About Average

Today was about average for a Saturday.

The cafe was crazy busy, but none of their customers came to see me.

I spent the afternoon watching ‘Pillow Talk’ the fabulous movie with Doris Day and Rock Hudson and then I varnished some more paintings and created some art.

I did a big tray of roasted veg for dinner. Cauliflower steaks, zucchini, Brussels sprouts, red capsicum, onion, mushrooms with pesto and sun dried tomatoes. I added avocado and fresh tomato to my plate. Chicken thigh to AH’s plate.

We’ve spent the evening watching Super Saturday football. I’ve only got 3 out of 6 so far. My tipping has been pretty abysmal this year.

I’m looking forward to a lazy day at home tomorrow. It will be a self care day after a big week of work and socialising.

Nothing exciting to report.

Have an amazing Sunday 🌻🌻🌻

Nite all.

Tyre Kicking

There were a LOT of people through the shop today and most of them were either tyre kickers or in for a chat!

That made my day busy, but not very productive.

I did little bits of money work, some brain work, some business work, some course work, but not enough of anything to feel a sense of achievement.

Upon arriving home, I made up the healthy option of dog food, adding home made chicken stock (chicken carcass, celery, carrot, turmeric, ACV), grated carrot, crumbled cauliflower, diced zucchini, celery, hemp seeds and Himalayan salt to 1kg of beef mince, half of which was cooked and the other half raw.

I gave about 2/3 cup each to the psychotic dogs and I can’t remember the last time they hoed into their food so ferociously! Jack and Ruby have been a bit under the weather of late and off their food a bit, but today they loved what I served.

I feel like this batch of mince from Aldi is a bit off because even the magpies turned their noses up!

I had to batch up the chicken stock in sizes that will work for future bulk meals for the dogs.

I parked my butt on the couch for an hour before deciding to varnish a couple of paintings while AH made me some toast with avocado and tomato for dinner.

Coconut ice cream with blueberries and cashews for dessert and now I’m off to bed to fall asleep watching the football!

I’m looking forward to my weekend and plan on doing not much at all! It’s been a pretty full week of activities outside of work so I opted to miss raffle night at the club tonight and have some down time.

My pillow is calling me.

Nite all.

Slow to Fast

It was a slow day in the shop but there were a couple of welcome visitors in the morning and the afternoon. People who are on my wavelength where health and wellness are concerned and we shared some excellent information.

I paid some bills, tidied behind the counter, tidied the kitchen, noted an order for stock, did some bookkeeping, made some phone calls, served some customers and did some research for my health challenge.

At 3pm the work REALLY started.

We shopped for groceries and drove home.

THEN ... I took some dog food out of the freezer so that tomorrow, I can experiment on creating something more healthful and delicious for the psychotic dogs.

THEN ... I got changed out of my work clothes.

THEN ... I put on a load of washing.

THEN ... I peeled and chopped pumpkin and beetroot and put them in the oven to roast for tonight’s salad.

THEN ... I made a Mint Condition juice with celery, cucumber, apple, mint, coconut water and water.

THEN ... I hung out the washing and put on another load.

THEN ... I put all the ingredients for bone broth in the slow cooker so that I can use it in the dog food tomorrow.

THEN ... I made a fresh coleslaw to have with dinner.

THEN ... I went to the studio to add the final coat of varnish to the table and a painting.

THEN ... I put dinner together - baby spinach, sun dried tomatoes, pear, avocado, roast pumpkin, roast beetroot, pesto, balsamic vinegar and toasted pine nuts.

THEN ... I made dessert - strawberries, blueberries, coconut ice cream and cashews.

THEN ... I tidied the kitchen enough for AH to finish the job.

THEN ... I hung the second load of washing.

THEN ... I watched The Bachelor online because I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED THE FIRST EPISODE LAST NIGHT!!

NOW ... I’m writing this blog while watching the second episode of The Bachelor.

LATER ... I will update my food diary, write in my gratitude journal, make my ‘to do’ list for tomorrow, meditate and then hopefully sleep soundly until tomorrow morning.

Whew!

That’s a whole lot more than I would normally do after work. It’s nice to be sitting down!

I hope tomorrow will be much busier in the shop. I will make it so!

Nite all

Christmas in July

I really dislike getting out of bed early.

REALLY.
As much as I love meditation 🧘‍♀️, the wonderful souls who attend and The Gypsy’s words of wisdom, it still doesn’t make me want to jump out of bed 90 minutes earlier than usual to be ready to open the shop at 7.15am.

To add a bit more pressure, I had to make myself presentable for our Christmas in July lady’s luncheon. I was getting picked up from the shop at 11am while Adoring Husband manned the shop for the afternoon.

Despite that, I made it in time.

For the hour after meditation The Gypsy and I yabbered on about all manner of things ... as we do.

AH arrived and we went over a few things before my lift pulled up at the door of the shop.

The lunch was great. The food was fresh and delicious. There were bonbons and decorations and glitter and Christmas candles. The service was friendly and full of smiles. The alcohol was free flowing (but not free). The weather was perfect. The company was interesting and funny and sad and informative and cheeky and sometimes full of sexual innuendo (I won’t name names, but you know who you are! 😲).

The three hours passed quickly and before I knew it, I was back in the shop packing up with AH and preparing to go into The Bay to run some errands, as well as pick up our FROG box.

I couldn’t get everything on my list, but I got the most important items.

It was 5.30pm when we arrived home, but I got changed and went straight to the studio to begin varnishing my table and a couple of paintings.

AH organised his own dinner and once finished in the studio, I prepared dessert of fresh organic strawberries, sliced banana, coconut ice cream and activated cashews.

