Like a Baby

That's how I slept last night.

Thankfully, the psychotic dogs didn't wake at all during the night and we both slept soundly.

It was still a struggle rising this morning and even though I planned on getting to work early, I didn't unlock the doors until right on 9am.

Morning tea with the girls was nice, with Reality TV Queen joining us for the first time in months. She has been away and is soon going away again, so we won't see her for quite some time. She's happy and her life is full!

Unfortunately, Lady Lynn couldn't join us, Beauty is still away and Maid Marian is either away, or she forgot again haha.

But it was a nice group and Vampira (aka The Blond Bombshell or YipYip) brought a big basket of clothes that she was culling from her wardrobe and we all took at least one item to add to our own wardrobe.

I received an email from The Motivator today. Her retreat sounds amazing and I feel very envious of the emotional work she is doing on herself.  Even though she is feeling wiped out from the intensity of it all, she is also feeling positive about the impending results in a few days time.

I made a couple of small orders to tide us over until the gift fair. We currently only have two leather handbags in stock and the shelves are looking a little bare. It's funny though, how some items that we've had in stock for five months have suddenly walked out the door since I rearranged a few displays!

During our road trip in November, I walked into a shop full of beautiful big art pieces and struck up a conversation with the owner of the shop. He told me that he had JUST opened the previous day and we discussed the excitement of having a new business that we loved.

He asked me for advice and I told him to rearrange his stock regularly because customers have blind spots and may not notice the 'perfect piece for their wall' even though it's been on display up the back of the shop for 6 months ... until the day he moves it even two places along the wall ... and suddenly they are saying "Oh this is new!"

Like the red and black leather handbag that has been in the shop since day one and nobody even picked it up in that time, until a week ago when I created a new red and black display. Since then three people have picked up the bag and carried it around the shop to buy, but changed their mind at the last minute. Today it was bought and an hour later, one of those three customers returned looking to buy it! Alas they were disappointed.

The heavens opened this afternoon and we had some heavy rain for an hour or so and then another hour of steady rain, which was nice, but rain always stops people coming up the driveway to our shop.

I took advantage of the quiet and created the flyer/registration form for the Vision Board Course and filled one of our windows with the information flyers for all of the courses.

I registered with a couple of suppliers - like Serenade - the same company that my beautiful purse is from. They emailed through the catalogue and price list and I can't wait to see their stock at the gift fair and then being with Tracey to put in our first order!

Speaking of which, just five more sleeps until the trip to Sydney!

I'm trying for another early night and another sound 'like a baby' sleep. It helps that the temperature has dropped to a comfortable level.

It's good night from me.

Nite all.

Sleepless in the Heads

FOUR!!

That's how many times the psychotic dogs needed to go outside during the night between 11.30pm and 4.45am.

I got up the first three times, but on the fourth, I nudged Adoring Husband very heavily. His alarm would be going off at 5am anyway, so I figured he could do the honours for the final outing.

ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED!!

That's what I was when my alarm went off at 5.30am so that I could get to work early enough to open the shop for meditation classes.

PRETTY CREATIVE!

That was me when I realised that our meditation signage was looking tattered and unprofessional at our 6th week of classes. I created new signs and then laminated them ready for Monday week (we are closed next Monday).

TICKLED PINK!

That's how I felt when one of the meditation ladies said that she played the "Happy" song all week and danced to it with her grandchildren and it made her feel wonderful! That was the result of us dancing to that song at the end of meditation last week and of me telling them how I set my alarm to play it every hour on the hour so that I could feel good and dance just for one minute.

TOTALLY ENGROSSED!

Thats how I was when The Gypsy and I got into a really interesting conversation about life and all it's challenges and the choices we make and how we deal with the results of those choices ... and so much more.

FULL OF GRATITUDE!

I felt that from my heart when Adoring Husband heated up my chicken broth and brought it to me at the shop for morning tea. He also delivered my phone which I'd left in the bathroom this morning.

PROUD AS PUNCH!

Is how I felt when three ladies made a special trip to The Heads and came into the shop because somebody in The Bay had told them about the beautiful new shop in The Heads that they should visit.

SUPER SURPRISED!

When Adoring Husband walked through the door at 2.50pm and I looked at my watch, I was super surprised that it was time to shut up shop already! Some days just fly by so fast!

SELF SATISFIED!

Is the overwhelming feeling when I walked into the house and remembered that I had removed the curried sausages from the freezer this morning and they were thawed out ready to heat up for our early dinner. AH was being picked up early for an important SES meeting out of town, so an easy dinner, followed by the strawberry cream pie for the dessert, was just what the doctor ordered.

SLIGHTLY ORGANISED!

I have my outfit laid out ready for tomorrow, including accessories. My carry bags are packed with all of my work and course 'stuff' to take tomorrow morning. The folder full of paperwork for our Sydney trip is in my suitcase which is ready to be packed in the back bedroom. I am in my pyjamas ready to climb into bed as soon as MKR is finished.

STILL ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED!

With so little sleep last night, the day has caught up with me and I am back to feeling absolutely exhausted. If the psychotic dogs wake me up tonight, I'm going to give AH a swift kick to deal with them. Otherwise I'm going to be tired and crabby and he will have to take the brunt of that!

WARM AND FUZZY!

Is how I feel when I remember on Monday nights that it will be coffee morning with the girls when I wake up.

See you tomorrow girls!

Nite all.

R&R&S&W

Rest. Recreation. Study. Work.

That was my Sunday.

I made myself breakfast of bacon, tomato, onion and avocado. I reheated the coffee that Adoring Husband had bought earlier for me and climbed back into bed for Sunday brekky in bed.

Adoring Husband was committed to SES duties until almost 1pm, so I had the house to myself.

I gathered all my study gear and loaded it onto the bed, making sure I had a couple of good pens and some spare paper, my laptop on my stable table and my folder full of course lessons.

Two hours in and I needed a break, so I got up and did a load of washing then cleared the dining table of all the 'stuff' that I had dumped there each afternoon as I arrived home.

I followed that with another two hours of study until AH arrived home just before 1pm.

He had a shower and was kind enough to surprise me with a cup of tea.

We watched some mindless TV together for a couple of hours and while dinner was heating up (pre-prepared spaghetti bolognese with zoodles) I cleared all of my jewellery making paraphernalia off the outdoor table.

I really should have taken a 'before' photo because it was pretty scary! It didn't take that long to stack and pack it all up, but underneath the mess was evidence of rodent activity! We know that there are mice about and they like to spend time in the bottom of SEB's cage at night. AH has set traps and caught a couple of the little blighters, but I'm certain that there are more.

Not to mention the 15 geckos that were on the ceiling of the outdoor area when I took the dogs out to pee before I put them to bed tonight - yes, I counted them!

It's 10.30pm and I need to be up EXTRA early tomorrow morning because I desperately need to wash my hair before getting to work by 7.30am for meditation.

