On a High

It has been a big day.

I was motivated to get out of bed early and make myself presentable for this full day ... with no time for showering, changing or beautifying between engagements, I had to pick my look and make it stretch for the entire day.

We opened the shop early, hoping to take advantage of the market crowd and even though a few came in, they were mostly tyre kickers. Support from the locals is what made the morning a success.

I found out some interesting town/community information and I took the opportunity to tell the Progress Association that I wasn't happy about their lack of support for local businesses.

I paid some bills and responded to some emails, tidied up the desk and sideboard and did some accounting.

Adoring Husband arrived at 12.30pm and we began closing at 12.50pm. We pulled out of the driveway at 12.59pm.

This gave me enough time to freshen my make up and put some things into a handbag and be waiting for my lift to take me to High Tea at Arkarra Tea Gardens ...

The food for the non-GF people - that would be The Brains Trust, Lady Lynn and Beauty, looked delicious and included mini quiches, croquettes, sandwiches, mini wraps, lemon custard tarts, macaroons, cherry ripe tarts, mini muffins, pumpkin & olive scones, normal scones with jam and cream and fudge.

My GF plate consisted of a crepe with ham and slaw, a raspberry custard tart and a pear and walnut muffin. I have to say that the crepe was delicious and I could have eaten two or three of them! Our tea was too strong and not hot ... but at the end of the afternoon we ordered cappuccinos and lattes, which was not part of the deal and they were offered 'on the house'.

The best part of the afternoon was spending time with my girls. I love you girls 🤗

Beauty dropped me at home around 4.30pm and I had time to, once again, freshen my make up, brush my hair and change bags before climbing into the car and heading to the big 70th birthday bash at the local pub.

We were a little late, but there was already a big crowd and it took a good 20 minutes to get through the room saying hello to everyone as we went.

AH got me a drink and I found a seat between Chef Pat and Whingeing Pom sitting across from Blonde Bombshell and Mrs Mack. I signed the joint birthday card, tasted some (apparently) GF food - but most of it had already been eaten by the non GF eaters, so sadly, all I got was some tater tots. Luckily my tummy was still full from High Tea.

Everyone was so excited to see AH out and about, he was kept busy chatting with every man and his dog.

I had a football conversation with Mr Bronco, a Sydney conversation with Angry Angry Lady, a pest control conversation with Chef Pat, a cleansing conversation with Woman of Many Talents, a jewellery conversation with Mrs Mack, a Chardonnay conversation with Reality TV Queen and so many others.

At 6.30pm AH decided it was time to leave. I have to say that I was ever so grateful that he did!

We said our goodbyes, drove home, made some tomato on toast and planted our butts on our recliners feeling every bit our age tonight!

I'm now looking forward to climbing into bed and sleeping soundly for a good number of hours.

Nite all.    





 

Low Down

The battery on my laptop is at 9% and I have left the charger at work, so I need to make this really fast ... no dilly dallying.

I won a big meat tray in the club raffles tonight, but swapped with Blonde Bombshell for her prize of a Corned Beef because my meat tray was full of crumbed meat - gluten. Ugh.

It was a winning night for me on the pokies too, so I'm a happy Chappy.

We had a crazy quiet day in The Happy Abode, but I noticed this afternoon, that a lot of vans filled the caravan park and the Bowls Club was FULL of tourists tonight, so things may be picking up!

Our local markets are on in the morning and that usually brings a few people to the shop afterwards.

I'm excited that NRL football starts again next week! Yay for footy season!

Adoring Husband and I have joined the club footy tipping comp and I've opened the family comp again. There are six of us who compete every year for the prize of 'dinner at my place'. My sister has still not claimed her prize from a couple of years ago.

It's going to be a big day for me tomorrow.

Work in the morning.

High tea at Arkarra Tea Gardens in the afternoon.

A 70th birthday party tomorrow afternoon/evening.

I can't believe how social my life has been this year! It's exhausting!

Sunday is going to be a complete day of rest and I'm going to need it.

Right now, I'm off to bed. I need plenty of sleep to get through tomorrow.

Nite all.

Second Act

It has been a big couple of weeks for me and the last two nights just about did me in.

A week in Sydney, working the shop every day, travelling into The Bay after work for the last two days, socialising with all the lovely people and sleeping poorly in the strange bed.

I feel 'peopled' out and very tired.

Not that I have any regrets because Sydney was fabulous, I always love being at The Happy Abode and being with my girls is one of my favourite pastimes!

The first afternoon and evening were pretty big, but the food was terrible for we GF girls - thank god for the chocolate cake dessert that redeemed the restaurant - but the company was good and the drinks afterwards were more than acceptable.

The entertainment value of watching the drunk girls tripping over the bi-folding door tracks over and over again back at the apartment, was worthy of an entrance fee, but best of all was the dancing. Dancing on both nights was spectacular - especially the impromptu dancing. The planned dancing was full of errors and the girls were lucky I wasn't holding a paddle with a score on it!

There was some great story telling about concerts we attended in our youth, famous people we met, our favourite shows and the pommies told some funny stories from their country of origin ... as they do.

There was swimming in the pool.

There was marathon walking ... because it was SO FAR between one apartment and the other! Of course, there were advantages and disadvantages to that!

There was a lot of tag team situations as people arrived for lunches (not me) and all stayed for varying lengths of time and one lady only stayed for one night instead of two - but she had a lot of fun for the brief time she was there.

On the last night the five of us in our room watched this movie ...



It was funny and there was much raucous laughter from our lounge room. We had attempted to watch the movie 'Colette' first, but it was slow and had a couple of us dozing in the chair, so we changed it up.

So, congratulations to Blonde Bombshell for cheating death and getting to spend so much more quality time with US 🤩 We are very happy to have you still with us and equally happy that you invited us to your celebration of being alive.