Now I feel exhausted!

So I’m outta here.

Nite all.

Unexpected That Was!

I had a crazy busy day today.

I hardly spent any time with the girls for coffee because there were customers through the door constantly.

Unexpected that was.

Fifteen minutes after the last of my girls left, two mini buses drove into our parking area out the back and twenty elderly ladies came through the doors!

Unexpected that was!

Almost all of them purchased something just for the sake of it. All of them wanted to be served at once, and a couple of them got a bit snooty because they had to wait!

Unexpected that was.

Before I’d finished serving them, a group of ladies from Woodgate walked through the doors.

Expected, that was.

At one point, I had about 30 people in the shop!

It was a frantic hour and a bit and I didn’t have time to write anything down between customers, so I had to rely on my memory to list the sales after everyone had left.

Even after that, I had a steady flow of people and the last customer left at about 2.55pm.

Unexpected that was.

Adoring Husband arrived right on time to help close the shop so that I could get to hooping class by 3.20pm. It was a lot of fun and we all laughed a lot, but it was also exhausting!

Expected, that was.

I rode my trike today, for just the second time in almost 3 months. I must get back into the habit of riding every day. It felt good.

I began cooking dinner as soon as I got home and made a quiche. We had leftover fried rice and some potato chips with the leftovers of sliced potato. That took an hour.

Now I am feeling absolutely exhausted, but I have to finish painting my little wine stand because I sold it via Facebook this evening!

Unexpected that was!

Best get moving otherwise I'll never get to bed tonight and I have an early start tomorrow for meditation.

What a day!

Nite all.

On The Table

Some friends of ours are currently travelling through Europe and recently took a tour through the Sagrada Familia, Temple of Antony Gaude.

I had a very vague knowledge of this colossal piece of historic religious architecture, so I did some research and discovered, just like all Roman Catholic money spinners, this obscenity costs a fortune to construct and maintain. $47million every year, to be exact, for construction and maintenance. This is paid for by the 23 million visitors every year.

Imagine all the good that could be done in this world with $47million every year.

Gullivers Gate, a miniature metropolis that is housed in the middle of Times Square New York, cost $40million. It serves absolutely no purpose.

A herd of camels in Saudi Arabia cost $40million.

An Australian woman won a divorce settlement of $40million, I believe the highest ever in Australia.

All of these totals are for trivial things, are obscene, and all of those amounts could eradicate any number of world problems. Instead, it all slides into the pockets of greedy, power hungry humans.

Australians raise $46million every year just for breast cancer research ... that's just in Australia ... that's just for breast cancer.

The top three pharmaceutical companies in the world each make an annual profit of approximately $12trillion. Why isn’t THAT money funding all cancer research?

The Catholic Church, just in Australia, makes an annual profit of $30million. Where does that go?

More money has been spent on mammoth churches, temples and places of worship than has ever been spent on the souls that they are supposed to save or help.

I don’t understand how anyone can excuse that kind of blatant opulence while those powers watch human suffering at their doorstep.

I feel even more offended by pharmaceutical companies. The little people, mostly friends and family of those who have succumbed to a terminal illness, work and slave to raise money for cancer research, accepting donations from people who can least afford it, while those companies sit on their annual profit of $12trillion, a good percentage of which comes from cancer treatment alone.

THAT is just criminal.

There is nothing wrong with making millions of dollars 💵 but DO GOOD THINGS for humanity and contribute to finding cures for diseases and creating a peaceful and healthy planet for our future.

Thank you for allowing me this safe space to voice my opinion. It saved me from using social media and upsetting people that don’t need to be upset.

Now I’m off to bed.

Nite all.

A Fizzer

We were up bright and early and left home ten minutes later than we'd planned to drive to Childers for the big festival.

Then we hit the fog, which slowed us down somewhat.

Then we hit two separate lots of roadworks on the road to Howard, which slowed us down a little more.

Instead of the usual 30 minutes, it took us 45 minutes to reach Childers. Today, we were the seventh car to park in our favourite carpark. Last year, we were the first.

Two weeks ago I contacted 'Elemental Formations' via their facebook page, to make sure they would be selling their hand made wire wrapped gems at the festival. They told me that they WOULD be there and gave me their stall number.

I have two of their pieces already and I was excited at the prospect of owning another.

After we walked from one end of Childers to the other, looking at all the stalls without success, I went into the 'Events Management' room to ask them where I might find this particular stall and I was informed that Elemental Formations withdrew last week.

This is my sad face ...

I bought two t-shirts, two silver bracelets, some tomatoes, some lime and mint iced tea and a hippy vest with fringes. Adoring Husband didn't even need to make a trip back to the car with my purchases like he usually does!

There were at least one third less stalls there this year. We didn't get to listen to our favourite bands play because the stoopid Army bands were playing both on stage AND up the Main Street. Our favourite food stalls were not there either.

The entire day would have been a complete fizzer except that the cheapie shop was open and I purchased a stack of canvasses and paints with the money that I had saved for my Elemental Formations jewellery.

We left the festival an hour earlier than usual because we just ran out of stalls and activities!

On the way home, we decided to pop into Bambooland for a cuppa. Adoring Husband didn't like the look of their little coffee machine, so instead we just wandered around admiring the plants, statues and the new construction going on overlooking the river.

I got some chips and salad from our local cafe for lunch.

We watched some footy.

I did some art. I had two fails and one good one ...

Yoghurt, blueberries, banana and roasted cashews for dinner.

Here we are at 9pm and the memory of a disappointing Festival has left me hoping that next year will be different because I would hate for such a great event to fade away into nothingness.

Now I'm tired and it's time for bed.

Nite all.