AH reminded me that there is only a week until I leave for Sydney, so I have a lot to get done before I leave - including finishing the design of the photography course. I'm torn between wanting a busy week in sales and wanting a quiet week so that I can get other work done!

Anyway, have a happy Monday everybody!

Nite all.

Weeks End

The end is here.

Of the week, that is.

It's been a pretty big week. I achieved a lot, but also still have a lot to achieve next week so there is no rest for the wicked!

It wasn't very busy in the shop today and in between customers, I rearranged a few things and displayed them a little differently. I designed the flyer for the next Vision Board workshop and I made a small order of new stock to tide us over until March.

I closed the shop at 1.30pm and on the way home, knowing that Adoring Husband had pigged out on our lunch, I got myself some food from the Takeaway.

I watched some mindless rubbish on TV for a couple of hours before making my way to the kitchen where I packaged up the chicken broth that had been cooking for 22 hours, made some cauliflower rice to serve with the chicken curry and then made another strawberry cream pie.

In the middle of making the pie, I realised that I had no honey, so I put the call out on Facebook to see if anyone in town had some real honey on hand. When I got no quick responses, I sent a text to The Blonde Bombshell who was able to come to my rescue.

After I'd finished making the pie, The Leggy Blonde (my back neighbour) called me from her back yard to say that she was standing there ready to hand some honey to me over the fence! Even though I had already taken possession of some honey, I took her up on her offer because the honey was straight from the hive. I couldn't resist and it is indeed, absolutely delicious!

Her reward will be two pieces of pie when I make the next one.

My phone didn't tell me that it was time to go to bed tonight, so here I am, almost half past midnight and having just watched a terrible movie about giant tornadoes (no, not Sharknado), I'm definitely ready for bed.

I really love those words. We need to remove those self imposed demands on ourselves and free each other from those horrible rules that restrict our freedom.

That's enough from me tonight.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Nite all

Friendly Friday

We had some really nice customers all through the day today, which brought a wonderful energy into the shop.

It was so noticeable that I even commented to a couple of groups and thanked them for coming.

Reality TV Queen popped in for a quick visit with His Royal Tallness, which was a nice surprise.

I had some time this afternoon to design the registration form for my photography courses and printed a few copies out for the front table.

I checked out the websites of some of our suppliers.

Even though we are trying to hold off ordering any new stock until we've been through the Gift Fair in Sydney, our stock level is a bit low and I'm considering making a couple of small orders next week. It's a bit of a balancing act.

The weather is still hot and we've just had some storms sweep through. There was a huge line of storms from the Sunny Coast right through to Gladstone, but I don't think they've done enough to cool the temperature.

My watch alarm has just told me to get ready for bed. I've done well this week creating my new habit of going to bed at the some time. I've been in bed every night well before 10.30pm.

I've discovered one slight issue with this new habit. Because we're in bed at least 2-3 hours earlier than our old habit, the Psychotic Dogs need to get up during the night to pee! Their elderly bladders can't last the distance and they are waking me up at around 3.30am most nights.

It almost defeats the purpose of going to bed early!

I'm looking forward to my weekend and plan on getting a bit done on Sunday. Bed will be my friend for the first half of the day though.

In the meantime, Saturday is looking good for another pleasant time at The Happy Abode.

So I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Without Motivation

The Motivator has left the country!

It was a mad dash this morning as some last minute important business popped up (not Happy Abode stuff) and she frantically worked to finalise it all before she rushed to the airport in just the nick of time!

Touch and go.

The day was incredibly busy in the shop. Lots of new customers all announcing "I didn't know you were here!" as they walked in the door. There were even a few men came shopping today, which felt weird, but they knew what they wanted and even though I didn't get anything else done today, it was a great sales day and the people were friendly and grateful for the air conditioned comfort.

This weather is horrendously oppressive and our air conditioner has been running for 36 hours straight and certainly won't be turned off tonight either. It reached 36C It's still 28C but feels a lot warmer. When you add coastal humidity to such high temperatures - there are no words - or maybe there is just one - UGH!

Thankfully, I live AND work in air conditioned comfort.

Adoring Husband was kind enough to help me close the shop this afternoon and I cooked dinner super early (we were eating at 4.45pm) because AH has SES training tonight and had to leave before 5.30pm.

Crispy skinned chicken with salad followed by pineapple whip with macadamia nuts & shaved premium organic dark chocolate. That's a good healthy meal and a half!

Right now, I'm listening to my psychotic dogs tease and chase each other around the family room. I asked them if they remembered that they are each 13 years old. Combined, in human years, that makes them 273 years old. They are still jumping onto the furniture and playing silly buggers with each other like puppies.

Sometimes that can be a bit annoying, but mostly it makes me laugh.

Well, it's just after 8pm so I think I'll go to bed and so some of my course work before I nod off.

Nite all.

Big Day In

What a huge day!

The Gypsy had all her appointments booked bar one and the shop was filled with people many times during the day. Mostly they were only looking, but there was a big group of eight from Howard and three different pairs from Childers, someone from Chinchilla and a lady from Gympie and many more locals who only just discovered that we were here.

I took another name for one of my photography workshops and a lady came in asking if we would be interested in selling her art. I've told her to come back with some samples after 1st March. She showed me some photos and I really like the look of some of her creations. She has her finger in many different creative pies, so I'm looking forward to seeing her work up close.

I attempted to get some paperwork done and set up a booking system for our courses. I have just over three weeks until my first course starts and I still haven't finished creating it!

But don't worry, we do our best work under pressure!

By home time, I was absolutely exhausted. All of my energy had drained and I felt a little bit low ... until I rode home and the ride seemed to energise me. I even went straight to the kitchen to peel the potatoes and chop the beans in preparation for dinner.

Luckily, dinner was super easy and quick and delicious. Adoring Husband even went back for seconds and I put some pineapple in the freezer earlier, so I'm thinking of making some pineapple whip for dessert ... yes that's how early I am writing this.

It will be another early night for me and I think we'll leave the air conditioner on all night so that we can sleep soundly without the heat and the perspiration disturbing us.

Another day in the life of a Happy Abode worker haha.

Nite all.

Solo Effort

I had an interesting start to my day because I woke up a little later than usual, after a night of very broken sleep (that'll teach me for having coffee at 4.30pm!).

Just as I was about to jump under the shower and while I was sitting on the golden throne, I received a phone call from Vegan Chickie - which I didn't answer - but I called back after I was finished on the throne.

It was Chicklet's 7th birthday today, so after I said a quick hello to Vegan Chickie, I sang 'Happy Birthday' to Chicklet in a dreadful attempt at soprano. Chicklet wasn't really listening because she was yelling over the phone that she received three different dragons for her birthday.

She was also very excited to be going to a farm for the day where she was going to feed and touch different animals - but she was especially excited because Mama and Dadu were taking her and they would be a family for the day.

My gift to her will be the experience of touching a crocodile when she visits us in May. The crocodile is her favourite animal (after the non-existent dragon and dinosaur). She will also get to sit with and feed some meerkats (as will I).

