to bed (2am) this morning. So this is my quick blog post before climbing into my welcoming bed for some much needed sleep.

A very Merry Christmas to anyone out there who cares ... and may 2018 bring everybody overwhelming love, luck, happiness, health and prosperity. I know it's going to be a hell of a challenge for some of us, but hopefully incredibly rewarding and satisfying.

Nite all.

Rush Job

Here we are on Christmas Eve (only just) and I am sitting here in silence in my lounge room trying to figure out what to quickly write in this blog post because it's so late and I need to go to bed because I'm working today.

The Happy Abode is open from 10am - 2pm on Sunday 24th December for last minute shopping before Christmas.

It was rather quiet in the shop this morning. We still had sales, but it was one of the more quiet Saturday mornings that we've experienced.

Having said that, we had quite a few people come in for long chats, so we certainly weren't sitting there twiddling our thumbs!

We locked the doors at 1.30pm and Adoring Husband picked me up so that we could drive into The Bay to do our last minute Christmas food shopping.

We concentrated on buying healthy options but got some potato chips, corn chips and a packet of GF crackers to dip into hummus and guacamole dip. You know, the mandatory junk food for Christmas Day without going over the top.

I also got all the crafty bits and pieces that Primrose and I needed to finish our fabulous creations, including hooks for our jewellery holders, tools to attach findings to the strings of beads, findings to hold groups of beads together and boards for the shop signs.

I printed out a photo for one of our special customers and bought a frame for it, as requested, as a special rush job for Christmas.

It was a fairly rushed trip to get everything done in a couple of hours and return home in time to unpack the car, pack the food away, clear the dining room table which had a build up of items dumped on it over the past few weeks, finish preparing dinner (Primrose had done all the salads), eat, clear the table, clean the kitchen and then sit down with a couple of alcoholic beverages while we played trivia.

Primrose won!

Now I need to get some sleep. It's almost 1am.

Before I go, here are some of the beautiful San Marco jewellery that we ordered last week and which arrived at the shop in time for Christmas.

They are tiny Mexican wildflowers set in resin and then the outer edge of the pendant capped in silver. Incredibly delicate and beautiful pieces. We sold three on the first day!

There is always something new to look at in the shop and we try to bring in something different and unusual whenever possible.

That's all for tonight.

Nite all.