The New Abode

I'm done!

It was an interesting day.

So many people, new faces, came to the shop today, all singing praises about how beautiful it was, how reasonable the prices were, how it was like the secret shop tucked away, how did this town get so lucky to have such a wonderful shop?

Unfortunately, praises don't equate to sales.

It was The Motivator's day off and I spent the time in between customers/visitors cleaning the glass and polishing the chrome on the new display cabinets. They were all in pieces in the training room which made it easier to clean.

I didn't realise how grotty they were until I began to wipe and found some interesting spots, sticky tape, inky marks, thick dust in the tracks where the glass sliding doors fit, glue spots, sticky splashes, grease smudges and more.

With interruptions, it took three hours to clean them, but the sliding doors still need some work.

Adoring Husband came to the shop at midday and began helping me empty some of the old display cabinets and shelves so that they could be moved and rearranged to make way for the new ones.

We spent so much time agonising over where to place everything to maximise the space and have it still look welcoming. The original plan that was imagined in my head, did not work at all, so the process was painful! I almost tossed one of the cabinets altogether!

Eventually, we found a layout that was acceptable, however, it still needs to be approved by The Motivator. We removed the table that was at the front door to make way for a cabinet and then had to find space for all the stock that was on that table.

I rearranged a LOT of stock, but did not fill the cabinets. Some of the new stock that's being delivered in the coming weeks will find a home there.

We had to clear the training room and vacuum all the mess that was left by the roof repairer last week, in readiness for the meditation class on Monday morning.

Adoring Husband left the building at about 5.15pm and I arrived home on my trike at 6pm.

The job is still not complete, but I'll return tomorrow afternoon and tie up the loose ends.

Right now, we both feel like we've been hit by a truck!

Those cabinets were awkward and heavy and fragile, so it was quite difficult manoeuvring them through the space and we had to move other furniture to make room to squeeze through.

I'm looking forward to crawling into bed tonight and sleeping late tomorrow.

There will be a trip into The Bay tomorrow to find something that will dress up the cabinets and hide some flaws.

Monday is my day off, so I'll spend the entire day in bed! Can't wait!

Meanwhile, have a fabulous Sunday!

Nite all.

What do you practice everyday?

I just had a local gentleman (of dubious character) in the shop complaining very loudly and very aggressively about the new real estate agent.

The old RE had a direct debit system in place so that his rent could go directly from his bank account to their bank account and he never had to worry about it.

The new RE doesn't have that system in place and it means that he has to organise with his own bank to send his rent payment to their account, which in turn, means a bank fee that he has to pay.

I suggested that since he only lives around the corner, he could drop into the RE office once each fortnight and pay the rent over the counter. After all, he comes to the shops to buy bread and milk - it would be easy to do that and he wouldn't have to pay fees.

Without even pausing, he cut my idea down in flames stating "WHY should I have to do that? It's not my problem that the new RE hasn't got their act together! They should be accommodating their customers! If they don't fix the problem, I'm just not going to pay rent!"

My next suggestion was that he may need to begin looking for new accommodation for when they evict him.

He didn't like that idea either haha.

I know this gentleman (still dubious) quite well from his visits to the Seat of Knowledge and his life is filled with dramas. He plays the victim beautifully and his middle name should be 'negative' probably in capital letters. I generally like to avoid contact with him because he loves to spread his anger far and wide.

Right after he left the shop, I received this in messenger from a friend ...



Amazingly appropriate, and I almost ran out of the shop to chase him and have him watch the video!

Today (2nd March) marks the 39th anniversary of my oldest child's passing. He would have turned 40 this year in October.

I'm feeling a bit sad and melancholy, just momentarily as I remember.

At the same time, I'm trying to coordinate the purchase and pick up of some shop display cabinets in Maryborough this afternoon. It seems the Universe is conspiring against me, but I think that between Adoring Husband and myself, we might be able to work it out.

I had a very quiet morning in the shop but it's been much busier this afternoon - which is unusual because it's usually the other way around.

I'm feeling a bit peckish - might be time to order some lunch!

This is a very early post because I wanted to talk about the angry man and the video coinciding.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend.

Afternoon all and ...

Nite all.

Back to Work

Now that the carpet is dry, I started the day putting the shop back together.

It took a bit longer than I expected, but we got there in the end.

We took delivery of a small order that I'd made a few days before I went away, so those items needed to be checked off, priced and displayed.