By the time we said our goodbyes, I had twenty minutes to get to work and the only thing I had done was throw some clothes on. I was running around like a chook with it's head cut off and left the house in a mad dash at 2 minutes to nine. I arrived at the shop at 9.04am, just as The Blonde Bombshell arrived on her bike.

She kindly helped me open the shop and take the signs and chairs out. We were both lathered in perspiration because the weather was oppressively hot again this morning.

At our peak, there were six of us for coffee and it was a great morning while JMac gave us a very animated description of her concert experience on Saturday night where she saw John Farnham, Jon Stevens, Ross Wilson and The Black Sorrows.

I spent the remainder of the morning making contact with the editors of all the local newsletters, paying for each of our full page ads and then sending the finished ad through to them.

A few people came through the doors, but not many wanted to part with their money today. Some were in for a chat, which is always lovely. There was a booking for The Gypsy tomorrow and a regular male customer bought a Cenzoni bag for his wife - just because. How sweet.

Adoring Husband dropped in to see if I wanted lunch, which I had already ordered from 'A Taste of Burrum', so his timing was perfect to pick it up for me. He then returned later in the afternoon to help me pack up and close the shop. He's a good man.

Just before I walked out the door, the couple from the markets who I ordered another timber display stand from, appeared. I invited them in and they stayed for thirty minutes while we chatted about family and health and work until I herded them out the door so that I could go home.

Oh and Mayberry, the lady who is creating art with record albums came by with her newest creations, which aren't even finished yet, to get our opinion. I love them!

In the kitchen I prepared two different dinners, one for tonight and one for tomorrow night, so all I have to do tomorrow night is make a sweet potato mash and steam some beans to go with the chicken, mushroom and tomato casserole.

There are some storms about tonight and it looks like we might get some rain in an hour or so - hopefully it won't be too nasty because there has been quite a bit of damage caused by storms in areas south and south west of here in the past few days. Fingers crossed we just get some wet stuff!

I'm off for an early night.

Nite all.

Squeezed Full!

How hot is it?

As my mother would say "Hot as Hades"!

Each time we walked out of the shop, there was a wall of oppressive heat awaiting us and it felt like we were melting!

Thank goodness for air conditioning.

Our day was squeezed full!

We had an interesting start to the day because The Gypsy was not available to run our meditation class, which meant that we had to wing it.

Even knowing since last Wednesday that she wouldn't be here, neither The Motivator nor I were prepared for this morning. We DID arrive slightly early, to set up the room. I made up a sheet to get names and phone numbers so that in the future, we can contact the ladies to cancel if necessary.

The Motivator, with her easy listening voice, led the class into three different guided meditations which were pre-recorded (provided by The Gypsy) and in between we had some casual and relaxed discussions, some good giggles and then we finished off with a group dance to the song "Happy" (but of course!), so we finished the morning feeling both relaxed and energised. Everybody left with a big smile on their face.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and The Motivator did a fabulous job. We do our best work under pressure!

My entire day after that, was spent creating our ad to go into three different newsletters - BHPA, The Toogoom chatter and Burrum River Newsletter. The main part of our ad will provide information about the photography courses and the design & styling courses so we have to fit a LOT into a small space.

Here's your preview ...

So if you see any errors, you have until 1pm Tuesday to let me know lol

While I did that, The Motivator had about five different projects going at once, so she was multi-tasking like a whirlwind.

We had few customers walk through the door, so there weren't many interruptions. I think it was too hot for anybody to leave their house today!

I will be by myself in the shop tomorrow, so I need a good night's sleep. I'm looking forward to seeing the girls for coffee in the morning and then I have a 'to do' list to focus on for the remainder of the day.

Still absolutely loving The Happy Abode.

Nite all.

No News

My Sunday has been pretty cruisy.

I've done a little bit of washing.

I bottled my second batch of kombucha and have brewed up the next batch.

I cooked up a huge plate of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, char grilled zucchini, tomato, onion, baby spinach and avocado for a late breakfast, early lunch (11.30am).

Mid afternoon, I filled a bowl with dragon fruit, banana, mango, grapes and plums all chopped into bite sized pieces and then I pigged out on them in front of the TV as we watched the Winter Olympics.

Personally, I'll be pleased when the Olympics are over.

I can't help but wonder how amazing this world would be if all the pro athletes put as much money, time and effort into creating a better planet, instead of training, competing and holding up a trophy or medal at the end of the day.

What about all the Govt funding that could be better used elsewhere? What about the billions of dollars spent on bidding for the games and then the billions of dollars spent on building the arenas for the events?

Oh but don't get me started.

I can't believe it's 9pm already. I really feel like I didn't get enough done today - especially the course work for which I could have been so much more productive if I'd just left the room!

Anyway, big work day tomorrow and The Motivator leaves the country this week. I have much to organise before she leaves, including creating our ad for three newsletters, which I'd hoped to do this weekend, but will do tomorrow.

The Gypsy won't be at the shop for meditation tomorrow, so The Motivator and I will have to wing it.

Wish us luck!

Nite all.

To Market To Market

I woke to the sound of my alarm playing Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Gogo" at 6.15am.

Fifteen minutes later my alarm played "Happy" by Pharrell Williams.

As part of the meditation lessons, The Gypsy suggests something called 'traffic control' and every hour on the hour, we set our phone alarm to remind us to stop for one minute, 'be present' and stop negative self talk.

I did that for a day and then felt that I wanted to change it up a bit, so I added the song "Happy" to my alarm and now, every hour on the hour, I begin dancing (although mostly, I'm sitting down when the alarm goes off, so I kind of jig in my chair!).

Adoring Husband laughs at me ... EVERY time! But that song just makes me feel so good and it's very easy to dance to. The Motivator and I found ourselves stopping and bopping to the music all morning at work and every time, it brought a smile to our faces.

Anyway, I had my first dance to "Happy" while I was still in bed this morning, after which, I got ready for work and left early so that I could attend the local markets first.

Still heady from my big keno win on Friday night, I went a little crazy.

The first money I spent was $5 which I tossed into a hat that belonged to a young girl who was busking. She had a lovely voice and judging by her choice of location, which almost hid her entirely from public view, she was obviously a little shy. She stopped mid song to thank me profusely.

I bought a leadlight string of hearts to hang in my front tree, a beautiful timber hand crafted lazy susan to place in the centre of our table, a gift wrapped washer with soap (somebody out there will have it added to their birthday present this year!), two hanging hand towels, two necklaces and a ring, a hand made card, a pen, a letter opener, a book and two bags of vegetables.

I also ordered a hand made timber jewellery display stand from the same man who made our whale tail display stands.

All of those purchases completely filled the basket of my trike!

We had a quiet morning in the shop, but as always, we still had plenty to do and plenty to talk about.

It was a 1pm closure but I didn't leave for home until 2pm.

