Down Side

I had today all planned out.

1. Drive into The Bay early to print out some photos for a customer.
2. Go to the framer to drop the photos in for mat boarding and get a price on one of their framed metal photos.
3. Pick up some super strength probiotics from Go Natural.
4. Take my iPad in to get a SIM card.
5. Go to the butcher to get chicken frames to make broth.
6. Get dropped off at Goodies before midday for Aggie’s birthday lunch.

These were my obstacles.

1. The printers have changed their pricing so ‘while you wait’ pics are now almost double the price of ‘next day’ pics. To make a profit on my pics, I had to leave them overnight, which immediately threw a spanner in my works.
2. I visited the framer to get the price on the metallic framed photo, but the doors were locked with a sign advising they were closed due to illness.
3. I picked up the probiotics from Go Natural.
4. My iPad was very inconveniently left at home. Ugh.
5. The butcher was selling chicken frames for either $2.50 (crazy!) each OR 20 for $10 so we got a giant box of chicken frames. That’s enough to make broth for a year I reckon!
6. I DID get dropped off at Goodies before midday.

The girls and I waited for The Brains Trust to arrive before we ordered our lunch from the menu. I ordered GF Salt n Pepper Calamari which came with sweet potato fries and salad.

The waitress brought my meal to me and as I took my first mouthful, she came running back to the table declaring “I’m sorry! That’s NOT the GF calamari”

Ugh. (Insert ‘F’ word here)

I spat the mouthful out, but we all know how sensitive I am to gluten. The effects began before we even left the restaurant and have continued into this evening. Not at all pleasant but I will survive.

The GF meal was delicious and even though I was tempted to have the GF brownie with hot chocolate sauce and pouring cream for dessert, I chose to be kind to my body and not give it any more food that would be purged later!

It was a really lovely afternoon spent with fabulous company. The weather was fine and mild. The tide was high providing great water views and we got some snorting laughter. What more did we need? A happy birthday girl and a good time was had by all.

I wish we’d taken a photo!

I certainly wasn’t in any fit state for swimming or being creative when I got home but I guess I got my share of exercise trotting back and forth from the bathroom.

After a good night’s sleep, I plan on spending some quality time with The Motivator at the shop in the morning followed by some ‘catch up on my washing’ time!

Oh and welcome to November and there are less than 8 weeks til Christmas!!

Nite all.

All Dressed Up

Thank you Grannymus for your message 😘

For the first time ever, in a work environment, I dressed up for Halloween ...

I bought the broom and the black makeup. Fortunately (or sadly), everything else was stuff stashed somewhere in the house that I gathered together this morning!

My efforts received excellent reviews from the staff in other businesses (who also dressed up) and from customers, some of whom took photos.

It was a fun day and those boots, which I wore for the first time today, were surprisingly comfortable!

Sales were not so good today. Lots of lookers and chatters but few spenders.

The tall boy to go with our bedroom suite was delivered today and we discovered that it won’t fit in our bedroom with the new dressing table when it arrives! So it’s home is now in the hallway outside our bedroom where it actually looks fabulous against the short wall.

Adoring Husband bought us lunch today and sat with me in the shop while we ate, which was nice.

The Motivator, when she landed back in town, dropped in for a quick visit, which was fantastic.

AH returned to help me close the shop and we were home before 3.30pm.

I checked the pool water, which was lovely but not good enough to lure me in.

I browsed my drying art in the studio and contemplated my creative options but chose to leave the room.

I changed out of my work clothes, needing AH’s help to get those dang boots off, and then once again plonked myself in my chair in front of the TV.

We enjoy watching Hard Quiz hosted by Tom Gleeson, followed by Think Tank with Paul McDermott and lastly The Chase with Andrew O’Keefe. This gives us a good 2.5 hours of education five days a week, which will hopefully hold us in good stead for our trivia nights!

Speaking of which, the next trivia night is Wednesday of next week.

Tomorrow is a big day for me. The morning will be filled with running errands in The Bay. The afternoon will be filled with birthday celebrations!

Best get some sleep.

Nite all.

She’s Back!

The Gypsy is back.

We had a full house this morning and everyone was excited to return to meditation after a three week break. There was lots of chatter and lots of involvement in the subject matter. They all departed together to enjoy a coffee around the corner.

They have become a lovely little social group outside of meditation.

The Gypsy and I had a lot to catch up on and she told me all about her retreat at Leura and her new class of hoopers. I caught her up on how my obsession with art has not waned and how sore my body was after yesterday’s hooping class! I needed sympathy.

By midday, not a soul had entered the shop. Then for 45 minutes, I got hammered, followed by a few stragglers before closing time.

I had a nice visit from The Brains Trust and The Garden Guru.

Adoring Husband picked up the FROG box before coming to help me close the shop. We did some groceries before heading home.

I couldn’t quite find the motivation to swim OR get artistic so I plonked myself in my chair until dinner time when I prepared duck breast with salad accompanied by a delicious GF focaccia bread that AH brought home from The Bay today.

It was delicious and very filling.

It has now hit 10.30pm and I’m ready for bed. I’ve been up since 4.45am and I’m feeling it.

The Motivator returns tomorrow. It feels like she’s been gone for months but it’s only been just over two weeks! I’ve missed her so it will be good to see her AND it will be good to have some time off as well.

I am dressing up as a witch for Halloween tomorrow.

