Sweet Day

It was a nice easy start to the day and I arrived at work with plenty of time to go grab a takeaway coffee before The Motivator arrived and we opened the doors together.

It was a typically quiet Saturday morning - it's almost enough to consider not opening on the weekends at all. Luckily, our workshops are making up for the slack in weekend sales!

My photography workshop was cancelled at the last minute, but the workshop in February is looking pretty healthy at this point in time.

We made some design plans for the training room.

I created some posts for our Facebook and Instagram accounts.

We talked a lot about nothing and everything and something and anything.

We each have our own little projects for the shop that we work on from time to time and we did a bit of that too.

Right now, we are organising our trip to Sydney for the gift fair. The Motivator has booked our accommodation and we'll book our flights next week.

Adoring Husband arrived right on 1pm and had finished his flood boat training much earlier than expected. That was our cue to close the shop and head home.

AH and I did some team building and cleaned the toilet, bathroom and laundry before collapsing into the pool at around 2.30pm.

There was beautiful music playing through the sound bar and the umbrella created the perfect amount of shade for protection from that stinking hot sun that seemed to cut right into the skin. The water was the perfect temperature for cooling our work weary bodies down and while AH behaved like an unsupervised ten year old, I behaved like a sick and tired Mother of a ten yr old. There was much eye rolling to be had.

At about 3.30pm The Motivator arrived for her invitational swim and we had a lovely time lolling about in the water and talking about rubbish and laughing and giggling - we even slipped a couple of serious subjects into the mix.

At 5pm we both removed ourselves from the water because we had planned on doing roasts for dinner. She was doing lamb and I was doing chicken. We hugged goodbye and I changed out of my wet swimmers and headed straight to the kitchen.

I decided to bake two chicken Marylands with sweet potato, pumpkin, red capsicum, zucchini, onion, carrot and cauliflower steaks. I lay them all on a bed of baby spinach and drizzled balsamic vinegar over them. It was yummy.

While I was cooking all of that I lay macadamias, cashews, slivered almonds, pecans and pistachios on some baking paper, drizzled some maple syrup and sprinkled some salt and baked them in a hot oven for 15 minutes. When I took it out to cool, the maple syrup turned to toffee so I could break it all up and sprinkle it over our fruit whip dessert.

After I took all of that out of the oven, I put a whole chicken in there to bake ready for tomorrow's lunch and dinner.

Tonight I'm watching the tennis (instead of Grace and Frankie) because there are a couple of Aussies playing. Bolt lost his match in three sets and the other young 19yr old, Popyrin, is two sets down and playing a tie breaker for the third.

It's after 10pm and I think I'm done for the day. I'll be falling asleep in bed with the tennis on a timer.

Nite all.  

G&F is Back!

Grace and Frankie is back!!

I haven't watched any of it yet because I want to be able to binge watch the entire season. Saturday afternoon could be my aim!

My day was reasonably productive - I cleared the stockpile of 'stuff' that I had gradually built up on the dining table over the last couple of weeks and the other 'stuff' that I had laid all over the lounge in the family room.

I decluttered some of the old recipe books and magazines from the book shelf as well as some old novels and wedding books. I removed about 30 items, just to make a start.

I got all my personal washing up to date.

I cleared some emails.

I did a reading out of one of The Gypsy's books.

I swam and exercised in the pool for about 45 minutes before making myself presentable for the club.

It was a losing night for me and our group at the club tonight - no lotsapots, no pokie wins, no keno wins, no raffle wins no membership draw wins.

They were the quotes that tickled my fancy this morning. I think I'll get an early night - or at least go to bed to watch the tennis. I'm watching the young Australian girl Birrell play against the number 2 player in the world. I don't think she has a chance, but it will be a good experience for her and she will learn a lot.

Work tomorrow.

Nite all.

Feels like Saturday

I know it's Thursday, but it feels like Saturday!

I studied a bit today and I read a bit and I swam a bit and I watched tennis a bit and I edited photos for a bit and I cooked a bit.

I can't believe that it's already after midnight and I'm not in bed yet!