This afternoon and this evening I've done some course work, watched a less violent episode of 'Outlander', cooked dinner, watched some 20/20 cricket and some of the Winter Olympics. As I write this blog post, I have Sex and the City reruns on in the background.

But it's way after 11pm so it's time for bed.

Enjoy your Sunday everybody!

Nite all.

Bored Bored Bored

Adoring Husband is enthusiastic and excited about the Winter Olympics claiming them to be more spectacular than the Summer Olympics (in his view).

Five minutes into the opening ceremony and I am bored out of my brain.

So here I am, writing this post so that I can go to bed. Another early night will do me good.

We had a reasonable day in the shop and The Motivator and I both had some other 'stuff' that we had to do during the quiet moments.

We both left the shop around 3.30pm and I had enough time to sit down in the lounge room for twenty minutes before getting ready for the club.

Adoring Husband chose to not come to the club tonight. He had everything ready in the kitchen for me to prepare dinner quickly - it was Parsee Chicken, which I had cooked last weekend, so he had to put it in a saucepan and heat it up. He had the food processor set up so that I could process the cauliflower for cauliflower/cashew rice which I cooked in the pan with garlic, butter and lemon juice and and then I added lots of delicious coriander.

It was quite delicious and we followed that up with some more strawberry cream pie. There is enough left for us to have a small piece each tomorrow.

I had a very successful night with a big win on the keno which was nice.

Oh, my watch alarm just went off with the message that it was time for me to prepare for bed! I will follow those instructions immediately.

Nite all.

Day of Rest

Because Sunday was my day off, but was NOT a day of rest, I decided to make today my day of rest!

I stayed in bed until about 10am and I only got out of bed because I wanted to go into The Bay to get my hair done.

There was no appointment made and my decision was to wing it. If I got in, excellent, and if I didn't, then so be it.

I was going to do a 'salon crawl' until somebody had an available appointment for me. My first choice of salons was 'Headlines' in Torquay.

I went there a couple of years ago and I liked how they did my hair (even though it wasn't quite as blond as I'd expected), but they were a bit expensive. My hairdresser in Griffith has never charged me more than $100 for half a head of foils, trim, blow dry and straighten. A couple of years ago, 'Headlines' charged me $227 for the same treatment.

Also, my hairdresser in Griffith takes two hours to work his magic. 'Headlines' has taken three hours on both my visits.

Today, 'Headlines' had an opening available for me at exactly the time that I walked in the door and they charged $203 before I walked out the door - and it's still not as blonde as I wanted it. Emma told me that because it had been so long since I'd had my hair done (over a year!) it was a major job just to cover the root growth and that as long as I didn't leave it too long, the next visit would make my hair the blond that I wanted.

Ok. We'll see.

After my salon visit, we did some Go Natural shopping, ran a couple of errands for the shop, did a Bunnings run (ew I know) and then finally a quick stop at Stocklands.

We were home by 4pm and while I packed all of our purchases away, Adoring Husband headed back to the SES shed to make a delivery.

I cooked some barramundi for dinner and served it with a light salad, followed by some strawberry cream pie with coconut ice cream. Yum!

It's only 8.30pm but it feels like it's 10pm so I think I may have an early night - I will take notice of my special alarm tonight!

Nite all.

Trivial Matters

Our team came 4th in the monthly trivia competition tonight.

There were only single points between the top four teams and we were pretty proud of ourselves because none of us felt very brainy when we arrived. We even got two perfect rounds! It was a good night.

It was also a good day at the shop.

The Gypsy was fully booked for the day, but the icing on the cake was when we had closed the shop this afternoon, but forgot to lock the door and two customers walked in to make some good purchases before they returned home from their holiday here.

Thanks ladies!

I spent the day decluttering the main draw of my desk. In the end, I had completely filled my little rubbish bin, filled a bag with books and paperwork to bring home, filled two plastic folders with other paperwork to keep at the shop and filled the draw with about eight big notebooks inside which I have begun writing some of my greatest ideas!

I found two important things that I've been searching for at home for the last four months. One was a PIN number for one of my keycards and the other was my newest SD card for the camera. It was like finding treasure!

It actually took me all day to do that - in between customers and chatting with The Motivator and The Gypsy and gift wrapping customer gifts etc.

It was a bit of a rush home to cook up a quick crispy skin chicken with salad before getting ready for trivia.

Meanwhile, psychotic dog Jack has suddenly started cramping in his legs again! I'm madly rubbing magnesium oil into his feet, legs and ears (because when he stopped having cramps from the last episode, we got slack with that chore) and I'm hoping that the cramps will quickly disappear and I make a promise to the universe to continue massaging him with magnesium oil on a regular basis.

There is no worse sound than a dog screaming in pain and no worse sight than your dog holding his leg at stiff right angles to his body. Ugh.

Adoring Husband had his first experience of Bowen Therapy today for his back - I'll let you know the result. He was told that he may not feel anything different until the next day, but I can already see that there is improvement in his movement.

The odd thing is that he forgot to take the Parkinsons medication before we went out tonight, but his tremor is at this very moment, non existent. He has decided to not take any medication before bed to see how it goes.

I wonder if The Gypsy did some extra tweaks to treat the Parkinsons? She did tell me a few things about how Chinese medicine treats that particular disease, so she may have worked some magic. I wonder.

Anyway, it's approaching midnight - which means that I must have accidentally ignored my alarm when it told me to get ready for bed at 10pm. I'm using my phone alarm to get me into a regular bedtime routine - so far it worked for one night haha. I really must be more vigilant!

Nite all.

Across the Miles

I'm posting very early today because I've received some really sad news and I'm not sure that I'll be in any kind of a mood to do much at all tonight.

My Mother-in-Law from my last relationship has been a lovely friend to me all through the twelve years that I was with 'The Pig Hunter' and for the fifteen years since we separated.

Since my split with her son, we've emailed each other a couple of times each year to share our big news and I always looked forward to our contact.

I have been incredibly lucky with my mothers-in-law from all of my relationships and Dorothy was an amazing, vibrant, strong, intelligent, funny, supportive, kind and generous woman whom I admired very much and who was a very positive influence in the difficult phases of my life.

My fondest memories are of her and I drinking wine, singing and dancing around my kitchen in Griffith while we cooked dinner together. We would sit up for hours at night having deep and meaningful conversations about absolutely everything.

She shared so many of her life stories, of which there were many. There were hilarious and hysterical stories along with the devastating and tragic.

Dorothy was always full of good advice and even though she only visited once every year (she lives in New Zealand), I was always excited when we knew she was coming.

When I separated from her son, she said "Well what took you so long!? I could never figure out what the two of you were doing together!"

After I moved to Sydney and while I was working there, she and Ric were in town very briefly, but she made the effort to contact me and we shared a fantastic lunch together where we knew our time was limited and we babbled on trying to share all our news before we were forced to part company again.

That was the last time I saw her and she was looking and feeling great. She was a beautiful woman inside and out and carried herself with such poise and confidence.

I wish I had a photo of her to put on here, but I'm at work and don't have access to them.

