Art for Art’s Sake

It was a great day for art.

Lousy day for sales - but Howard markets were on and our town is always very quiet on market day so it was expected.

I have to say I’m really tired. At 8pm I looked at my watch expecting it to be 10pm 😳

There was a small group of regulars for art ...

They got to choose the technique they wanted for the day and the results were lovely...

It was well after 4.30pm when I got home and little Colli was very excited to be fed! 

I made my own dinner and planted myself on the couch to watch footy for the rest of the evening.

Now I’m in bed yawning so it’s definitely sleep time for me.

Nite all.

Sterling Effort

At 1.15pm today it was looking to be another zero sales day 😳

Unheard of 😳

So I decided to get the magic brass singing bowl out to do some cleansing and to refresh and renew the energy in the space.

I made up a couple of positive chants and reminded myself and the shop why we were there.

Just after 1.30pm, three ladies from Hervey Bay walked through the door. They come out once a year and always come to the shop, so thanks to them, I did NOT have a zero sales day!

Thank you Universe 🙏

Thanks to Adoring Husband’s impeccable timing with his ‘good morning’ phone call, I was running a little bit late this morning and it was five past nine by the time I opened the shop.

Also unheard of!

Putting my quiet time to good use, I decided renew my passport and was in the middle of that process when The Brains Trust came for a visit.

I always love visits from my girls and we chatted for well over an hour and she went on her merry way just before midday.

Forgetting all about my passport, I made myself some lunch and a cup of tea.

I was on my trike and pedalling home by 2.10pm.

When I arrived home I had to clean up the pee that psychotic dog kindly left for me on the kitchen floor, I did some washing, cooked up a batch of dog food, mopped the laundry floor and the hallway, tried to set up a photo shoot for a photography challenge but gave up.

I hopped on my trike and rode off to do Adoring Husband’s job ... once again it began to rain just as I finished ... but it wasn’t as heavy tonight so I rode home in it, which was quite pleasant.

Now I’m going to package up the dog food and climb into bed.

Today’s bubba pics ...

What a little cutie 🥰 

Nite all.

Strange One

Today was a strange kind of day.

I opened the shop right on time and picked up my mail, some of which was new stock.

Adoring Husband phoned to let me know that the car broke down 60kms from Armidale! The dashboard lit up and the car went into ‘limp’ mode and lost power.

He called an hour later to say that he got it going and was now 30kms from Armidale.

Aggie dropped by for a visit and while she was there, my cleaner (Happy Hippy) turned up, so I gave her a task to do until I was free to set up the training room for Saturday’s art class. After Aggie left, Happy Hippy and I lay down the drop sheet and set up the tables with their protective covers.

Afterwards, HH did some more dusting to fill her hour.

AH called to say he’d dropped the car into the Mitsubishi dealer to be fixed.

There would have been at least 40 people through the shop today, yet I didn’t make a solitary sale!

If I recall correctly, that’s the third zero sales day in almost 4 years.

This is the kind of day where I recite my favourite quote “Being OK if it happens and OK if it doesn’t, is a powerful place to be”.

I’m OK.

I did my shopping, piled everything into the basket of my trike and just as I was about to leave, AH called with a story about the poor service by the dealership but the car was fixed ... thank goodness! The car was only serviced last week!

It was 2.40pm when I pulled into our driveway. Psychotic dog Colli was excitedly waiting for her dinner so I unpacked my paraphernalia and fed her.

I had an hour to play with before heading off on my trike to do AH’s job.

Just as I finished, the heavens opened and the rain pelted down! The receptionist from the Medical Centre invited me inside until it passed. At one point, the rain was almost horizontal!

After about 15 minutes I got to ride home through some fairly big and fairly deep puddles.

I’ve just discovered that I forgot to put my footy tip in for tonight’s game. That’s annoying 😖

I’m off to bed.

Nite all.

Going Solo

I needed a woollen poncho to ride to work at 6.30 this morning!

It’s not as cold as Melbourne, by any means, but 16°C is a big drop from our more recent minimums.

There were only six of us at meditation this morning. 

I think our regulars have misunderstood the dates we are not meditating, so we need to communicate with them during the week.

It was nice to see The Gypsy and some of our regulars this morning. We did something different and sat in a circle for our class and everyone got involved in the discussions.

Sales were even better than yesterday which was great but my afternoon really dragged on. The last 90 minutes were slow and I was watching the clock, something I don’t normally do!

It was a very windy ride home, sometimes into a head wind which wasn’t pleasant, but I made it safe n sound.

At 5pm I got changed and rode to do Adoring Husband’s job. By the time I’d finished, it was dark and I realised that only the tail light on my trike works. I might have to tape a torch to the front of my trike for the remainder of the week.

Here are today’s bubba pics ...

Now I’m off to bed.

Nite all.

Back to Play

It’s too much fun to be work, so I call it play.

It was a strange kind of day with LOTS of people through the door, but maybe half of them made a purchase.

Sales were good.