Since I have nothing to report, how about this ...

Have a fabulous Friday and I'll see some of you tonight!!

Nite all.

Bright Start

Meditation today was ... there are no words to describe it.

For the first time, we had a full house.

There was something special about the way The Gypsy delivered the meditation this morning.  It was a room overflowing with emotion and wonderment. She was emanating love and I could physically feel the glow.

The new ladies spilled tears as emotions overwhelmed them and afterwards they left the shop raving about how much they needed this and were looking forward to attending every week.

I actually felt emotional myself and shared a lot of hugs all round.

It was another perfect start to the day.

It was also another quiet sales day, although it was a big improvement on yesterday!

There was time to do other stuff like pay some bills, decide upon our new insurance provider and sign up for a new policy, find the email that I couldn't find last night and verify that our ad would be in the newsletter,

We began making plans for our trip to Sydney and the gift fair, pricing the accommodation and air fares.

The day passed quickly and I was home by 3.30pm. I got to watch the Australian girl Kimberley Birrell play her final set to win her round two tennis match in the Australian Open and then I tried on all of my new swimmers, chose one of them and headed out to the pool.

Adoring Husband and I spent about an hour in there cooling down, but eventually had to get out for dinner.

I did a quick nosh up of pumpkin cubes, onion, mushroom, zucchini, baby spinach, chilli, onion salt, chicken broth, coconut yoghurt and chicken. It was quite delicious.

For dessert I did another fruit whip accompanied by the toffees pecan pieces.

It's almost 11.30pm and I have the day off tomorrow. Sleeping in will be very nice indeed.

Nite all.  

Oh Crap

It seems that the Universe decided to spend the entire day testing me - only in very small ways - but they were noticeable - to me.

My morning with the girls was the highlight of the day, especially when The Motivator joined us near the end ... even though it was her day off ... even though she came in and worked her butt off in the back room for about three hours lol.

The back room looks pretty fabulous with the new cube cupboard against the wall and it helps keep most of the art and craft stuff tidy and out of the way.

There were probably ten customers through the door today and only one paying customer.

We had a power failure at around 12.30pm and the power wasn't restored until 3pm. No customers walked through during that time - oh actually, one lady came in to ask if there was room for her to attend meditation tomorrow!

I took the two avocados that Adoring Husband picked from our tree over a week ago, for lunch, because he reckoned the skin was lifting itself from the flesh and they must be ripe. They were not ripe and even though they felt soft to touch, they were actually very hard inside and impossible to cut or mash the way I like them. This meant that I had to go buy an avocado from the shop.

I walked to the Butcher to buy meat for dinner tonight, but they closed early due to the blackout.

When I returned to the shop - and by this time, I had pulled everything inside, closed the blinds and put the 'closed' sign on the door - a young couple decided to ignore all of that and pushed the door open to came inside. Even the lights were out, but they chose to wander around for a look even though I was standing there with all of my paraphernalia to go home!

They said they would return tomorrow and possibly even attend meditation. We'll see.

As I pedalled up our street, I was frantically trying to open the garage door with the remote which I have dangling from my handlebars for easy access and a smooth entry into our garage. Adoring Husband had not reset it after the power was restored, so the door would not open.

This meant that I had to park my trike halfway in the garden and carry all my stuff through the side gate, through to the back of the house and then spend ten minutes team building with Adoring Husband while he figured out how to reset the garage door.

😳

I took a curry out of the freezer for Adoring Husband's dinner and put it into the oven to thaw and heat. When it was ready, I attempted to lift it out of the oven and tipped it quite sharply so that a LOT of the curry sauce spilt all through the oven, onto the oven door and onto the floor.

Ugh.

I didn't even have the energy to go for a swim this afternoon!

I realised that today was the last day to get our ad submitted for the local newsletter, so I spent part of the evening designing that.  When I emailed it to the editor, she informed me that an invoice was emailed to us on 5th January to be paid by 12th January. I searched through my emails, but have not received any invoice - perhaps it was sent to The Motivator? A job for tomorrow.