I sent her an email a couple of days ago to tell her about The Happy Abode and what was happening with the family and to let her know how happy my life is here in our community.

Today, I received a reply from her husband to tell me that Dorothy is terminally ill and clinging to life in a hospice near Wanganui.

My heart aches and I wish that I'd had the chance to speak to her before she'd reached this level of illness. I feel on the brink of tears and my energy level has dropped to a low that I've not experienced for quite some time.

I'm just trying to focus on the loving relationship that we shared and I want to celebrate the wonderful woman she was - especially to me.

She will know when she's ready.

I guess that this is my goodbye.

Nite all.

Checking In

Another fantastic meditation class this morning. The Gypsy always presses buttons and provides 'aha' moments every week for me. I love it.

It was a freakishly quiet day in the shop as far as sales went, but we had a lot of people coming in asking questions about The Gypsy - she is fully booked on Wednesday, asking questions about our courses and workshops, asking about our meditation classes and asking us to find and order certain items for them to buy.

The Motivator had a productive day in the shop, while my day didn't feel productive until I arrived home.

This is what I made as soon as I walked in the door this afternoon...

It's made out of strawberries, nuts & seeds, coconut oil, honey/maple syrup, vanilla extract and a touch of salt. I posted the recipe here two or three years ago (maybe longer) but I think this one tastes better than the one I made back then.

We ate a slice of it after our dinner of spaghetti bolognese with zoodles.

It's now almost 11pm and today I set my phone alarm to tell me when to go to bed. I want to start a habit of going to bed at the same time every night, so I've set the alarm to warn when I have 30 minutes left until bed time. I only have five minutes left until I should be in bed, so I'd best sign off!

Looking forward to coffee with the girls in the morning.

Nite all.

Not So Restful

My day of rest was not so restful this week.

I stayed in bed (my favourite home office) all morning doing my course work and at midday it was time to get up and start the big cook off.

I made 8 meals of spaghetti bolognese sauce, 4 meals of parsee chicken, 2 meals of curried sausages and one meal of ginger, honey and lemon Chicken Maryland. By the time I'd finished all of that, and cleaned up the kitchen, I was too buggered to make the strawberry cream pie - maybe tomorrow.

The next chore on my list was to declutter my shoes. Twenty three pairs of shoes now sit at the door awaiting removal to the nearest charity organisation. More than twenty three pairs remain in my bedroom.

Two loads of washing were hung on the line and a third is waiting to be hung out tomorrow.

I cleared out the top drawer of my bedside table.

Confession time.

The top drawer of my bedside table has not been cleaned out in the ten years that we've been in this house. It was full of old dockets and receipts, tiny little ziplock plastic bags with buttons, price tags off clothing, pamphlets, business cards, notebooks, pegs, paid invoices, coins, odd socks, charm boxes, safety pins, pens, scrunchies, paperclips, book marks, bra strap extenders, mini hair brush, mini lint remover, stiletto tips and more.

It took almost an hour to sort through ten years of accumulated 'stuff' inside one tiny little drawer!

Then I cooked dinner, which was the Maryland chicken with char grilled zucchini, grilled tomato and mushroom & onion seared in butter and the leftover ginger, honey and lemon sauce.

This is what happened during dinner ...

... but I was too exhausted to grab my camera and find a good place to photograph it! So this is from my front door and taken with my phone.

Adoring Husband required his back massage before bed - I'm not sure that it's even helping - and he'll make an appointment with the Dr tomorrow. He'll need x-rays and probably a referral to a specialist. Who knows what lies ahead of us there, but there have been too many days of pain with no respite, so steps need to be taken.

Now I need to go clean the kitchen before heading off to bed.

It's an early start tomorrow morning for our meditation class and we need to clear the room because it's still set up from last week's smart phone and tablet class.

I will definitely require a day off this week!

Nite all.

Forgetful Jones

Yep!

Completely forgot to do a post on Friday night!

You would think something so habitual would be difficult to forget wouldn't you?

Friday and Saturday were both fabulous in the shop, though February is expected to be a touch quiet in comparison to the rest of the year, so we should be knuckling down and getting some important stuff done in preparation for our courses and workshops in March.

Friday night was especially great at the club, because Rebel Mardi and The Lifesaver came to town and though our time together was short, there was a sparkle and a twinkle in the air that's been missing for quite some time.

Sadly, Lady Lynn, Beauty and Leggy Blonde were out of town and missed all the fun - and we missed them too.

Rebel Mardi came to visit me in the shop this morning and we had a quality laden thirty minutes together before she had to leave to start her very full day with friends and family.

I miss her very much and it always hits me like a truck whenever I see her smiling eyes in front of me.

The weather has been WET WET WET since the early hours of this morning and it's expected to continue for the remainder of the weekend. Even though we need the rain desperately, I also desperately need to get some washing done!

The best part though, is the drop in temperature. It's currently a blissfully delicious 19C and it only got as high as 22C during the day. People were actually wearing long sleeves!

My plan for Sunday is course work in the morning, a big cook up in the afternoon and in between all of that, getting some washing done.

Included on the cook up menu is 'Strawberry Cream Pie' - Yum.

So you see? You missed nothing by me forgetting to post on Friday night. There is not a lot happening in this neck of the woods and they do say "no news is good news".

Nite all.

Gusty Thursday

Gale force conditions in town today.

Our flags almost flew away and our sign went for a tumble and almost smashed our front window.

The winds possibly kept people away because we had a very light day of customers, which, on the plus side, gave us a chance to catch up with other non-customer related chores.

We had lots of time for D&M chats and laughter and singing and a bit of dancing. We do enjoy a good dance through the shop - especially to our favourite songs "Happy" and "Shake It Off"

We made sure to leave the shop as soon after 3pm as we could because we have lots of plans for self care and study time for our course, which we are loving! It kind of strips you bare emotionally, but the other end of that is full of enthusiasm and motivation and we encourage each other along the way.

I came home and unpacked the groceries, put the ingredients for the chicken broth in the slow cooker and got that started, then sat down for 30 minutes before cooking dinner which was duck breast with stuffed zucchini.

After we cleaned the kitchen, I bottled the kombucha that has been brewing on the kitchen bench for ten days and then started to brew the next batch, which entailed boiling 12 cups of filtered water with a cup of sugar and a knob of ginger, then taking it off the boil and adding the Rooibos teabags to brew until the water cools.

I got three 300ml bottles of kombucha out of this first batch which is a bit sweet, so I've added more water and a bit less sugar to the next one.

My plan for Sunday is to do a cook up so that there are meals to heat up during the week and I won't have to come home and spend too much time in the kitchen. I'd like to cook up some spaghetti bolognese sauce, curried sausages, butter chicken and beef casserole. The spag bol will be served with zoodles and the butter chicken with cauliflower rice.

I'm also looking forward to having some bone broth every morning.

Now I have some study to catch up on, so I'm outta here.

Nite all.

