The fun is Done

Gosh but I enjoyed today!

Eight ladies attended the ‘paint and create’ workshop this morning. There should have been ten but two didn’t turn up and I’m willing to bet that they forgot! Still, eight was a good number for the class.

Each and every one of them were disappointed that The Motivator was not in attendance and they all felt sad about the circumstances surrounding her absence.

One of the ladies brought a little wind up machine that played “Happy Birthday”, so she cranked the song while the other ladies sang along because it’s The Motivator’s birthday next Wednesday! I took a video of it on my phone and sent it through to TM but I don’t think she’s seen it yet and there has been no response. I’ll keep you posted.

We had a lot of fun in the class. It was noisy. There were also long moments of silence when they were ‘in the zone’. There was silliness. There were questions. There were mistakes - even by me 😳. There were accidental splashes on other’s art and accidental smudges - whoops (not by me).

These are the results. Four of the ladies had never painted before and all of them left feeling pleased with their efforts.

I came home and headed straight into my studio to create three different paintings. This is one of them ...

I didn’t take photos of the other two. Maybe tomorrow.

Adoring Husband did a marvellous job manning the shop and even sent a couple of strangers in to check us out, which has created an interesting contact with Maryborough and perhaps a chance to promote and advertise The Happy Abode in the near future.

I made a vegetable loaf tonight. I layered onion slices, zucchini slices, tomato paste, roast sweet potato slices, roasted capsicum, pesto, roasted pumpkin slices, semi sundries tomatoes, mushroom slices and then poured cauliflower purée over the top and sprinkled with almond flakes. Popped it in a hot oven for 30 minutes and this ...

was quite delicious!

Now, I’m feeling decidedly weary and after checking my art, I’ll be making my way to bed.

Nite all.

Frantic Friday

Most of today was spent setting up the training room for the paint and create workshop tomorrow.

Adoring husband helped set up the tables this morning and I spent my time between customers covering the lazy Susans with glad wrap, finding all the tools and creating kits for each participant, unwrapping the canvases and adding the push pins, lining the bottles of paint along the centre of the table, finding a spot for the water tubs and writing a list of tools that I need to bring from home to make up the numbers.

In the last hour of the day, I created a piece of art in a style that is similar to the flower garden that I hope will please a couple of ladies who are not “into” flowery stuff. It can be easily adapted and or merged into the lesson to suit.

I had an unlucky night at the club tonight, though our table was lucky! Lady Lynn winning in the lotsapots, The Brains Trust winning $50 in a number draw and The Blonde Bombshell winning a corned silverside in the raffle.

Right now I’m tossing up whether to go create a quick piece of art or go to bed. Perhaps if I go to sleep early enough, I might wake up early enough to play?

Penrith are thrashing St George in the footy so it’s not worth staying up to watch the rest of the game.

Adoring Husband will be working the shop in the morning while I run the workshop so if there is anybody out there who wants to come say hello and ease his pain, please feel free!

Have a great Saturday!

Nite all.

I Dunno

I have no idea what was going on last night.

I was asleep a little after 9.30pm and then I was awake at 2pm. For good.

At 2.30am I got out bed, made myself a cup of tea and took myself to my studio. This was the result ...

I thoroughly enjoyed the silence of the night as I worked away in my PJs and Ugg boots.

It was 4.15am by the time I climbed back into bed and I was still awake when Adoring Husband’s alarm woke him for work at 4.45am. I was still awake when MY alarm went off at 6am!

At 7am I jumped under the shower and spent a few extra minutes enjoying the hot spray.

We were at the shop, doors open and ready for business before 8.30am.

It was a VERY quiet day except for one gentleman who asked to see any photos that I had of kookaburras. I showed him the photos in my Flickr photo stream and he selected this pic ... 

It’s one of my earlier photos and not very impressive in my eyes, but he was willing to part with his cash for it, so I guess he thinks a lot more of it than I do!

He lives in Gladstone and will be back on Monday so AH and I closed the shop a few minutes early, rushed into the Bay to print the photo, then rushed to the framers to get the mat board fitted. The owner is going away next week and was busy finishing some jobs but offered to do my job on the spot for me. What a champion. We expected to make another trip in tomorrow to pick it up, so we really appreciated that gesture.