I unpacked the few things that we brought back with us from Sydney, priced them all, set aside the special order for Tweedle Dee and placed the remainder on display (except a one-off chain that I fell in love with and had to buy for myself!).

We listed and tallied up all the orders that we made in Sydney and then audibly gasped at the total!

We also rubbed our hands with glee at the thought of all those lovely items arriving through our shop doors at staggered times in the coming weeks. It will be an entire month feeling like Christmas.

There were also a few customers to tend to during the day.

Between us, we were pretty much done in at the end of the day.

For me, looking after the shop on my own, dealing with the stressful weather event/damage and then tearing through three intense days at the fairs in Sydney, I felt a little low on energy.

For The Motivator, who endured long hours of travel, some incredibly intense emotional cleansing over 8 days, more long hours on the plane home, not being able to access our room for quite a few uncomfortable hours in Sydney and then tearing through three intense days at the fairs in Sydney, she too was feeling low on energy.

But we made it through the day, have each selected a day either side of Sunday to take off work and try to regain some of that energy that we're lacking.

I'll be in bed immediately after Gogglebox tonight. I love Gogglebox!

Happy Friday everyone ...

Nite all.

  

Jiggedy Jig

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.

We were totally organised this morning and left the motel at exactly 8am as we planned.

Our taxi fares from the airport to the motel when we arrived were $42.50 for The Motivator and $57.00 for me. These totals included tolls.

We decided to use Uber to take us to the airport this morning. I ordered the Uber at 7.55am and our driver was putting our suitcases in the boot at 7.58am. Obviously, it was peak hour traffic and our driver asked us which way we wanted to go. We told him to go whichever way he thought was best.

If you're not aware, no money changes hands with Uber. When you sign up to use the service, you provide your card details and they take the money automatically when the trip is over. Uber send a confirmation email after every trip with the total of the trip and give you the opportunity to rate their service.

This Uber trip took twelve minutes during peak hour (my taxi trip from the airport via taxi on Sunday took 18 minutes and I'm certain that he went through every toll known to mankind) and the total cost today was $25.05!

Our driver's name was Yao and he was lovely. Very polite and helpful and efficient.

Every Uber experience that I've had (5 times now), has been positive and very satisfying. If I have a choice, I won't use the regular taxi services in future. Uber is always at the door within 5 minutes, always take the shortest most direct route and always costs about half the price of a taxi.

Anyway, there was hardly anyone (compared to my last visit to the Sydney airport) waiting in the queue to check in so we were fairly quickly checked in and also passed quickly through security.

We found a nice little cafe called 'Chur' for breakfast where we ordered avocado smash on GF bread with tomato salsa. I had a latte and The Motivator had peppermint tea. It was all nice except for the bread which tasted more like a cake than bread. I had two mouthfuls and decided to just eat the smash and salsa.

Before we went to our gate, I ordered a 'heartbeet' juice from the juice bar - pineapple, avocado, beetroot, apple and banana. It was divine!

It was a great flight home. Good weather and we had three seats between us to spread out and enjoy the flight. The landing was a bit 'iffy' because the pilot aborted on the first attempt and we circled around to try again and even the second attempt was quite a heavy landing.

Adoring Husband was waiting at the gate and once we collected our luggage, we drove straight home and dropped off The Motivator before doing some grocery shopping and grabbing a coffee and then heading home.

It was lunchtime so I went directly to the kitchen to cook up some chicken to have with a salad for lunch. I haven't removed my butt from the couch since.

It has been a lovely lazy afternoon catching up on my recorded programs like MKR and Married at First Sight. Adoring Husband cooked up some chicken wings for a snack-like dinner and here I am blogging early in the evening so that bedtime can also be early.

No photos today.

Have a happy Thursday and perhaps I'll see you at The Happy Abode!

Nite all.

The Next Fair

Honestly the last two days have been so long and so full and so busy, I can't even remember the order that we did things, but this is how I think it happened ...

We returned to the Reed Gift Fair this morning to find the Serenade stand. It was the most difficult stand to order from ... so many beautiful bags and wallets to choose from, we struggled to limit ourselves and ended up spending our entire budget in one hit!

Should I say that we have actually tripled our budget over the two days! OMG

After that stand, we went in search of the stand with those lovely silver chains that have been so popular. I searched for it yesterday to no avail and I couldn't remember the name of the company, so I was looking for the same layout as last year. It was no wonder I never found it, the guy who owns the business decided to do something completely different this year!