Lucky Day

I had a fabulous morning in bed (my favourite place to work) and spent three hours working on the course material and playing Words With Friends (which is very much like Scrabble).

Eventually, I made myself presentable for the lady's luncheon and Adoring Husband drove me to the Bowls Club at 11am.

I wasn't the first to arrive but the first thing I did was buy myself an alcoholic beverage and check the keno ticket that I'd bought on Friday night. It was a good start to the day with an $80 win!

The pokies captured my attention (as they do) until it was time to enter the dining room. Everybody had already been seated and there was nowhere for me to sit! So I made a noise and called my friends (Tweedle Dee in particular) nasty names, stomped around like a spoiled child wondering which stranger (of which there were many!) I would have to sit with and make small talk - when Tweedle Dee got people at her table to move along and she got me a chair to slot in next to her.

I gave her a big hug and thanked her. I like to spend my lady's luncheons with my friends and not have to be friendly to people I don't know - yes it's one of my many foibles!

The next challenge was finding something GF to eat for lunch. I had one option - it was chicken and salad - which sounds nice and I should have taken a photo, because it was shredded chicken, which tasted very much like processed chicken, certainly NOT roast chicken. The salad was green leaves, 3 slices of cucumber, 3 cherry tomatoes and some red onion. A boiled egg cut in half. No dressing. I guess you can't expect too much for $8, but the crumbed calamari looked damn good!

So, wallowing in my disappointment, I bought myself another drink and headed back to the pokies where I pocketed some more winnings. I have a keno ticket to check when I return to the club on Friday night.

We had a record number of ladies at the luncheon - around 32 were expected - they were very loud and the drunker they got, the louder they got!

When I was ready to go, I called Adoring Husband to pick me up and the plan was for him to take me to The Blonde Bombshell's house for drinks, but his back was giving him hell, so I though I should probably head home and give him some TLC.

After a couple of hours worth of TLC, I jumped on my trike and pedalled to the beach to capture the so-called 'super moon' rising. It was no different to any other full moon really ...

I waited for the eclipse and captured some of it before the heavy cloud cover came to spoil the party.

This is the photo that I took yesterday of the storm across the river ...

Now it's midnight, so I'd best get some sleep.

Nite all.

And So It Begins

There was an extra person at morning tea today which gave us a few extra laughs. The JMac is always a bit of fun with her silly sense of humour and today was her first morning tea with us.

Our workshop for smart phones was held today with just one person in attendance. The Motivator was teacher extraordinaire while I manned the shop and the client left after 90 mins feeling happy with new knowledge about using her smart phone.

We had a few happy customers, old and new, come through the doors, and we recommenced our monthly FB 'photo with purchase' draw today - which means one lucky customer will win a $25 voucher on the 24th of each month.

An elderly lady visited with her artwork hoping that we might sell it in the shop. That matter is still under consideration.

We closed the shop right on 3pm, had a bit of a business meeting, discussed where we are up to with the course that we both signed up for and I walked out the door before The Motivator.

There was some heavy rain during the afternoon and just as I left the shop on my trike, there was a short sharp shower, so I sheltered under a shop awning across the road before riding along the river and getting a few good shots of the rain showers as they reached the other side of the river. Those pics are still in camera, but I'll edit them tomorrow at work and hopefully remember to post them here tomorrow night.

I'm excited that Grey's Anatomy starts again on free to air TV tonight, but I don't think I can stay awake to watch it all, so I'll have to record it.

Adoring Husband's back is still sore, however, he was well enough to not wake me to do his work this morning. Tonight, my back is giving me a bit of grief, so we are both in the wars at the moment.

Lady's luncheon tomorrow and I have the day off work to attend. I'm not even sure if there will be anything GF for me to eat because I forgot to ask on Friday night, but I'm pretty sure they'll at least be able to make me a salad.

Anyway, enough of this frivolity. I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Back Breaker

We had a nice group for meditation this morning and The Gypsy did a good job of explaining her meditation theories and practices and providing us with tips on how to bring some peace to our own lives.

I loved having Lady Lynn sitting beside me through three guided meditations.

I started the day feeling energised and felt even more energised at the end of the one hour session.

It was a quiet day in the shop with just a few customers coming through the door between heavy showers, but that gave The Motivator and I a chance to catch up with our news and go through some of the course material.

Unfortunately we had a blackout for at least an hour in the afternoon, which made the shop really muggy and hot, but The Motivator and I set up a new display table and moved the other one to make enough room. Now it feels like we need some more stock to fill the gaps!

I left the shop before 3.30pm and rode along the river path on the way home. The town has become quiet again and now it is the quiet season.  

Adoring Husband injured his back this morning as he put the trailer on the car to go mow lawns.

He is in a lot of pain and it's highly likely that I'll be working for him tomorrow morning, and maybe the next few mornings.

He really needs to take better care of himself.

I guess it's time to get into bed. If I have to work at 5.30am I should get some sleep.

Nite all.

Opening up to Goodness

Here I sit, on my day off, in bed working on Denise DT's Manifesting Course and clearing bad money memories that I didn't even realise that I had. Talk about cleansing and invigorating! Just the introduction week is mind blowing - week one doesn't even commence until next week.

As I sit here tapping away at the keyboard, I can hear the TV in the next room where Adoring Husband is watching 'Outlander'.

Over the top of the TV I can hear his grunting and groaning and cursing and moaning.

I sat out there briefly, about thirty minutes ago, and had to leave the room after five minutes.

Here's the thing ...

I believe that everything that you see, hear and feel has an impact on your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual being. Every tiny negative experience in your life affects the energy in and around you.

Whether it be 'real' negative experiences in your own life or dramatic visual experiences on TV (or in a book or a story or on the radio). They all have a negative affect on the mind and body, which remains with you always - sometimes on a deep subconscious level - which you don't even realise.

I also believe that if you don't deal with all that stuff that is being pushed to the recesses, it slowly but surely, over a long period of time, manifests into physical ailments as your body tries to deal with the negativity and the ugliness.

Sometimes it's released in other ways, like the subconscious build up of frustration or anger that you take out on a loved one when something small triggers the negative emotions. Sometimes it takes the form of a headache or the inability to sleep or food cravings or a skin rash. Every tiny bit of negativity weakens your immune system.

It takes a strong conscious effort to surround yourself with love and positivity and to treat yourself with tenderness and care.

With this in mind, I have made changes to my life to avoid negativity where I have the power to do so eg I don't watch any news other than the local news (which mostly tells me about the man who has been donating blood for 50 yrs or the local sports stars who have achieved something nationally or internationally).

I don't watch national or international news - for example - how scared has the entire planet been for the past year, as the media brain washes us with threats of an impending nuclear war because of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un?

What can we do about it? Does knowing of this threat change anything? Do you do anything differently with your day knowing that somebody in another country could press the red button any minute? No - you sit in your lounge chair feeling the fear rising in you as you imagine a major war and how it will affect your loved ones and your future. Needlessly.

