All the Rs

Rest.

Relax.

Rejuvenate.

Revive.

Revitalise.

Retreat.

My day was full of it ... all the Rs.

Spent the entire day in bed clearing my energy, meditating, breathing it out, dozing, eating nutritious food, drinking lots of filtered water, studying, writing and resting.

I still feel a bit lethargic and I have a slight infection in my left eye which is annoying, but I'm dosing it up with colloidal silver gel every couple of hours and I can feel it improving and healing, so hopefully by tomorrow morning, I won't have to worry about it anymore.

Adoring Husband has returned home after a long day in Bundaberg on SES duty and his body is cramping up from being on his feet all day.

I had a big pot of lamb shanks waiting for him when he got home and it was full of healthful veg like carrot, zucchini, sweet potato, onion, tomato, garlic and celery. The usual fruit whip was what followed and now he is under a hot shower trying to relax those tight muscles.

His tomorrow is booked out doing the same thing in Hervey Bay and Maryborough, but that depends on how well his body recovers during the night.

What a pair we are!

Depending on how I feel upon waking tomorrow, I hope to do some decluttering through the house, but we'll see.

My watch is telling me to get some sleep.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Nite all.

 

Done for the Week

What an amazing day!

It all started like a big ball of hell.

I got out of bed as soon as my alarm went off at 6am and jumped under the shower to wash my hair and prepare for the day.

I needed to be at work bright and early to set up the training room for the final session of my photography course, which I hadn't even finished creating, and still needed to finalise a couple of the finer details once I got to the shop.

Adoring Husband drove to the shop ahead of me, taking with him, my camera gear, the shop cash tin and my wheelie bag with my laptop and paperwork for the course. He arrived well before me, and as I walked in the door, he came through the training room door and closed it behind him.

BIG mistake.

The door handle has always been a bit dodgy and sometimes sticks if you turn it the wrong way, but today it was so much worse, when it actually locked itself fast. It doesn't have a key lock, but has a little slot which under normal circumstances you could turn with a screw driver to unlock it.

But dodgy doors don't fall under 'normal circumstances' and this one was locked fast.

There was a lot of swearing by me. There was a lot of stomping by me. There was a lot of eye rolling by me. There was a lot of name calling by me. There was a lot of huffing and puffing by me.

By the time AH drove home to find some tools to open the door - or should I say "rip the door apart" - and then actually ripped the door apart, I had about twenty minutes remaining to set up the room for my participants.

Truth is, the door is still intact, but the door handle is in a million pieces on the bottom of my desk rubbish bin. It took FOREVER for him to remove it!

I was still ready for the course on time and we actually went out for some photography on the beach where we attempted some 'leading lines', some straight horizons and some rule of thirds photography, using our cameras on 'manual' mode.

It was a huge success and the girls were very happy with the course - so I will ask them to write a review each, which should help me recruit for my next course in June.

The Motivator returned to work today and in one morning, our takings were more than every other day of the week put together! Amazing how the change of energy in the shop brought so many people  through the doors.

The final sale of the day was a gentleman from out of town who bought one of my photos! A big one!

I have tomorrow off work and I am really looking forward to having a lazy day. AH has to go to Bundaberg in his SES role, to help with the Queen's Baton Relay.

The hands of the clock are rapidly approaching midnight, so I'm off to bed.

A BIG Happy Birthday to Vegan Chickie who is out celebrating her 38th birthday tonight!

Nite all.

Serenade Me!

I was surprised to take delivery of our Serenade order today!

I wasn't expecting it until Friday or Monday, so it was a pleasant surprise.

It took me ALL DAY to check everything off the invoice, price it all, pack their protective bags inside them and then figure out how to display them.

There are some stunning bags and purses in the mix and I SO need to control myself and not take three of the bags home just for me! Maybe five of them! Drool Drool

The gale force conditions, combined with the scudding showers, kept people indoors today, so it was a very quiet day in the shop - which was fortuitous for getting stuff done.

Tomorrow is the final session for the photography workshop, so I need to get some sleep in preparation for some practical work on a photo shoot. I hope the weather is conducive to a successful shoot.

It was lonely without The Motivator today, so I'm looking forward to spending some time with her tomorrow.

Nite all.

She's Baaa-aaack!

The Motivator has returned!!

Woot Woot Welcome Home!!

Today, in The Happy Abode, it was completely the opposite of yesterday! Only five people came through the doors all day and while they had wonderful things to say about the shop, our prices and the lovely atmosphere, few people wanted to spend their money.

It's funny how some days (like yesterday), people walk in obviously wanting to spend spend spend and other days, like today, people come into the shop completely empty handed just to have a look only. Sometimes they return days later with friends in tow, but there is certainly no pattern, no rhyme nor reason for the spending or non-spending habits of people.

After almost eight months in business - looking at the available data - the only pattern that really stands out is that every pension day (every alternate Wednesday) we can guarantee a quiet day because pensioners spend that particular day in The Bay doing their grocery shopping and paying their bills.

One thing is for sure, every day is a surprise! Generally speaking, people are extremely friendly and want to tell you their story and share their lives with you and it's one of the things that I really enjoy about having the shop. I hope that we have the shop long enough to develop relationships with the regular holiday-makers and get to look forward to their return every year.