I must have walked past it three times yesterday and not recognised it!

Anyway, I finally found it and grabbed a business card and grabbed every chain that they had available, spending yet another fortune.

Next was an amazing company selling beautiful, yet reasonably priced watches for both men and women. Silver, Gold and Rose Gold with really lovely bands and styles. We are now concerned about display space and are wondering how we are going deal with that dilemma.

From there, we decided that it was time to head out to the other gift fair. It was already 11.30am and we walked out to the shuttle bus area to find a bus was leaving in 5 minutes - excellent timing.

It took 30 minutes to shuttle from one fair to the other, and unfortunately, we sat in the seats over the front wheels and within 15 mins I felt like I was going to throw up, so we moved back a few rows, which felt so much better.

When we arrived, we immediately went in search of The Motivator's friends, who had a stand there. We found them quickly and spent about 30 mins chatting and looking at their beautiful wares, before wandering off to check out the other stands.

We stood in the middle of the enormous building and said "Let the Universe take us to where we need to be" and began walking.

The Universe took us to an amazing stand called 'Intrinsic' and a lot of you might recognise the products ...

The gentleman working the stand told us about the products and showed us some of the lines and The Motivator asked "Did your mother design all of this?"

He replied "No! My wife." and pointed to a young lady standing across the way.

She immediately walked over and said hello. I tried to say how much I admired her work and out of nowhere, I burst into tears!! I was a blubbering wreck and I have absolutely no idea why or where that came from! So embarrassing.

This woman's name was Adele Basheer and she wrapped her arms around me and gave the longest, warmest most comforting hug that I've had for a long time. She was so beautiful and kind and then spent the next hour with us talking about her dream for her business and why she does what she does. All through the conversation, I struggled to hold it together - I just felt so much love emanating from her and felt that she genuinely wanted in some small way to change the world and make it just a little bit better.

In the end, we ordered a starter pack and I can't wait for her products to arrive and for us to display them prominently in our shop. She really was a beautiful soul and I love her work.

We went searching for some food after that and found the last GF offering as the food carts packed up - today was the last day for this particular fair.

We said our farewells to The Motivator's friends and caught the bus back to the Reed Gift Fair, where we walked around for yet another 90 minutes and found even more beautiful products - which we did NOT purchase, but took the details so that we can purchase in the future.

One funny thing happened - we were looking at the Oasis line of drink bottles and flasks, when a young man from the stand began chatting with us and giving us price lists and catalogues, when he asked where we were from and we told him the name of our town. He said "Oh I know that town! My Grandfather lives there!"

So I asked him who his Grandfather is and discovered that he lives right around the corner from me! We've had drag races between him in his mobility cart and me on my trike! What a small world it is. This young gentleman will come visit our shop the next time he comes to town.

We finally dragged our tired aching bodies back to the motel room, where The Motivator had a power nap (ten minutes) before freshening up and heading out to meet a couple of girlfriends for a social catch up. I was supposed to join them, but honestly, my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. I ached from the inside to the outside and couldn't bear the thought of moving another inch, let alone attempting to be friendly and social.

I think that the fact that I only had 3 hours sleep last night didn't help. I don't know why I couldn't sleep but I just lay there for three hours. My body was aching and I was cramping up and I felt really uncomfortable. Finally I fell asleep some time after 3 am and my alarm went off at 6am.

So I'm feeling rather battered and I wonder if my body is trying to fight off some kind of virus because I certainly don't feel myself.

On that note, I'm going to sign off and attempt to get some healing sleep.

We fly home tomorrow after our whirlwind shopping trip, and even though we totally blew our budget, we feel incredibly happy with our purchases and with the contacts that we've made. There are certainly fun times ahead!

Nite all.

Ten Thousand

That's how many dollars we could EASILY spend at the gift fair.

That's how many steps we walked today at the gift fair.

That's how many stands there are at the gift fair (perhaps I exaggerate slightly).

That's how many people made their way through the gift fair.

We are exhausted.

So far, we bought Cenzoni bags and purses, LOTS of Ivys bags and scarves, some beautiful SHE jewellery, lovely Cinnamon jewellery and we took the details from some amazing stands that we will order from after we return home.

It took us seven hours to do less than one floor of the gift fair. There is still another floor that we just touched on in the last twenty minutes of the day and which we probably won't get back to tomorrow because we have another gift fair to attend in another location.