I avoid talk back radio with people like John Laws, Ray Hadley or Alan Jones who all incite anger and division within the community and force their opinions upon their listeners, telling anyone who's opinion differs, that they are idiots.

I don't watch movies or TV shows that are filled with graphic violence or horror, or movies that retell a true historic story about wars or murders or natural disasters (I know that it happened - knowing the juicy details will not change anything except make me feel sad/angry/frustrated/depressed) I don't listen to angry aggressive music that attempts to embed itself inside my brain.

I avoid negative people. I avoid angry people. I avoid bigots. I avoid drunks (when they're drunk). I avoid disempowering males. I avoid people who thrive on being 'victims' or thrive on the dramas in life.

When I realised that I had the power to make the choice to avoid all of that and surround myself with positive happy people who want the best for themselves and for me, that's when my life changed for the better. I felt freer and lighter and less anxious or stressed.

Life brings with it, it's own share of challenges and obstacles and burdens for which we have to find a way to deal. We can surround ourselves with love and move forward, dealing with those challenges in the most positive way possible OR we can hold on to the drama that we choose to accept from artificial sources (movies/books/media) and weave it into our real lives so that every challenge seems impossible to overcome and the physical and emotional pain seems unbearable.

If I'm lucky, I reckon that I still have a third of my life left to live. Boy, I've had my fair share of challenges during the other two thirds of it and I can honestly say that I haven't dealt with most of it as well as I could have. Having cleansed as many of the toxins and the negatives out of my life as I can, I want to move forward into my future feeling happy, loved and positive about the possibilities and that means for me ... "Outlander" and it's drama, graphic torturous violence and demeaning disempowering of already powerless people, is off the table!

It's 5.20pm so I'd best get out of bed and cook some dinner!

Nite all.



 





  

Steady Satdee

The Motivator is away for the weekend, so I was alone at the shop today.

My plan was to work on the photography course and fill out a sheet from the Lucky Bee workbooks that I'm studying, but I was so busy that I only sat down for ten minutes all day!

I met some lovely people and some generous husbands, quite a few gift givers and a local who has been here for a long time but I've never laid eyes on her before. Another young woman who will return next week with some friends and without her baby. A couple of visiting daughters of acquaintances and some Australia Day weekend visitors as well.

I took a name for The Motivator's designer course in March.

There was a constant flow of people through the door and I sat down for the first time just before midday.

Adoring Husband was a great help, as usual, and assisted with opening and closing the shop.

We shut the doors at 2pm and I went for a ride along the river with my camera (to no avail) but the town is pretty busy with big groups of out of towners all having loud, musical and physical fun together. The sound of laughter was ringing in my ears during the ride, which was lovely.

AH had cooked up some lunch, so I was able to come home and sit down to watch a few episodes of 'Outlander' with him until I just couldn't stand the torturous graphic horror any longer. It left me grateful that I wasn't born into that era - although AH seems to think that I would have been the healer in the dungeon.

I left the room a couple of times and in the end, AH turned it off and we switched to watching something more demure - "Grease" - much easier on the heart and soul and a nice one for singing along. Although having listened to me for half of the movie, AH might disagree with the singing part!

I think I may have an early night tonight. It was 1am when I got to sleep this morning and 4.30am when I woke - that's not enough sleep to manage a full day effectively. I think it might have been that late cup of tea that I drank!

So I'm off to catch the last thirty minutes of Grease and then I'm outta here!

Nite all.

Best Australia Day EVER

I don't even remember what time I woke up today, but I didn't leave my bed until after 3pm!

I spent the entire day in bed with Denise Duffield-Thomas.

She is a highly successful entrepreneur and I am following her and doing some of her online workshops and courses.  You might remember me talking about her book "Get Rich Lucky Bitch" a few months back.

Denise is pretty special and I have a lot admiration for her and what she has achieved and continues to achieve.

A little while after 3pm I asked Adoring Husband to drive me to the shop so that I could pick up my trike. While I was there, I remembered a few other things that needed to come home, so I kept going back into the shop to bring them out for AH to put in the car.

After my fourth trip inside the shop, AH drove off and I rode home. I took the river path and wished I'd remembered to bring my camera ... for better quality photos than this ...

Not ten minutes after I arrived home, I received a phone call from AJ who works at the real estate office at the front our building. I didn't answer the call because I was about to get in the shower, but she left a message to tell me that she had walked past our shop and the front door was ajar.

OMG I had forgotten to lock the door!

So I asked AH to drive to the shop and lock the door for me.

Ten minutes later I received a phone call from The Motivator. She too had received a call from AJ and she had turned up at the shop not long after AH had been there to lock the doors.

What a debacle!

Thank goodness we live in such a small supportive community. I am very grateful for that.

It was another loser night at the bowls club - the usual suspects winning the big prizes. A friend won a LOT on the poker machines and the badge draw of $1200 went off tonight. Our group left at the usual time, but there was karaoke on tonight.

This is what was waiting for me when I returned home ...

What a champion Adoring Husband is!

I am sitting up in bed as I write this and it's now 11pm so it's time to sleep. I have work tomorrow.

Nite all.

On The Mend

What a dreadful night I experienced on Wednesday night.

Ugh!

I had to take pain killers twice during the night and I can't even remember the last time I took a pain killer. It must be three years or more.

It was about 7.30pm when I climbed into bed and I slept briefly until the pain woke me up. I took a painkiller and slept until about 1am at which time I took another and then slept until 6.30am.

I woke up feeling quite a lot better, though not completely well. At least I was well enough to go to work. There were a couple of times during the day that I wished that I was still in bed, but mostly I managed ok.

We had a lot of people come in for a look at the shop today including a few older men. It has certainly been a week for the men. None of them spent any money, but I'm guessing we've had about ten men enter the shop on their own this week, just for a look.

Our new chairs arrived today. Adoring Husband was kind enough to put them together for us.

The Motivator and I left work soon after 3pm and drove into The Bay where we did some organic grocery shopping and then sat overlooking the water at Enzos for an hour while we sipped on berry smoothies and shared a small bowl of chicken wings.

This was our view...

I returned home to an empty house because AH was on SES duty.

Now it's time for me to hit the hay. It's already after 10.30pm.

Nite all.

The Bus Got Me

Two days of eating prawns and my body decided that it was not at all happy!

I think it might be time to remove all shellfish from my diet. I've pushed the limits as far as I could and now my poor old body is giving me an ultimatum.

It feels like all the nerve endings in my body are exposed and my internal organs are really inflamed.

Feeling so disgusting and struggling to cope with the pain and discomfort, I booked in for a session of Zen Shiatsu with The Gypsy.

She told me, after my first experience with her, that I would feel like I'd been hit by a bus and that my emotions might feel a bit overwhelming while my body adjusted and responded to her treatmen.

I did not experience any ill effects and I felt totally amazing after that initial treatment.

Today, she found lots of pressure points to focus on and applied just enough pressure that I could feel pain, but it was bearable and I could feel it working.

