What was I Thinking?

A LOT of people came into the shop today but few were in a purchasing mood.

Luckily for me, the art workshop made up for it!

I stupidly gave the participants four technique options. What was I thinking?

Seven of them chose three different techniques, so this meant that I had to demonstrate all three techniques one after the other, very rapidly because we had to fit a practice piece in and then the main piece.

Prior to that, everybody had to mix their own pouring medium and then mix their own paint colours, so we fit quite a bit into 2.5 hours!

Needless to say, I was mentally exhausted by the end of the workshop.

Normally, the participants help clean up and wash all the tools and cups and cloths but when they headed to the kitchen, Adoring Husband had beaten them to the sink and said “No, it’s ok. I’m right.”

They asked “Are you sure?”

😳

Who was the dumb bunny who had to spend the next hour washing up and clearing the mess??

Me 😭

AH knows now, and filed it under “for future reference” that participants are supposed to help clean up the mess.

Poor AH copped a gob full from this tired little possum.

It was after 4.30pm when we arrived home and thank goodness I had already prepared the lamb shanks the night before and they were sitting in trays just waiting to be reheated. Straight into the oven! Easy peasy.

We watched two and a bit games of footy.

Ate blueberries and strawberries for dessert.

My nutrition for the day: lemon water, bone broth, coffee, watermelon, strawberries, leftover avocado and prawn mixture, literally two mouthfuls of leftover lime cheesecake, lamb shanks, onion, sweet potato, carrot, tomato, mushroom, blueberries, strawberries, banana, nuts. Water.

I forgot to mention the other night when I was talking about the benefits so far of my changed eating habits - I had dropped 1.5kgs after 10 days. A little more would be nice but I won’t be bothered if it doesn’t happen.

It’s after 11pm and I’m in need of sleep.

Nite all.

Jam Packed

Today was another full on, jam packed day.

Not in sales 😳

I set the training room up as best as I could, but still needed supplies, so a trip into The Bay was on my agenda.

My shopping list required visits to Office Works, Pialba Shopping Centre, Bunnings, Spotlight, Heaps Discounts and Coles.

While we were at Pialba, we visited Su Jus Bar (which made the closure announcement a couple weeks ago, but came back from the dead) where we bought a green juice and three sweet treats. Their sweets are GF, DF and refined sugar free, so I got a lime cheesecake slice, a rocky road slice and for Adoring Husband a raspberry muffin.

The universe took good care of me today because there was just one bottle of Floetrol left at Bunnings, the Elmers Glue-all was on sale from $23 down to $17 and even though the paint stocks were low at Heaps Discounts, they had all the colours that I needed.

I now need to fill two art workshops to get a return on what I spent for them today!

We left the shop at 2pm on the dot and returned to the shop at 5.30pm to pick up my laptop, iPad and cash tin.

My nutrition for the day: chicken stock, coffee, filtered water, J5 juice = pear, cucumber, celery, spinach, apple and lime. 6 king prawns mixed in mashed avocado, lemon juice, salt n pepper. Two chicken wings. Half a lime cheesecake slice and 1/3 of a rocky road slice.

All the running around this afternoon in the wet weather has worn me out so I need a good sleep to get me through my huge day of sales and art tomorrow.

I think I wore AH out because we came to bed 20 minutes ago and he is sleeping soundly beside me.

Big Happy birthday wishes to Bubbles who turned 36 today and to The Motivator who can be whatever age she chooses to be!

It’s a chilly evening and I’ve closed the bedroom window, but I must say that the rain has been very refreshing and I think we’ve had about 30mm.

Nite all.

Slowed it Down

I took it a bit easier today.

The training room is now partially set up and I printed out some colour swatches ready for the workshop.

I did a little book work and served some customers.

It was another surprisingly good sales day and I say “surprising” because it rained for most of the day and for this neck of the woods it was quite chilly, so I expected the locals to stay indoors!

There were a lot of people out and about.