AH was so impressed with dinner last night, that we stopped to stock up on big mushrooms so that I could repeat the menu tonight.

I think my night of sleepless creativity is catching up with me now and I can hear my pillow calling out to me. I don’t think I’ll even see out the second half of the football and it’s MY team playing 😳

Have a fab Friday!

Nite all

I'm Back!

It was tough going this morning having to get out of bed at 6.30am to be at work by 7.15am to open the shop ready for meditation.

I'm glad that I did though because it was a great day.

I've missed meditation for the last three weeks because I wanted to stay in bed and be cosy, but I really enjoyed this morning's session and catching up with the ladies who attend.

It was also fantastic to catch up with The Gypsy who I haven't seen for a month (except for yesterday at hooping).

The Motivator appeared a couple of times and we had a brief chance to chat too.

It was a good day for sales.

Adoring Husband picked me up after work and we drove into The Bay. We picked up the FROG box on the way in, then stopped at Tinkerbells so that I could pick up my Citrine crystal ball. We searched for weighted hula hoops, but I didn't like the ones at the sports store. Finally, we stopped at King Kong where I bought a few canvases for the shop AND for me, along with a handful or two of paints.

We arrived home at 5.30pm and it was straight to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

Those delicious stuffed mushrooms again with a salad and some fried cubed potato.

We actually have the heater on right now. I must be acclimatising because I'm feeling the cold lately.

Today is day 17 of plant based eating for me and I feel great. It's not as difficult as I expected (because I've always loved meat) and all the horrible pain and discomfort that I was feeling after a meal completely disappeared by day ten. Meals have become pleasurable again.

I'm feeling good.

There have been no after effects of the hooping yesterday. My muscles are good. Just a little bit of tenderness in my mid section where the hoop, which is quite heavy, was battering me on it's way round and round and round!

Anyway, that's enough from me. Time for sleep.

Nite all.

A Bit of Hoopla

We had a lovely long coffee morning with eight of us in attendance.

After sharing news, we talked about religion and politics and gyms and gambling and many other things before everybody departed at 11am.

I hung around to try and catch up with The Motivator and all her news as well as work stuff, but lots of customers came through the doors.

An elderly gentleman whom The Motivator assisted last week came in to thank her for being so kind and then proceeded to give us business advice. He must have been about 90 yrs old and I know that he meant well but he was in the shop for about an hour and he had a hearing problem that prevented him from hearing the register of my voice.

This was kind of good for me because it meant that I didn't have to contribute to the conversation and simply stood and smiled through the entire encounter.

However, I had to leave before him so TM and I didn't get to finish our conversation.

I arrived home at almost 1pm to make a late lunch and do a few things before leaving on my trike at 3pm to make my way to the hoop dancing classes!

None of the ladies who I expected to be at the class were there! I still knew everyone there, not necessarily by name, but certainly by sight.

The class was amazing! I loved every second of it, even though I could tell within ten minutes that I was going to be in a world of pain the next day! I almost felt like I had internal injuries by the end of the class, but at the same time I felt exhilarated!

Who knew that you could use so many different muscles hula hooping?

Today I learnt how to hoop in both directions, how to stop the hoop from dropping to the ground without using my hands (also in both directions). How to stop the hoop the correct way with my hands and then immediately spin it in the opposite direction and how to take steps forward while continuing to keep the hoop spinning (that one was difficult and I need to practice).

We did stretches before the class began and we did a warm down at the end of the class.

The Gypsy (who was teaching the class) took orders for her hand made hoops before we all departed vowing to return next week with even more enthusiasm than today. There were ten of us in the class which was the perfect number for the space in the hall - it's quite amazing how much room one person with a hoop needs in order to hoop successfully.

I'm looking forward to purchasing my own hoop so that I can practice at home.

So a good time was had by all and it already feels kind of sad that the course only lasts for 8 weeks. I hope the beginners course progresses to a new level afterwards.

We had an easy dinner tonight. I took some leftover Parsee Chicken out of the freezer and cooked it for Adoring Husband with some cauliflower rice.