It's 9pm and I'm ready to catch up on some sleep.

Let's hope that tomorrow is a busy day to end a very quiet week in The Happy Abode.

Nite all.

OH! Thank you to my Adoring Husband for going above and beyond, driving me into The Bay every afternoon and then driving in to pick me up and bring me back to work every morning. He is my champion. I think I hit the jackpot when he found me all those years ago in the MSN chatroom. Feeling very blessed.

Early Lodgement

I'm here early today.

I'll be closing the shop very soon and heading into The Bay to spend an evening with the girls. All ten of them!

There was no coffee morning in the shop. I was all alone ...

This is a celebration of the survival of The Blonde Bombshell from her horrific car accident last year and she plans on making this a yearly event .... but in different places.

Everyone has already arrived at the celebratory location and the partying has begun.

I'm pretty sure that there might be a few empty shelves at Dan Murphy's ...

I believe that there will also be a surprise visitor who I'm VERY EXCITED about!

Some of my girls getting the party started ... too early for alcohol.

Now it's time for me to shut the doors and join the party before the fun really begins!

I hope to have some interesting stories to tell you in tomorrow's post!

Nite all.

New Week

I arrived at work nice and early this morning.

Adoring Husband drove me there because the weather was looking ominous. During the day, there were quite a few heavy showers with strong winds, so I'm glad my trike wasn't parked in it's usual position to be whipped by the weather.

AH stayed and helped me clear the remaining furniture and stock out of the training room so that I could set it up for Wednesday's meditation.

The Gypsy was in-house today and we had heaps to catch up on - as always, I enjoyed our day together and the time flew until suddenly it was time for her to leave! She left at 2pm and I tied up a few loose ends before AH arrived to pick me up.

Just as AH had finished bringing everything inside and he locked the door, there was somebody attempting to push the door open! We invited her in and she had a look around, picking a couple of things that she will return tomorrow to buy. She wandered around for about 10 or 15 minutes and then left declaring that she would be back in the morning.

We did some grocery shopping and came home where I'd planned on spending some quiet time in the Bali hut, but AH decided to mow the lawn so I hung out some washing and put more in the machine, then I went to the kitchen and made some fruit whip ice cream, some toffee nuts, a roasted pumpkin & spinach salad, a garden salad and some garlic mushrooms.

I asked AH to fire up the barby to cook the chops and we realised that the chops were still in the fridge at The Happy Abode! A quick trip to the shop and a little while later, we were sitting down to dinner.

It's 9.30pm and comparatively speaking, it's quite early, but I really need sleep, so I'm signing off right here, right now.

Nite all.

Joy No Joy

I made the most of my Sunday morning by lazing in bed and doing very little of anything. I didn't even wake up until after 8am and I just needed to 'stop' and not think about doing anything - shut down the brain and completely relax.

So I caught up on my 'Married at First Sight' and 'MKR' episodes that aired while I was in Sydney.

Adoring Husband prepared a delicious steak with salad, sweet potato and potato chips for lunch. It was amazingly delicious and really hit the spot.

It must have re-energised me because I began to feel inspired.

I was inspired to strip the bed and remake it - I must say that it was hard physical work and I actually had to lie down for ten minutes when I was done! You'd think with all the swimming before I went to Sydney and all the walking while I was in Sydney, that my fitness level might be conducive to making a bed!! What's going on there?

Still, I gathered my energy pretty quickly and decided to do a Marie Kondo on my wardrobe.

If you don't know Marie Kondo, she is a world wide phenomenon with her own TV series about decluttering your house.

The process involves completely emptying your wardrobe onto your bed and then going through every item individually, holding it in your hands and asking yourself whether it brings you joy or not. It started off pretty slowly for me, but by the end I didn't even have to think about it - almost like Tinder - swipe right, swipe left.

I completely emptied my wardrobe, washed the walls and Adoring Husband was kind enough to vacuum the floor.

This was the pile that I had to work through ...

There are clothes hanging in the laundry drying and there is a load of washing still waiting to be done from the Sydney trip - neither of those were added to this pile.

Eventually it was split into two. The 'No Joy' pile ...

and the 'Joy' pile now hanging in my wardrobe.

I have two bags of items to send to 'Rethread the Earth' - an old friend of Vegan Chickie's who creates beautiful bags from recycled clothing and bags and then sells them at the markets.

I have a clothes basket full and two large bags of items to go to a charity organisation.

There are now 40 empty coat hangers in my wardrobe.

It took me four hours to declutter, hang the joyful items, sort through the 'no joy' pile and separate the Rethread the Earth items, then fold all the other items so that they could fit into the basket, fill the other two bags with what was left over and then throw away the garbage.

I had to say goodbye to a couple of my 'Joy' items because they have seen better days and I just can't see them lasting through another winter. A beautiful pair of suede and knit boots lined with sheeps wool. They brought me thirteen years of joy and it was very sad to say goodbye.

My wedding boots that I only got to wear about eight times, but the colour is flaking off the outer material so they need to go too.

A pair of 3/4 jeans that I bought during our first lady's trip away at the Gold Coast. Black with a fancy trim at the knee and diamontes along the shin. They served me well but they don't fit me anymore - happily they are too big, but time to go.

I feel good that the job is done and now I have the top of my dressing table to do - I suspect that will take at least two hours. The back bedroom is the final room to be decluttered - that will definitely take a day. It's totally out of control!

In Feng Shui terms, it's the money corner of our house, so it desperately needs to be done!

I'm looking forward to sliding between clean sheets tonight, so I'm signing off here and heading to bed.

There is still much to be done at The Happy Abode tomorrow, so I need to get a good night's sleep.

Nite all.