We are just over a week away from Easter and the big Easter Fishing Classic which will be bringing hundreds of people to town. We are expecting new stock to arrive over the next week and we've offered the Classic a number of prizes for their raffles and a monetary donation for the kids fishing prizes. We need to put some signs up around town to attract extra attention and add some signage to where the big classic brings the biggest crowds ... The Lions Park.

My watch is just about to tell me to go to bed, so I shall sign off here to do as I'm told ... for a change!

I have a lot to do tomorrow.

Nite all.

Terrific Tuesday

The energy felt completely different at The Happy Abode today.

My plan for getting to the shop early (8am) so that I could watch the live video call for my course, fell by the wayside when I woke up feeling lethargic and totally unmotivated.

I couldn't even drag myself out of bed until 7.30 and then my brain was lagging enough that I almost left the house without brushing my hair or putting on my make up.

I attempted to partly watch and partly listen to the live video call while I was getting ready, but I wasn't very successful. I left the house at 8.40am and arrived at the shop just before 8.50am with enough time to open the shop on my own, because Adoring Husband had SES duties, just in time to welcome Tweedle Dee (new name yet to be announced) for morning coffee.

There were four of us for coffee and it was 11am by the time our coffee date was over! Talking, talking, talking, talking and more talking!

It was busy in the shop with lots of customers and everybody was very happy and jovial and talkative and sharing and caring. I really enjoyed the day.

Aside from tending to customers, I paid some bills and answered some emails, did the banking and tidied up a bit ... my desk is still in need of some attention - maybe I'll have time to do that tomorrow.

AH helped me close the shop and we did some grocery shopping together before heading straight home.

I chopped up three more pineapples to freeze for our fruit whips, so now we have about twelve bags of it frozen in the freezer. Three bags of banana. Five bags of dragon fruit. Frozen fruit deliciousness for weeks to come!

We had Hainan Chicken for dinner. Yum.

We watched a very juicy episode of Married at First Sight and I can't wait for the final show tomorrow night (Wednesday). It's going to be epic!

Now it's exactly the right time for me to go to bed.

Nite all.

Mondayitis

No such thing as Mondayitis at The Happy Abode!

We love Mondays! We love ALL days!

We had another great meditation class at 7.30am and now have a wonderful bunch of ladies who, like me, are absorbing and relating to everything that The Gypsy talks about and we are all sharing some interesting pieces of our lives every week. There is a lot of love in the room and we are enjoying the healing process.

In so many ways, everyone has some healing to do.

It was a slow Monday, so I spent some time taking decent photos with my camera, editing a few of them to post on our Facebook page, instead of the usual lazy phone pics.

There were a few customers here and there as well as a couple of friends who dropped by and it was a beautiful day outside.

I was excited to sell the first of our new watches today.

Also, while we were at the gift fair in Sydney last month, I found a piece of jewellery that made me think of a specific customer immediately. So we bought it with her in mind. Today, she came into the shop and when I showed it to her, she loved it! She didn't buy it straight away because she wanted to check that she had something to wear it with ... so she went home, checked her wardrobe, and returned twenty minutes later to buy it!

Adoring Husband was his usual helpful self today.

The training room was still set up from my photography class on Friday, so he came early to the shop with me and helped set up the room for meditation and put the flags and signs out for me ... then I remembered that I had left my broth at home, so he drove home and collected that for me ... then later in the day he delivered my camera bag to me, and finally, at the end of the day he returned to help me close the shop.

What would I do without him?

We had duck for dinner tonight, followed by our favourite fruit whip ice cream.

And now, I have ignored my 'go to bed' alarm for long enough. I need to be at the shop before 8am tomorrow to watch a live video call for my biz course, so I'm off to bed!

Nite all.

Starvarated

I can't believe how hungry I am today!

It all started with a big cup of chicken bone broth, followed by eight small chicken n pork meatballs with home made spicy tomato sauce, followed by a glass of kombucha, followed by a plate of home made ice cream, followed by home made crackers dipped in home made guacamole, followed by a dragon fruit.

I didn't eat it all in one hit!

It's 6.30pm now, so that was over ten hours and tonight we'll be having porterhouse steak with salad for dinner and a fresh batch of home made ice cream for dessert. The ice cream is made from frozen pineapple, banana, dragon fruit, coconut cream, pure maple syrup and a pinch of salt, all chucked in the blender or food processor.

I sat in bed and did some of my studies until about 1.30pm when I got up and watched a great old black and white movie with Bing Crosby - 'Going My Way'.

The only housework that I've done is a couple of loads of washing and I'm just about to make the ice cream for after dinner, but I have to say that I'm still feeling very tired and a bit run down. I think I'm all 'peopled' out.

It's our first caffeine free day today. Adoring Husband has decided to go completely Paleo again because he has gained so much weight. Too much coffee, potato, bread, cookies and rice. I will probably still have a coffee every now and then when I'm at work, but I'm happy to get rid of the other foods that I mentioned.

A H is currently cooking our steak on the barbecue and I have prepared the salad to go with it, so it's time to end this post.

It will definitely be an early night for me.

A big hullo to The Blonde Bombshell, who I know has her phone working now and hopefully gets to read this every day while she's in hospital. I'll have to make it all a bit more interesting!

Nite all.