For me, I made a stuffed portobello mushroom. A big one. I put a dob of grass-fed butter on the mushroom and a handful of chopped shallots and fresh chilli, then a layer of semi sun-dried tomatoes which I poured some of Roza's pesto over and then sprinkled some fresh GF breadcrumbs over the top, followed by another dob of grass-fed butter. Cooked it in a hot oven for 15 minutes.

I wish I'd made two of them, because it was delicious!

I have to be up early in the morning to attend meditation and I'll be working. I hope my body doesn't make me suffer too much.

It's off to bed for me now.

Nite all.  

Fairly Productive

I didn't stay in bed for as long as usual this morning.

I almost decided to go back to sleep at about 9.30am but instead I climbed out of bed and began to set up the dining room as my studio again.

Adoring Husband had different ideas.

Even though he was feeling like crap and his tremor was really bad, he decided that we would set up the back room as my studio.

We took the legs off the single beds and lay the beds on their sides against the back wall and placed an old doona cover over the top and then three boards over that where I can dry my art flat.

We lay a doubled over drop sheet on the floor and then a rubber mat in the doorway.

My big new red tool box fits beautifully inside the wardrobe, along with all of my blank canvasses.

My three tiered trolleys fit perfectly in the corner.

The big folding table sits very nicely in front of the window so that I have a lovely view of the pool while I'm working.

Over that, I put a plastic table cloth with a felt underside and then a blue tarp to catch the dripping paint.

I created two pieces of art this afternoon. One was a fail and the other was quite nice. so that's a good start.

The only reason I stopped was because I had to cook dinner. I had already baked a chicken yesterday, so I baked potato, pumpkin and sweet potato tonight. Steamed some broccoli and cauliflower. Sauteed some onion and Brussels sprouts which I added to the home made gravy. Then I added some chicken to heat up for AH and served him all that deliciousness.

For me, I took some of the broccoli, cauliflower, roast pumpkin and sautéed onion, put it in the blender with the vegetable water, olive oil, white pepper and Himalayan salt and blended it into a soup. I sprinkled chopped spring onions over the top and it was very nice and very filling.

For dessert, we had a small slice of the chocolate tart that I'd made for our visitors on Friday.

So the day was quite productive and we are both very tired, so it's off to bed for me.

Nite all.    

Workshop Done

It was difficult getting out of bed this morning, being so chilly, being Sunday AND being a work day for me running the photography workshop.

But I got there an hour before the workshop began and had time to set up and organise the NEW course material that I had to prepare for those speedy young girls.

It seems that the old and the young traded places because unlike yesterday, the young ones lagged a bit this morning and struggled to keep up for the first hour or so.

At the end of the day, the participants thanked me profusely and were pleased with how much they had learned and were happily surprised with how relaxed the workshop was.

I think I can class it as a success, although one of the ladies declared that she would continue to use her camera on 'automatic' because she didn't want to fiddle with the controls all the time.  Hers was a smaller, older digital camera and I can understand her reluctance but it means that she basically just wasted $240.

I enjoyed teaching them all and it was worth losing my entire weekend of sleeping in and being arty farty to practice a skill that I've neglected for quite some time, and share it with people who were so keen to learn.

At the end of the day, Adoring Husband and I cleared the mess and set up the training room as it should be, washed all the dishes from morning tea, packed all my paraphernalia into the car and headed home to veg on the couch for the remainder of the day.

I'm mentally exhausted from the brain work, physically exhausted from the 90 minutes wandering along the beach and the path taking photos and assisting the others and then emotionally exhausted from sharing my time between strangers and the visiting family for three days.

Perhaps 'exhausted' is bit of an exaggeration. Give me a word between tired and exhausted ... I'm not quite 'exhausted' but I'm a bit more than 'tired'.

It's nice to have things back to normal now. Time to convert the back bedroom into a studio for me ... AND SOON because I CAN'T WAIT to get back into my art!

I love how chilly the weather has become again and how lovely it is to stay snug under the covers in the morning ... I'm gunna stay there for a long time in the morning.

I'm sitting here on the couch in my pyjamas and ugg boots ready to sign off and go to bed. I hope you all had a bonzer weekend!

Nite all.