I mailed Bubbles’ birthday present and then realised I still had more at home that I should have added - I guess she will receive two parcels!

My nutrition for the day: lemon water, chicken broth, coffee. Lunch was coconut yoghurt with banana and blueberries. Dinner was a chicken thigh with sweet potato discs and mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, onion and baby spinach baked in butter and 2 tablespoons of liver pate stirred through. That was followed by a bowl of watermelon.

AH enjoyed dinner so that’s a bonus.

I’ve put some lamb shanks in the slow cooker which I will set aside for our dinner on Saturday night. Pretty sure I’ll be too exhausted after the art workshop to be spending extended time in the kitchen!

Adoring Husband and I watched a few episodes of a series on Netflix called ‘Good Witch’. It’s a nice easy show to watch. No brain power required and little to no heavy drama ... so far.

I’m off to bed to watch the footy now.

Nite all.

More Chilled

It was an incredibly interesting meditation this morning with The Gypsy going deep into a new discussion that we, as a group, requested a couple of weeks ago.

It inspired great discussion, created a fabulous energy in the room and the class went 15 minutes over time!

Afterwards some of the ladies bought coffee and returned to the training room to chat together, while The Gypsy and I sat at my desk for a catch up.

Just before TG left, my friend Aggie turned up to try on some clothes that she was looking at yesterday. She purchased her selections and then sat with me for a while. We had a good old chin wag  managing global problems, creating world peace and venting about important issues.

There were few customers today and they spent up big OR they lay praise thick and fast about the shop and how beautiful it is with a real ‘Zen’ energy - I can listen to that all day!

Adoring Husband picked up our FROG box from Craignish, unpacked it at home and arrived at the shop to help me close, but I put him to work setting up the tables for Saturday’s art workshop.

It was after 3.30pm when we drove home and Psychotic dog Ruby required my attention as soon as I walked in the door.

I got to sit down for an hour before it was time to prepare dinner. AH cooked on the barbecue while I  did the salad and the last of the hash browns.

Today’s nutrition:  lemon water, filtered water, coffee. Chicken broth for lunch. A raspberry and white chocolate muffin which I did not enjoy because it was tooooooo sweet, so I’m happy to remove that from any future menu. Dinner was 2 sausages with hash browns (I’m so sad to say goodbye to potato) baby spinach, cucumber, raw fresh snow peas, a cherry tomato, half an avocado, sauerkraut and onion. A mandarin for dessert.

Today was day 10 sugar free until that dastardly muffin and what changes have I noticed in my body?

The only reason I wake during the night is to empty my bladder and I am able to fall back into a deep sleep immediately. I’m averaging 7 hours a night. Prior to that I was averaging 4-5 hours of broken sleep.

I’ve had no gut pain for 6 days straight - I can’t eloquently express to you the relief I feel because the pain really was debilitating.

I have loads of energy, which I have not been using efficiently because I’m going and going and going until I can’t go any more. I hope to pace myself better in the future, take breaks and not push it so hard. Just because I’ve got the energy, doesn’t mean I have to use it all up!

I just realised that my joint pain in the mornings has gone. I still have joint pain when I get up off my lounge chair after sitting for an hour or more, so I will monitor that, but morning pain has gone.

That’s it for now. Continuing my health improvements.

Time to sleep or I’ll never fit my seven hours in!

Nite all.

Full Speed

I could NOT have fit another job or activity into today if I tried.

My comfortable shoes were far from comfortable by the end of the day because I barely sat down for a minute.

Morning tea sounded like it was great. Rebel Mardi made a surprise appearance and I think there were eight of us in attendance, but the customers came in earlier than usual and took my attention away. I was also distracted by the packages that were delivered.

The girls got some “first” and “second” dibs on the stock that came in and it was well after 11am when the last of them walked out the door.

In between serving a lot of customers, I unpacked, checked off, priced and displayed five deliveries.

