Thankful

I was so grateful that two of my art girls turned up early this morning to set up the training room.

It was a very slow day of sales, but that gave me a chance to unpack the stock that arrived yesterday, price and display it.

I mixed the coloured paints that I wanted to use for my art so that I was prepared to demonstrate when the time came.

The rain was patchy and heavy at times so I guess the potential customers were inside out of the weather.

Adoring Husband came to the shop before 1pm to close up while I got changed into my painting clothes and he then left - to return at 3.30pm to pick me up.

The art class was full, with a couple of newbies who had such a good time they’ve booked in for the next one and that class is fully booked already.

It was a great afternoon and everyone pitched in to help clean up which meant I didn’t come home exhausted like I usually do. I actually felt quite energised!

Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair and I prepared some salads and sweet potato chips to have with the steaks that AH prepared on the barbecue for dinner.

Afterwards we played trivia. BGWLBH won the first game and I won the second. AH piked out on the second game.

Right now, AH and I are watching a fairly pathetic sci fi movie on Netflix. Charlie Sheen is in it. Good enough to stay watching to see what will happen at the end but poorly acted, terrible effects and a weird storyline.

It’s definitely time for bed.

BGWLBH and I are off to the movies with The Brains Trust in the morning so it’s time for me to get some sleep.

Nite all.

Why? Why? WHY?!?

2.52am was the moment in time when I woke during last night and could not get back to sleep.

I spent the entire time laying in bed in the dark rearranging my art and craft corner in the shop, emptying out my storage cupboard and setting up the training room for Saturday’s art class.

Try as I might, I could not relax back to sleep.

Needless to say, my energy levels were very low today but I squeezed out every single ounce that I could to get the ‘things’ done.

We opened the shop at 8.30am and I emptied everything out of the storage cupboard. I even found some stock which I priced and displayed.

There were a million empty boxes that belonged to nothing in the shop so I piled them near the back door ready for Adoring Husband to break up and bin.

I cleared the stock from the training room and found a space for it in the storage cupboard.

Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair arrived at 10am to assist. She moved all of my art pieces from the storage cupboard and did some rearranging so there was lots of space available.

Then she began the long painful process of clearing the art and craft area. We piled everything into the training room and waited for AH to arrive so that he could move the big glass cabinets into the training room and hang my “Local Art & Craft” sign on the yellow wall.

We vacuumed.

We moved furniture.

We filled the glass cabinets with all the canvases and paints.

We set up the display tables and benches in the art corner.

We moved all of the art and craft from the training room back to the new display table.

We set up all the tables ready for the art class.

We cleared all of last years art and displayed it around the walls.

BGWLBH cut up most of the cardboard for the recycle bin.

I cleared everything from the benches in the training room.

We covered the art tables with plastic ready for the class.

BGWLBH dragged her tired hungry body home at 2pm while AH and I stayed on to clear up, set up and leave the shop and training room as presentable as possible.

It was a another big sales day so I was serving customers in between all of that too.

I didn’t make time to eat so we were all feeling pretty ‘hangry’ by 2pm.

BGWLBH went above and beyond today and like me, all her bits are aching from crawling on the floor, vacuuming the floors, lifting and carrying and being directed by AH all over the place!

New stock arrived in the middle of all that so I’ll have unpack and display that in the morning.

We still have to assemble two tall glass cabinets, which we’ll do next week.

What a day! 

We are all exhausted!

It’s 8.30pm and I’m in bed about to play Pop Master THEN I’m going to sleep!

Nite all.

Rain Affected

The day has definitely been rain affected!

Adoring Husband was taking Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair to Maryborough for the markets but they were caught in a nasty downpour that led to some aqua planing on the wet road so they pulled over until it subsided and decided to turn back.

They took the back road to Hervey Bay instead and ran some errands for me, did some grocery shopping and purchased a new laptop for BGWLBH.

I was lucky that quite a few people braved the wet conditions and made their way up the driveway to the shop. It was a slow and steady start but sales finished with a flourish and the day ended on a very high note!

Similar to yesterday, there were some late comers and we didn’t close the shop until 3pm. It was worth remaining open for the extra hour.

BGWLBH was waiting at home with her new laptop and I sat with her to help set it up (even though I know very little about non-Apple products) and then, like a tag team, AH took over for the second sitting to install the virus protection.

What a team we made!

I made some tuna patties with last night’s leftover mash and BGWLBH made a couple of salads to go with them. Quite delicious!

Because we finished dinner so early, we played one and a half games of trivia. BGWLBH won the first one (Yes! She’s a freak!) and she and I are level for the second one.

I’ve played Pop Master and now I’m ready for sleep.

Nite all.

On The Mend

After lots of sound sleep I woke up this morning feeling much better. 

Still a bit low on energy, but definitely improved.

Today, I took down the Christmas decorations at the shop, finished my newsletter and emailed it out, tried to fill in all the gaps in the display areas (a bit low on stock) and tried to leave the shop at 2pm but late customers hindered my progress and we didn’t arrive home until 3pm.

