Celebration!

The day has finally arrived and BGWLBH is here!

I made a cake.

Four alternate layers of butter cake and chocolate cake. Between each layer were alternate generous spreads of chocolate avocado mousse, chocolate frosting, berry cream cheese (raspberries, blueberries and strawberries blended in lactose free cream cheese) and sliced strawberries.

The whole cake was covered in LF whipped cream, a pile of diced strawberries and kiwi fruit on top and then sprinkled with chocolate flakes.

I also made butter cupcakes with lemon curd and passion fruit frosting, and a full buttercake with lemon cream frosting.

There were “Welcome Home” gifts, Happy Retirement gifts and Happy Birthday gifts.

I enjoyed watching her open them all and reading the cards and I think it was a nice surprise for her.

It took a couple of hours to unpack all the food, plants and other paraphernalia and find homes for everything.

The rain followed her here and I think we have three or four days of steady wet weather to look forward to.

It was AH’s Friday chicken night and I had marinated half of the chicken pieces in spicy, chilli, barbecue, honey marinade for 24 hours. They were delicious and of course that was followed by birthday cake for dessert.

It was a good night of football on telly and I have three out of three correct tips so far AND my AFL team, Carlton, won their game tonight too!

It’s way after midnight and you’d think with all of todays excitement, I’d be exhausted 🥱 but that is not the case. I’m feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed! Let’s hope I fall asleep easily.

With the rainy, cool weather, tomorrow might be a good day for playing games and watching movies.

Oh! I must not forget to vote!

Nite all.

Huge Day

It has been a huge day for me.

But I can’t tell you anything about it until tomorrow.

I am happy that my footy team won tonight, even without their star player.

Watch this space for tomorrow’s post.

Nite all.

Almost Here

It was difficult for me to get out of bed this morning. I was just too comfortable.

I forced myself out of bed, showered and washed my hair which made me 15 minutes late for our Wednesday morning catch up at the Lions Park.

It was so nice to have The Motivator join us and hopefully she’ll make it a habit too.

It was a much shorter catch up today because everyone had errands to run.

I did a small grocery shop and pedalled home in time to make our lunch.

I did some more of the bathroom treatment and cleaned the toilet. The treatment still isn’t complete, but I’ll get there eventually.

BGWLBH should be here late tomorrow! Can’t wait!

It’s almost midnight and I’m ready for sleep.

“Unhappiness indicates that action is needed to avoid disease in the future.”💛  “Disease comes from accumulation of bad food, bad sleep, negative emotions, and physical or mental strain.” - Deepak Chopra

Commit to connecting to yourself and finding balance.

Nite all.

I Found Some

I found some motivation today.

I was out of bed much earlier than usual and I started phase two of the bathroom treatment.

It was a frustrating process. Because of faulty equipment, I had to compromise and find alternatives for part of it and this meant it took much longer than it should have. I still haven’t quite finished and it will probably take another 20 minutes of work before I can start phase three.

It was messy and uncomfortable because I had to work on my knees for a good portion of the time. My knees are feeling a bit tender this evening.

I stopped to prepare lunch. Ham, LF cheese and ham toasties. We’ve been relying too heavily on bread lately and I’m pleased that I’ve promised to help BGWLBH become the healthiest version of herself because we need to do that for ourselves too.

I had another big secret job to do in the afternoon. It was quite time consuming but I got most of it done.

Sausage, egg, tomato and onion for dinner.

Big Brother for entertainment. (Some might disagree on the ‘entertainment’ part of that sentence)

Now it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

At One With The Universe

I was advised to “be at one with the universe” today.

While we had an appointment to meet the movers at the storage centre for 7.30am, they were phoning to find out where we were at 7.05am!!

I’m a bad morning person so it doesn’t take much to trigger me. A phone call at 7.05 asking where I am for my 7.30 appointment was just the trigger to set me off.

Not only that … they had both Adoring Husband’s AND my phone number as contacts for this appointment, yet they phoned BGWLBH in NSW!!

Ugh 😩

Luckily, the main moving guy was a polite young man (except for a few scattered curse words) who had a never ending supply of bad dad jokes and who took extra care moving everything out of the truck and into the storage shed. He also apologised for the early call and I told him to NEVER do it again!

It took 90 minutes to unpack, after which we secured the shed door with a strong padlock, and just after 9am we were heading into The Bay with a short ‘to do’ list.

Office Works, a different office/stationery shop, breakfast at a cafe we hadn’t tried before (the food was good but the location was on a loud and busy main road), BigW and Harvey Norman.

We ordered our new lounge suite which, surprisingly, will be delivered next week, instead of the 16 weeks originally quoted.

By the time we arrived home at 1.30pm, we were both pretty buggered and we didn’t do anything else all afternoon. We even reheated last nights leftovers for dinner.

We watched mindless TV and it’s almost 11.30pm so I reckon it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

First Time

For the first time, I drank all of my sleepy tea and it had no affect whatsoever!

I was still awake at 3am. Just laying there, in the dark, with my eyes closed and waiting for unconsciousness.

Obviously, it came eventually, and I opened my eyes again at 8.52am when I was woken by a text ping from Squirt, my lil sis, telling me the news of Andrew Symond’s demise.

He was my all time favourite cricketer and I feel so sad that he’s no longer with us but when I imagine Shane Warne and Rod Marsh greeting him on the other side … well, that’s just a special sight.

It was a pretty productive day for me.

I started the treatment on the bathroom - it’s a three step process.

I started decluttering the linen cupboard, but was distracted (many times) until eventually, the room that BGWLBH will be staying in, took my full attention.

It went from this …

to this …

The biggest struggle was putting on the doona cover. In the end I YouTubed ‘easy way to put on a doona cover’ and it worked a treat. I don’t usually struggle with the covers but today was a doozy.

We completely cleared the wardrobe, top and bottom, which was full of old fancy dress items, empty boxes of all shapes and sizes, our 10 pin bowling gear (which we’ve used twice since we moved here 14 years ago!), camera gear, wrapping paper for every occasion, photos and other such crap.

BGWLBH now has quite a bit more space to play with, and those hula hoops will have a new home once I clear my old art room and create my new art room!

I got creative in the kitchen tonight and invented a pasta bake.

The creamy sauce was made of puréed cauliflower, lactose free cream, dairy free cream cheese, loads of butter, lemon juice, garlic salt and white pepper.

I poured that over penne pasta, lightly fried onion and mushroom, halved cherry tomatoes, a jar of quartered artichoke and flaked salmon steak that I’d cooked earlier.

I mixed it all together and sprinkled lactose free pizza cheese mix over the top, cooked it in a hot oven for 20 mins - the cheese on top was golden and bubbly.

It was delish! Should have taken a pic!

We’ve watched The Voice and hopefully I’ll get enough sleep tonight because we have to be at the storage shed at 7.30am to take delivery of BGWLBH’s truckload of possessions!

Counting the days til she arrives! No more goodbyes after a few weeks! A second wife for AH! A partner in crime, a fun playmate, a sounding board, a like minded ally, a games buddy and BFF … no longer a million miles away!

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll finish the bathroom and the linen cupboard.

After that, I want to do a full clean of the fridge and the oven, do the bathroom treatment in the ensuite and declutter my bedroom.

That means I’ll be able to focus completely on the art rooms and with BGWLBH’s organisational skills, I hope to create the perfect space for us to play.

I’m done for the day.

Nite all.