So you see, lots of little things, but I feel like the universe must have been overwhelmed by my gratitude yesterday and decided to test me today, just to see how genuine my gratitude is.

I know, I'm just a whinger lol.

At least our temperature was only 29C today, and not 46C like in Griffith. I feel for everyone in the southern states who are suffering through such intolerable conditions. I remember weeks in a row of 40+ temperatures when I was living in Griffith, but I don't recall it ever being 46C.

Anyway it's 10pm and I need to be up early for meditation tomorrow so ...

Nite all.

Lucky Me

I have always felt lucky.

Even through the toughest of times, I felt lucky.

Through every horrific or violent or heartbreaking or devastating or soul destroying or terrifying life changing episode/experience/challenge in my life, I could find something positive and a reason to feel lucky.

Some examples ...

When Mum died, it was lucky that she didn't suffer and appeared to die peacefully.

I was lucky that my brother-in-law was with me when I found my baby dead in his basinet, because I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd been by myself.

I was lucky that my Dad worked for such a great company that they paid my airfare from Griffith to Brisbane to be with him in his final days.

As a family, we were lucky to be on the same page when it came to making the decision to turn off Dad's life support system.

Living in Griffith as a single Mum with three kids, 1500kms from family, I was lucky to have supportive friends that I could rely on when things got really tough.

When the tornado hit town and the neighbours house landed on ours, we were lucky that we had, at the last minute, changed the layout of our house when we built it or our bedroom would have been where all the damage happened and we'd be dead right now. We were also luckier than our neighbours whose house was completely destroyed in the tornado.

We were lucky that my brother wasn't wearing a seatbelt when he had his car accident and was thrown clear, otherwise he'd have been crushed to death by the car engine which ended up in the driver's seat.

When my son was assaulted and the doctor declared that one more kick to the head would have ended his life ... I felt lucky that the 'one more kick' did not happen.

... and so the list goes on.

I don't know where I learned that - perhaps my parents who never allowed me to feel sorry for myself  - telling me to 'grow up' or 'get over it' or 'if that's the worst thing that ever happens to you, you'll be doing ok' or 'that's nothing compared to ....'

You know the drill.

I've kind of repeated the mantras to my own kids.

Sorry kids.

I was also taught to not talk about my good fortune - that it was bragging OR making other people feel less fortunate.

I've learnt that it's important to talk about your good fortune. To feel gratitude for the good luck and good things that happen. To show people that there is always the chance that good things will happen for them, that 'things' change, that sadness passes, that life goes on and there can always be something amazing around the next corner and to never give up.

Life before Adoring Husband and life with Adoring Husband are absolute poles apart.

I feel like I've stepped into a parallel universe and every day, I feel so lucky for the wonderful life that I have.

I know I've mentioned it recently and if you think I'm harping on it a bit, stop reading here, but I've gotta say that it's kind of overwhelming and I feel like the Universe needs to know that I don't take it for granted and I'm not being complacent.

Twenty years ago, I could not have imagined this life.

I could not have imagined being with a man who loves me and respects me and empowers me the way AH has.

I could not have imagined the circle of wonderful women who support me so completely with all of my many and varied projects and challenges and ventures. They fill my heart with happiness and appreciation for their existence in my world. You know who you are and if you are wondering whether you are one of them ... then the answer is 'yes you are'.

Through those horrid teenage years when my imagination foresaw all manner of dreadful outcomes for my children, I could not have imagined the way they have grown into strong, independent decent human beings who make me feel proud to be their mother.

As a public servant dedicated to her stressful job and painfully striving to be the best worker on the planet, I could not have imagined creating something as wonderful as The Happy Abode or ever coming to the realisation that life is what you make it and that stress is a learned and unnecessary feeling that can be banished in favour of more productive feelings and emotions.

I couldn't have imagined that a mismatch like The Motivator and I could form such a strong foundation for a relationship that combines business and friendship so successfully. I'm sure there are times when we could both forehead slap each other, but overall, we are an AMAZEBALLS team and have the potential to conquer the world!