We shared a mango this morning as we walked to the gift fair. At 1.30pm I had to buy a coffee because I had a raging headache from lack of caffeine in the morning. We only drank one bottle of water all day and only peed once! So we were absolutely running on empty by the end of the day, as you can imagine.

We sat down for dinner at 6.30pm and each had a crispy skinned salmon with fresh seasonal veg and a lemon butter sauce followed by creme brûlée with raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. We had two cocktails each and the final bill was hilarious!

Back in December, when we first decided to attend the gift fair, we discussed the costs involved and how much of the trip that the business, so early in the piece, could pay for. We decided that we would really be more budget conscious with our meals this time round. That idea went straight out the window!

However, we figured that since we didn't eat breakfast or lunch, the money we didn't spend on those meals could be added to our imaginary budget for dinners! The food has been divine and we have been indulgent and we have also enjoyed every bit of it!

Here is a photo of the clouds as we came in to land in Sydney ...

I need to sleep now. I can't believe it's already 11pm!

Nite all.

The Winner is ... Sydney

The day has gone pretty smoothly.

I arrived at the airport on time.

The plane arrived in The Bay early. The plane left The Bay early. The plane landed in Sydney early ... through heavy cloud, scudding showers and winds at 40kph. We had an excellent pilot and I wasn't scared at any stage ... some passengers applauded when we landed ... but I've had a lot worse landings than todays in my time!

I caught a taxi to our motel where I found The Motivator waiting patiently after she had rested up from her flight from Bali.

I unpacked my suitcase and caught up on some of her news and shared some of my news.

All the while that we were talking, we were attempting to get ready to go out in public, but by the time we walked out the door, it was too late to catch any of the gift fair, so we walked through the mall and did some clothes shopping.

We found a lovely Chinese restaurant and shared Peking duck, Twice cooked pork with hot spicy sauce and a huge bowl of garlic broccoli, which was to die for! The Motivator had a wine and I had a Margarita.

We talked and we talked and we talked and we talked some more. Then we talked and we talked and we talked. So much talking! So much to catch up on! So many ideas spewing out of our heads, hearts and minds.

Now we are in bed talking talking talking some more and I need to sign off because The Motivator keeps talking to me and I can't concentrate on what I'm doing.

I just read that last paragraph to her and she is laughing out loud.

I give up now lol.

Nite all.

Sleepy Saturday

It's easy to blame other businesses in town for our very quiet Saturdays.

When people know that the bakery is closed and they want fresh bread, they will go somewhere else for that bread ... if they also require meat or groceries, then they will do that shopping in whatever town they're getting the bread. They will browse other shops and spend their money away from their local community.

So our bakery, which doesn't open on Saturday mornings, is damaging business for everybody else in town.

However, instead of playing the blame game, we should be putting our heads together to come up with a way to attract people to our shops - the shops that are open on a Saturday morning - to improve  business for ourselves.

We need to band together and come up with a plan.

Watch this space.

It was a very sleepy morning with low sales, BUT I got two more names for my big DSLR workshop in June - the course that I am most excited about! It's filling up fast.

I also had a brief chat with The Motivator on messenger and I can't wait to see her tomorrow to talk about all the inner work she's done this week!

I drew the winner of the $25 Happy Abode voucher for this month.

I did a little work on the photography for beginners course.

I rearranged the displays while the shop is in a bit of disarray and emptied the bins because the shop will be empty for a few days.

I laid towels in all the danger areas just in case it rains before the repairs are done.

I filled a bag with some important stuff to bring home, just in case of a worst case scenario.

Adoring Husband picked me up at 1pm and we did a quick grocery shop, got some lunch (GF steak sandwich from the take-away - for which I'm developing a bit of a weakness!) and then came home to

• eat lunch
• unpack the groceries
• watch a quick movie
• prepare a baked dinner for the barbecue (lamb & veg)
• whip up a quick strawberry cream pie
• unpack the work stuff out of the car
• do a load of washing
• make the gravy & greens for baked dinner
• write up a packing list for tomorrow morning (See Lady Lynn? Still not packed lol)
• do the blog post
• go to bed!

It's right on 10pm so I'm off to bed now. I have much to do tomorrow morning and it will be a tiring day, so I need a good night's sleep to get me through it.

If you see anything that takes your fancy ... Reed Gift Fair ... text me and I'll check it out!

I will do my best to write a blog post every night while I'm away, but I can't make any promises.