It seems that my spleen and gall bladder are my main problem areas.

At the end of the treatment, she gave me advice on certain breathing techniques, drinking lots of room temperature filtered water and spending the afternoon resting to allow my body to heal and cleanse itself. She showed me how to massage my own problem areas and gave me some gentle stretching exercises to practice.

She offered the same warning as she did previously.

THIS TIME ... the bus got me!

I am aching all over!

After a warm shower, it will be an early night for me and I am going to sleep the discomfort away.

Sheesh. 7.30pm! Who'da thunk?

Nite all.

Enough

It has just ticked on to 9.30pm as I begin to write this post and I am feeling incredibly tired.

I had a shocking start to the day when I woke up and looked at the clock to see that it was 7.02am and the very important webinar that I had signed up for was due to start at 7am!!

I rushed to the loo, then ran to the lounge room to grab my MacBook and sign into the webinar. By the time I logged in and found the link to take me to the where I needed to be, it was 7.08am. I don't think I missed much, but I was feeling decidedly stressed by the time I got there.

The webinar was supposed to go for one hour but at 8.20am, I realised that I had better begin preparing myself for work, or I wasn't going to make it!

Thank goodness for portable devices. I was able to carry my laptop with me through the house while I figured out what I was going to wear and while I jumped in for a really quick shower and while I applied my make up and while I packed my bags into the basket of my trike.

Finally, I had to log out, pack my laptop away and head off to work (even though the webinar was not finished - but the most important stuff was finished).

It was right on 9am when I pedalled up the driveway at work, feeling very hot and sweaty and stressed!

A couple of the girls arrived for coffee morning before I'd even turned on the lights and thankfully, they helped set out the signs and chairs as we followed the morning routine to open up.

At the same time the air conditioning guy poked his head through the front door to tell us he was here to clean the filters in the air con. We'd received no notice of his visit, so it was an added stress to the morning.

Thankfully, from there, the day progressed on a much more positive note.

We set up our training room for the smart phone and tablet classes (knowing that it was unlikely anyone would turn up due to late advertising and promotion).

A delivery arrived from a new wholesaler so our afternoon was filled with unpacking, checking off, pricing and displaying the new stock - which is always fun.

There was also a steady stream of new customers - mostly locals who had just discovered that we are here - and everyone was in a very happy frame of mind and obviously looking to spend the cash in their purses and wallets.

The day went by so quickly and when I looked at the clock thinking that it was 3.30pm, it was actually almost 4.30pm!

So I need to go to work early tomorrow morning to vacuum all the little crumbly bits of styrofoam that came out of the packaging and to tidy off my desk which just seems to be getting 'out of control messy'.

I'll take some photos of the new stock to post onto the Facebook page too.

Adoring Husband was kind enough to repair our front door A-frame sign which had snapped from being buffeted around in the strong winds every afternoon.

And now, it's 10pm and I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Mondayitis

I was awake bright and early this morning.

I was in the middle of a dream where our Happy Abode was in a giant warehouse and had grown to the size of a huge department store, which even included a pet section AND a grassy knoll in the corner of the warehouse where pet owners and their pets congregated to socialise ... although the pets just sat obediently in a line staring at their owners.

In the dream, I was walking through the building showing Jennifer Aniston what her job was going to entail as we hired her as one of our workers (no idea where that came from!). Meanwhile, The Motivator was berating some sales reps who had delivered poor quality products to our store!

All very strange.

It was 5.20am when I opened my eyes, so I jumped out of bed and into the shower to wash my hair before Adoring Husband arrived home from work.

By the time he came home, I had done enough that I could climb back into bed with my coffee and read until I was ready for the next stage of my morning.

Meditation morning at work meant that I had to leave here by 7am to get to work early enough to help The Motivator set up shop ready for our clients to arrive. Unfortunately, even though I had such an early start, I still didn't leave until 7.15am and The Motivator had already prepared everything!

It was another excellent meditation class with The Gypsy and there were two new ladies in our group this morning. I learn something new about myself every Monday morning and I love the 'after effects' of our group sessions.

We had a reasonably quiet, but steady day with customers and The Motivator had to leave just after lunch for an appointment so I was alone in the shop and The Gypsy left a bit earlier than usual because there was no appointment for the last spot of the day.

I feel like I didn't stop all day, but I can't think of a single thing that I did! Oh I did spend quite a bit of time with customers who wanted to buy a gift for somebody special and they couldn't quite decide. In the end, they were happy with their purchases.

It was after 3pm when the last customer left and that was when Adoring Husband walked in the door with a coffee in hand.  He helped close up the shop and took something to the Post Office for me and I was able to take my time riding home by visiting the beach and riding along the river path.

It's very quiet in town now, with all the tourists just about gone so it's peaceful around the water. Just a couple of weeks ago, the river bank was lined with people holding fishing rods, with groups of families picnicking or playing or swimming or boating or kayaking or paddle boarding or walking or any number of other activities. A couple of weeks ago, riding along the river path was slow going as I navigated my way through and around the hoards.

Today, the only person I passed on the path was a man on a mobility cart coming in the opposite direction.

As a resident, I love it when the holiday season is over. As a business owner, I am torn because the holiday makers are the icing on our cake.

Before I prepared dinner this afternoon, AH and I watched the second episode of the first season of 'Outlander' and we are really getting into it now.

Anyway, it's rapidly approaching 10pm and my early morning rises mean that I am getting tired earlier at night. I think I'm forming a new routine! It won't be long and I'll be awake early enough to catch the sunrise with my camera!

Enough of this frivolity.

Nite all.

Day of Rest?

That's funny.

Usually I take full advantage of Sunday as my day of rest, but today was different.

I was feeling somewhat motivated to get some 'stuff' done.

It was a slow start to the day and I stayed in bed reading until 9.30 am, but this is how my day went once I got out of bed:

• stripped our bed
• washed six loads of washing
• unpegged five loads of washing, folded it and put it away
• moved some of Adoring Husband's shirts from the back room to his wardrobe
• found and emptied a washing basket full of handbags so that I could use it to empty the linen cupboard
• emptied the linen cupboard
• filled half a sulo bin full of culled hand towels, bedding, table cloths, cushion covers, table runners, place mats etc etc
• rearranged everything else back into the linen cupboard
• remade the bed
• made lunch, including a berry smoothie (yum)
• made a kombucha
• sorted through and culled some of my old jewellery
• fed my sour dough starter
• cleared a few things out of the fridge
• ironed a few items of clothing
• made gravy for the roast dinner that Adoring Husband cooked in the barbecue on the rotisserie
• watched the first episode of the first series of 'Outlander' (thinking of you Rebel Mardi)
• now sitting in front of the television to watch Nick Kyrgios play his tennis match
• looking at my house, you wouldn't even know that I had been busy all day 

I hope that Kyrgios wins quickly tonight so that I can have an early night. It's going to be a big week!

Have a fabulous week!

Nite all.