I could not have imagined that my friendship with BGWLBH would still be going strong. Our history shows that we have struggled but strengthened our bond through some tough and some fabulous times but our relationship has stood the test of time and I am proud of us for not giving up on each other. I love our friendship and I look forward to what the future holds for us. The best is yet to be!

I could not have imagined this beautiful home that is still standing in spite of the neglect that AH and I pile upon it! There is plenty of love to keep the walls strong, it sits in a fabulous neighbourhood inside a wonderful community and we've created a perfect little haven that caters to all of our needs and desires. It is our sanctuary and we love it.

I could not have imagined being this happy or feeling so overwhelmingly lucky to be in this position at this stage of my life.

Thank you Universe for providing all of this for me. Your generosity has not gone unnoticed and thank you for showing me that it's ok to feel like I deserve this! I am worthy.

I am also tired.

Nite all. 🤪

We're Ba-ack!

What an exhausting but fabulous trip!

This is "Anne's Place" on Main Street in Montville.

A beautiful home perched on the edge of the mountain with amazing views ...

... including a guest house, an art studio and a gallery for sales of her beautiful pottery.

Anne and her husband were warm and welcoming and very accommodating - especially regarding our dietary requirements and the guest house had everything we needed, was very comfortable and we could easily have stayed there for a week.

There were no TV stations, but there was a good selection of DVDs in the cupboard to keep us amused for hours.

It was only half a kilometre from town, so after a delicious breakfast overlooking those views, and purchasing some of Anne's wares, we made our way to the Main Street of Montville early on Sunday and began our little shopping spree.

A pair of shoes, a bracelet, another birthday gift later we were trying to decide whether to leave for IKEA or have an early lunch ... when we remembered that Anne had told us about the Waffle House that served GF waffles and that they had received rave reviews.

The Motivator and I have been following our fresh food policy for twelve days and were hesitant to break it, but ... WAFFLES ... so we found the little gem of a cafe and each ordered a GF waffle with bacon, banana and maple syrup.

OMG ... TO-DIE-FOR! I would take a day trip to Montville just to sit down to those waffles again.

From there, we had made appointments with a Tarot Reader, so The Motivator went first while I wandered through the shops. I bought a top. I wandered through the Landscape Photographer's gallery, found a jeweller who designed and created his own pieces and ALMOST ordered a pendant ...

... but I need to ask for something a tiny little bit different to this.

By then it was time for my appointment with the Tarot Reader, whose name I cannot for the life of me remember, but The Motivator has her card and details.

She told me lots of stuff that I wanted to hear and some things that I didn't want to hear - nothing bad though - and she was a fabulously wild and energetic and enthusiastic and flamboyant and a beautiful mature woman in her 60s. So glad that we had the readings!

From there we really wanted some fresh juice, but surprisingly there was nothing available in Montville, so we jumped in the car and drove in the direction of Northlakes and IKEA. It took an hour but it was a good run and thankfully there was a Boost Juice in the shopping centre near IKEA so we grabbed a Mint Condition juice each, got side tracked by Skechers shoe store where I purchased ANOTHER pair of shoes and eventually made our way into IKEA.

We hadn't left ourselves much time so we rushed to the sections that we needed, had a short browse in a couple of other sections and as we wheeled our giant trolley to the checkout, the announcement came over the loud speaker that the store was closing in 15 minutes.

We had a momentary panic attack when we realised that we hadn't taken any notice of where we'd parked the car - but thankfully, between us, it didn't take long to figure it out and once we found it, we very efficiently folded the back seat down and packed everything in beautifully.

It was another easy run home and I must say that it's exhausting being a passenger!!

We arrived home at 8pm. I had put all of my bags of shopping in one section of the car, so it was easy to unpack. I did end up with a couple of The Motivators shopping bags, but I'll deliver them to her tomorrow.

It's now after 11pm and I have to work tomorrow, so it's bed time for me. Being out of my bed last night, and even though it was very comfortable at Anne's Place, I did not sleep well, so I'm feeling very weary tonight.

Welcome to Monday!

Nite all.