Nite all.

Noooooo Not Again!

Adoring Husband had the car booked in for it's first service at 8am, so because of the terrible weather, I decided to get a lift with him to the shop at 7.20am.

We parked the car behind the shop and AH helped me carry all of my gear into the shop. Two Happy Abode bags containing the cash tin and lots of paperwork, folders and course work, my small suitcase on wheels that contains paperwork and my laptop and finally my handbag.

Within a matter of seconds after walking through the front door, AH said "Is that floor wet?"

It certainly WAS wet! So wet!

Such a mess and so much worse than last time, plus a whole new leak above our blue wall in the training room.

If we get the same sort of rain over the weekend that we had last night, I would not be surprised if the ceiling collapsed.

After the last event, our roof was replaced so I assumed that there would be no further problems.

The owner's best mate (who dealt with the problem last time) came today with the guy who replaced the roof and they inspected the roof and our damage. They said that our internal damage was not listed on the 'scope of works' that they were given last time, so they only repaired or replaced what was listed on that document.

They said that if they had known about the internal stuff, they would have know what needed to be fixed.

The Landlord's best mate knew exactly what the damage was internally last time because I walked him through the shop and showed him, so I am suspicious of his story.

Sadly, they advised that nothing could be done about this problem until the middle of next week. They also did nothing to protect the damage that had already been done nor to prevent further damage, and with the forecast of more torrential rain over the weekend, well, who knows what could happen.

We've moved all the furniture and stock away from where the ceiling could possibly collapse.

I've taken photos of all the stock and the displays and the cabinets and furniture and I took a video of the damage, the running water down the walls and the droplets of water coming from the ceiling.

I don't know what else I can do except bring home any important paperwork so that if the worst case scenario should occur, it will be safe n sound in my house.

Needless to say, AH cancelled his appointment for the car service, so that he could be with me and help move the stock and furniture as well as be present when the guys came to assess the damage.

It was a long day, but one exciting thing did happen ... I received the first advance payment from a lady who now holds the title of 'first student' for one of the photography courses! *happy dance* I knew that she would be the first through the door once the newsletter was published, but now I have to phone the other twelve people on the list to invite them in next week to register.

I also have to hope like hell that the training room will be repaired and dry by the 9th March. Ugh.

Anyway, it's almost 11pm so I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Up n At Em

Well that was a most unpleasant evening!

But I slept well and I'm feeling 98% better now. Another early night should see me at a full 100%.

I just emptied our rain gauge and it had 94mm in it. Admittedly, we haven't emptied the gauge for quite some time, but Bundaberg (one hour north) received 81mm overnight, Hervey Bay (thirty minutes south) had 40mm and Maryborough (40 mins southwest) received 137mm so I'm guessing that our rainfall was pretty high too!

Unfortunately the heavy rain has stopped customers walking along the uncovered driveway to our shop, but this morning before the rain came, two ladies walked up with three puppy dogs. One of the ladies stayed outside with the dogs while the other came inside ... so I offered to stand outside with the dogs while the ladies looked around the shop together.

They were gorgeous dogs but obviously a little stressed that their owners had walked through a door without them! I sat with them for about ten minutes until one of the ladies came outside and took the dogs, telling me that the other wanted to pay for something.

My ten minutes of dog sitting proved very much worth it!

The remainder of the day was very very wet, so I got plenty of work done in my training course ... NOT my photography course ... I'll work on that some more tomorrow.

Adoring Husband drove psychotic dog, Colli, into The Bay to the beauty parlour. She was desperately in need of some beauty treatment and here are the results ...

AH brought her to the shop on the way home so that I could see how pretty she looked.

Two hours later, he returned to the shop to help me close up and we were home by ten past three. I put dinner in the oven (ginger, honey and garlic chicken Maryland) and AH had to leave early for SES duties.

I had bought two and a half pineapples from the supermarket yesterday, so I chopped them up, bagged them and put them in the freezer for our next batch of pineapple whip. The pineapples are so sweet and juicy at the moment! Yum.

I am now sitting in my pyjamas thinking about climbing into bed to watch MKR.

Three more sleeps til the Gift Fair!

Nite all.

  

Cancelled

Tonight's blog post is almost nonexistent.

I'm tired and my belly hurts and I have to package up my next batch of chicken broth before I go to bed.

All I want to do is climb into bed and sleep the night away.

Nite all.

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.