We were light on in numbers for coffee this morning with only four ladies including me. Two of these left early due to other appointments so The Brains Trust and I had an hour together between customers.

Adoring Husband took psychotic dog Colli into The Bay for a grooming session and while he was there he ran some errands for me which included purchasing some printer ink.

My main task for the day was changing the printer ink!

Task successfully achieved!

This afternoon was journaling class which went very well and time flew by.

I accepted the girls’ offer to help me set up the room for meditation so they folded up the tables and the tablecloths while I wheeled in the whiteboard and set out the chairs.

It took another ten minutes for me to turn everything off and pack everything up to go home.

The journey home took a while because I kept running into people I know, and they all wanted to chat.

One in particular was a neighbour who informed me that his wife left him a year ago! I had no idea! They struggled after the tornado when their property received major damage, but they were married for 50 years so this news was a bit of a shock to me.

I also ran into Woman of Many Talents and we chatted briefly before she joined her walking partner.

It was 5pm by the time I arrived home.

AH cooked some lamb rumps on the barbecue and we put salad and the meat on bread for an easy dinner.

Now I’m ready for bed because it’s an early start for meditation and I have to ride my trike for the next week. It might build up my fitness level.

Nite all.

Sweet Sleep

I love my bed.

That is all.

I had a very lazy start to my day.

Before I climbed into bed last night, I unpacked my suitcase and except for the washing, you wouldn’t even know I’d been gone.

Knowing there was nothing to do in the morning meant I could sleep soundly and stay in bed for as long as I liked (as if that’s different to any other day that I don’t work haha) so I remained in bed until lunch time.

Adoring Husband and I watched a movie while munching on avocado/tuna/lemon/pickled onion with wafer crackers after which we shopped for food for dinner and then drove to my happy place to clear the training room of all the art stuff from before I left.

AH reattached a hanging rack to the wall while I vacuumed the floors and cleared the kitchen sink of all the cleaned art tools, cups and cloths from the last art class.

We set up the tables for morning coffee and journaling and all up, we were out of the house for about 2 hours.

After we got home with our snacks, we watched another movie on Netflix and I prepared dinner.

Snapper fillets fried in lemon butter with salad and a hash brown.

Now we are watching Big Brother!

AH has a big day starting early in The Bay tomorrow, so I will be triking to work and opening the shop on my own. 

I’m looking forward to getting back into it.

Now I’ve got some ironing to do for AH before he goes away.

Nite all.

She’s Back

That’s me!

I’m back!

Adoring Husband and I are both exhausted because we’ve both been travelling all day.

AH was in Eumundi almost an hour before my flight even left Melbourne!

We stopped at Bohemian Bungalow in Eumundi for lunch. My online reservation was received but obviously wasn’t necessary because there were only two other tables of people.

There was a solo entertainer playing guitar and singing great old bluesy rock and roll songs from the 60s and 70s. He had a fabulously deep gravelly voice and he made those old songs his own. It was impossible not to sing along and dance in the sitting position.

The food was disappointing and we asked for fresh pineapple juice but received a glass of tinned juice.

Still, the music made up for it.

Apart from the obligatory semi trailer sitting on our butt for half an hour, we had a good run home.

My morning had a bit of a glitch where somehow my Uber ride was cancelled. Luckily I had Vegan Chickie there to fix it for me because I have no idea how that happened and I felt a little bit panicked.

My Uber driver was a rather large man who seemed to have trouble with green lights 😳

We stopped for red lights and when they turned green, he didn’t move! Every time! Only when cars sped past him did he realise he should move! Very strange.

It cost me $85 for the 45 min drive. A taxi quoted $120 for the same trip.

There was very little traffic on the road and when we hit the four lane highway, there was just us and one other car way ahead of us for about 10kms.

There was no human contact or communication to drop off my bag and collect my boarding pass.

I stopped at one machine to print out the luggage tag and the boarding pass then walked to another machine that weighed my bag, accepted it and told me to go to Gate 6.

Very strange.

I found myself a cup of tea, a bottle of water and some mentos to suck on while taking off and landing.

Due to unexpected changed wind conditions, my flight left Melbourne almost 30 minutes late but arrived at the Sunny Coast right on time.

I did get to give my Chicklet a final hug goodbye early this morning. That was important.

We had an easy dinner and are both counting the minutes to when we think it’s appropriate to fall into bed.

I must say I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

It was a lovely week with the family and my BTATT (best thing about the trip) was seeing Chicklet waiting for me at the airport the day I arrived. Overwhelmed.

Meeting and cuddling little Hazie was a highlight and having her sleep on my chest for 2 hours was really special.

Seeing how in love Vegan Chickie and Mr Perfect are, warmed the cockles of my heart.

Meeting his family finished the trip off beautifully. They were a blast and I know my family are in good Melbourne hands.

The WTATT (worst thing about the trip) was the cold weather. Brrrrrrrr. My Eumundi jumper saved my life.

On that note, I’m outta here.

Nite all.