Had he lived, the 31st would have been Jamie’s 41st birthday. 🥳🍰🎈

Friday is Aggie’s birthday so we are celebrating over lunch. I’m looking forward to that.

Nite all.

Adoring Husband Rocks

I woke before my alarm this morning.

I was dressed for work 30 minutes early so I decided to check the pool water. It was perfect! I wished I’d checked it earlier because a swim would have been a fabulous way to start the day!

Adoring Husband dropped me at the shops so that I could have coffee with the girls while he went ahead and opened the shop and manned the counter for 45 mins. It would have been 30 minutes but I had to collect the mail and that took a bit longer than I expected.

While I was gone, he cleared the training room and folded the tables. Two of the workshop ladies picked up their paintings and customers actually entered the shop.

I arrived in time to serve the customers and after AH departed, I opened the mail, which was a box of hemp hats. 52 hemp hats ... because they gave us extra for free! I love bonuses.

The girls all came back to the shop after coffee, some of them having a little retail therapy, and I got goodbye hugs 🤗

The morning was incredibly busy, just like last Tuesday and I’m beginning to think that closing on Mondays has had an interesting affect on our sales.

At lunch time yet another stock delivery arrived, so I was busy checking that off. A gentleman came in for a chat - he’s a house sitter and will return in December to sit for 6 weeks - and by the time he left, I was rushed to empty the bins for bin night, finish setting up the training room for meditation, pack my stuff ready leave and get changed ready for hooping class.

AH came early to man the shop for the last ten minutes and then close for me so that I could head off to class. He even vacuumed the training room for me.

What would I do without him?!

It’s been 4 weeks since I hooped. I missed the last class and then The Gypsy was away for two weeks. Boy did my body feel it today! By the end of an hour, all my bits were hurting and I gingerly walked to the car park where AH was waiting to take me home.

I couldn’t even sit down when we arrived home because I knew I’d never get back up! I walked straight into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Spaghetti Bolognese with mung bean pasta. LOL yes you heard that right. The box of pasta was in amongst all the organic, GF food that AH’s son gave him to bring home after his visit to the Gold Coast.

He Manages a group of organic supermarkets, so we are lucky enough to be the recipients of some interesting produce after each of AH’s visits

The pasta really wasn’t bad. It’s not something I’d go searching for again, but it wasn’t awful.

Now I’m ready to watch some trashy “Love Island” TV before I head to bed.

Nite all.

The Way I Like It.

Today was just the way I like it.

Easy, relaxing and quiet.

After a less than sound sleep, I got out of bed at around 9.30am and went straight to the pool. I had to clean out all the little brown beetles first .. it seems that when the rain comes, the beetles appear ... then just like yesterday I swam some laps, danced and floated about until about 11.30am.

I sat around the pool until 12.30pm, had a shower, made a snack and I could hear the art room calling so I jumped under the shower and washed my hair before covering up with paint clothes.

Unfortunately I had some tidying up to do in the studio first and that took about an hour.

Ugh.

First I tried a ‘ring pour’ which did not go at all to plan. The colours didn’t come out very defined and I almost completely lost the beautiful metallic pink that I put in the mix. I used metallic gold, metallic pink, teal, peynes grey and white for this one ...

I decided to use the new Elmers Glue-all as my pouring medium for the next one. It was for this Halloween challenge ...

... and I did two pieces for the challenge ...

Dinner was smoked cod (poached in coconut milk) with salad.

We cleared furniture from the pool area as we anticipated a nasty storm heading in our direction, but it petered out to nothing. All we got out of it was a brief light shower.

Thank you Universe.

It’s now approaching 10pm so I’m off to bed. Big day at work tomorrow clearing out the training room in preparation for meditation on Wednesday AND hoop dancing tomorrow afternoon!

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Nite all.

Not Bounding. Diving.

I slept until 9am!

Ten hours of sleep!

Unheard of.

Adoring Husband brought me bacon, tomato, avocado and coffee in bed.

I’m not sure what time I climbed out of bed, but it was after lunch and I immediately changed into my swimmers/togs/bathers and walked to the pool area.

I connected my new phone to the sound bar and played some oldies but goodies as I slipped into the cool water.

Perfection.

I swam.

I danced.

I floated.

About an hour later, I climbed out and sat in my pod chair. AH soon joined me with a plate of nibbles that he had prepared.

The psychotic dogs all joined us.

And THAT’S where the real fun begins.

Ruby walked to the edge of the pool a couple of times (I’m giggling just remembering this) and AH had little mini panic attacks calling her to come away in case she fell in.

She’s deaf and can’t hear him anyway.

At 2pm the filter, which is on a timer, came on and made a very loud sucking noise, so AH jumped up to check it out.

Before he even reached the skimmer box, there was a splash and Ruby, who is also blind, had fallen into the pool!

AH, who hasn’t even been for his first swim for the season because he thinks it’s too cold, had a bigger panic attack and immediately jumped into the pool fully clothed, to rescue Ruby!

Ruby is such a strong swimmer, he couldn’t even catch her lol.

I said to him “Don’t jump in, just wait for her to swim to the edge of the pool!”, but I was too late, he was IN!

I laughed and laughed!

It was a lazy, easy day filled with nothing else. A barbecued chop with salad for dinner.

Now there is a storm approaching and it’s almost 11pm so I’m off to bed.

I plan another lazy enjoyable day tomorrow 👍

Nite all.