I cleared the folding table behind the counter so that it could be removed and replaced with the new white table that finally arrived from Fantastic Furniture. It was only 6 weeks late.

I vacuumed the training room floor of all the tiny packaging mess so that I could set up the room for meditation.

I attempted to clear off my desk before leaving the shop - it’s my one constant - to come to work every morning with a clear desk to begin my day.

We arrived home at 3.40pm and I got changed and began preparing dinner. I knew if I sat down, there’d be no getting back up! So we were sitting down to dinner at 4.45pm!

I hung out a load of washing before coming to bed at 7.30pm where we watched Big Brother and now I’m writing this blog before the sweet allure of dream time sweeps over me.

My nutrition today:  lemon water, coffee, filtered water, chicken broth for lunch, lamb chop with broccoli, cauliflower, fresh snap peas, sweet potato, onion, garlic and bacon. A mandarin.

I need to sleep now because it’s an early start for meditation.

Nite all.

Oopsy!

Sooooo tired ... again!

As much as I wanted to spend hours in bed, I was up and out the door by 10am.

We arrived at the shop and Adoring Husband attempted to repair a chair, vacuumed the floors and set up a table for my meeting with the supplier.

I cleaned the big sign on the fence and stuck the new sign over the logo, moved the displays from the front of the windows and then cleaned the glass so that I  put two new signs on the top panels. I put the displays back and rearranged the art and craft area.

I sent AH home in the middle of all that.

The supplier arrived a little early and I spent 2.5 hours going through all of his clothing lines. I had a budget but more than doubled it because I wanted it ALL! The beauty of it was that I could take it on the spot - no ordering - no shipping costs - no waiting.

I purchased two items for myself immediately ... that’s the advantage of owning the shop ... first dibs!

After the supplier left, I immediately banked all of my spare cash to cover my costs and picked up a delivery from the post office.

It took me thirty minutes to hang all of the new clothing, which I will price tomorrow.

AH took down the big table and set up the small one for morning tea with the girls.

I packed up all my goods and we came home at 3.30pm.

No rest for the wicked.

I had to bathe psychotic dog Ruby and tend to her eye, do two loads of washing and check my work emails.

My nutrition for the day:  lemon water, chicken broth, filtered water, coffee, chicken wings and a mandarin. Not much! I was too busy to eat and too tired to prepare anything for dinner. AH did the chicken wings.

It’s now 8.30pm and I’m feeling weary and ready for bed.

Nite all.

Sunday Done

This wasn’t my usual type of Sunday.

It was totally and completely unproductive.

No study, no planning, no ticking off the list, no writing, no checking emails, no reading, no work stuff, no nothing.

I did spend all day in my pyjamas but I think I was out of bed at about 9.30am because Adoring Husband wanted to watch the new Paul Hogan movie and I didn’t want to miss it.

It was a weird movie with some big names and an interesting lesson in mainstream media antics. Some strange but familiar characters, a couple of questionable story lines and a warm and fuzzy ending.

Don’t go out of your way to watch it.

My footy tipping this week was pretty dismal with only four out of eight correct.

I received a video of Chicklet finding out about becoming a sister. I’ve replayed it a hundred times and it makes me cry every time. She is so excited.

My nutrition today:  lemon water, chicken broth, water, coffee.

Lunch of bacon, baby spinach, mushroom, onion, snow peas, tomatoes, sauerkraut and leftover guacamole.

Dinner of eye fillet, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, snow peas and sweet potato followed by a juice of cucumber, celery, baby spinach, apple, mint, coconut water and water.

We watched the final of The Voice which was a disappointing result. I think the Hillsong Church may have used their numbers to bring it home for the winner. Yes, he is very talented and deserves success, but I thought others were better. Australia decided.

I’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow, putting up the remaining signage, cleaning the shop loo and vacuuming the carpets, washing the glass doors, taking some deliveries and meeting with a supplier.

Time for me to sleep (7.5 hours of sound sleep last night).

Nite all.