After one hour of R&R, we all jumped in the car and drove to the beach for a walk ...

We had bangers and mash for dinner with garlic buttered snow peas and broccoli.

It was too early to go to bed, so we played Trivial Pursuit until 7.45pm - Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair won again - I think she has won 13 games and I’ve won 8. Adoring Husband is on zero.

We watched I’m a Celebrity and I played my pop master quiz.

It’s now 10pm and I’m ready for sleep. We may experience a nasty storm later tonight so I think I’d like to be asleep before it hits.

Nite all.

Food Reject

My list of foods that impact my belly in a negative way:

• Nuts
• Seeds
• Desiccated coconut
• Gluten
• Sea perch
• Tasmanian scallops
• Dairy
• Tomatoes
• Capsicum
• Zucchini
• Eggplant

and the list continues to grow ☹️

Allergies and intolerances are more often than not, caused by a weak or struggling liver. I believe that my liver was compromised by the thyroid medication that I took 12 years ago.

I have all the information available to strengthen and repair my liver, but it requires a solid commitment that I need to psyche myself into! We all know how difficult it is to make drastic dietary changes and I’ve made a few in my time. You’d think it would get easier! 

The one promising thing is that a successful outcome would mean I could reintroduce some of the above foods without issue.

Anyway, when I’m ready, you’ll be the first to know.

The reason I’m telling you this is because in the last 2 days I’ve eaten small amounts of both nuts and desiccated coconut and I have suffered for it with strong stomach cramps for more than 24 hours.

Not pleasant.

Desperate situations call for desperate measures.

I struggled at work today - it was really busy - and I cancelled the journaling class.

My food intake was a glass of celery juice, a cup of peppermint/licorice/lemon tea, some vegan ice cream, some plain coconut yoghurt with banana.

We said farewell to Lady Lynn at coffee this morning. It was very emotional and we all struggled to hold it together, using humour to lighten the load. It’s not like we’ll NEVER see her again! 😳 It just feels that way.

*sigh*

I’m hoping that after a good nights sleep, I will wake up feeling normal again.

So on that note ...

Nite all.

Great Day

Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair and I had a great day out.

I began with a Boost Juice and a pedicure.

BGWLBH began with nail infills followed by a Boost Juice.

We checked our losing lotto tickets, bought matching tops and I bought a light jacket.

Then we moved on to the Golf Club for lunch where we each had the most delicious food.

I selected the crispy skinned pork belly with watermelon and lychee salad and Asian dressing.

BGWLBH chose grilled barramundi with mango salsa and chat potatoes.

We each had a bit of a win on the pokies.

We drove to Tinkerbells where I purchased a green amethyst pendant.

Next was Go Natural to get some organic veggies and some probiotics. They didn’t have my BB Creme in stock, in fact I have never seen their shelves so empty! It left me wondering whether they may have changed hands or something. We’ll see.

Our final stop was Hervey Norman to print some photos. While we were there, I discovered a video/movie ring light and tripod on sale, so I grabbed one. It’s just what I need for creating my online course this year!

We were both feeling exhausted by the time we arrived home around 4pm!

I made myself a cup of tea and had a little lie down before preparing dinner for the masses. I was still satisfied from lunch so I worked on my newsletter at the table while the others ate.

We continued our trivia game from yesterday and I won!! Wahoo!!

Adoring Husband and I watched I’m a Celebrity before coming to bed and now it’s after 11pm! Time flies.

It’s been a great day but now I need to sleep.

Nite all.

Farewell

I remained in bed until 11.30am.

Adoring Husband went to do some contract gardening.

I made lunch for Beautiful Girl With Long Blonde Hair and I and took it outside to the pool area where she was relaxing on the lounge reading a book.

After lunch, I changed into my swimmers and slid into the cool water, swam a few laps, did a few exercises, floated on my back and then got the floating bed out and floated in the sunshine for a while.

Later, we headed inside and played trivia for a couple of hours before making ourselves presentable for a farewell party that was being held on our street for Lady Lynn and Happy Harry who are moving south.

Just Adoring Husband and I attended from our house. BGWLBH remained at home with Colli watching old episodes of The Nanny.

There was a good crowd at the party. All the best people were there for the send off. Good food, good company, a nice speech by Happy Harry, a few tears from Lady Lynn and an amazing display from the giant colony of bats inhabiting the lagoon behind the house.

We are all feeling sad that these two beautiful people are leaving town and we will miss them like crazy. They are an integral part of many different groups and it’s going to take a while for each of those groups to rebalance and adjust to the loss.

But ... while it’s sad to be ending this chapter of their lives, it’s also exciting to be starting somewhere fresh and new, closer to family and closer to quality medical services, in a brand new home and surrounded by brand new potential friends.

And anyway, good friendships never end. We’ll all still be good and feelin’ the love from a distance.

We were home before 7.30pm ... yes we are old ... less than two hours!

While it was tempting to go straight to bed, we decide to watch I’m a Celebrity first and now it’s almost 11.30pm!

BGWLBH and I have a big day planned for tomorrow, so it’s sleepy time for me.

Nite all.